Response: Justified Censorship

In response to Brian's post "A Quote Misattributed to Mark Twain" (March 31, 2012):

I agree that most censorship is both unnecessary and unethical.  However, I think that in some cases it is justified.  For example, because exposing children to excessive violence, gore, or sexual imagery at a young age often causes psychological harm to those children, and as such censoring those things is justified.  Of course, adults can take advantage of media including the above elements, as long as they ensure that it does not end up making its way into the hands of minors.

Certain things which American society considers worthy of censorship are certainly unjustly banned or restricted.  Rating a film higher because it includes people of the same gender kissing is ridiculous; if exposing children to images of people kissing is psychologically harmful (which I am pretty sure it is not) then all films showing people kissing should be rated higher, up to an including 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.'  Furthermore, no adults should ever kiss whilst in view of children.  To do otherwise is clearly an illustration of homophobia; homoromantic behaviour is not inherently more 'edgy' than heteroromantic behaviour, nor is it more closely linked to sexual behaviour.  There are many other examples of unjust censorship as well, but I think that there are also some things which should be censored due to their effects on the psychological well-being of children.