Censorship By Alton Dulaney: A Piece Of Art

It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The Constitution's framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

The First Amendment speaks on the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition; so important, they found their place in the US Constitution. Even with these freedoms meaning so much to the majority of America, somehow today we still encounter differences in political and religious views that seem to provoke people to act violently against a piece of art or even physically against the artist that created it such as in the recent case of artist Illma Gore. Often the violent action of destroying a work of art is “more offensive” than the image itself. We should allow artists free reign of subject matter as well as style and work together to prevent art desecration and violence through education of the arts. Censorship is the result of the fear of art. When the fear of art turns into iconoclasm or, rejection of a valued belief system, that fear becomes lack of government funding, desecration, and physical violence.

The history of the world has undoubtedly been dominated by an endless struggle for power. However, after a brief glimpse into the pages of history it should not take long to realize that the trick to maintaining power lies in the control of information. Even the most fearsome military generals of the past acknowledge the power of the mind and ideas over lethal force. Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin once said “… [Ideas] are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, then why should we let them have ideas.” Stalin’s quote personifies the main concept of this literature review which will be discussing the history of government censorship and its effects that are

For instance in the novel the protagonist Guy Montag says “Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave.They might just stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don't hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it”. In this quote we can see some of the effects of extreme censorship, where it can lead to people not being able to discuss certain topics and talk about things that are important because other people find it offensive or can’t even get the news out in the first place because of censorship. Another negative thing that could be caused by censorship is that in a way it would take away the some of our freedom for example in The New York Times article “Lights out, Huck, They still want to sivilize you” it says “This is the academic equivalent od Ed Sullivan in 1967 prudishly making the Rolling Stones change ‘Let’s spend the night together’ to ‘Let’s spend time together.’ Or Cole Porter having to change ‘cocaine’ in ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ to ‘perfume in Spain’.” In this example you can see how there are other artists that have already have some of their artistic freedom taken away unfairly because of

Censorship is not easy to define. According to Webster’s Dictionary, to "censor" means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable." Its central characteristic is the suppression of an idea or image because it offends or disturbs someone, or because they disagree with it. In many countries, censorship is most often directed at political ideas or criticism of the government. In the United States, censorship more often involves social issues, and in school is commonly directed at so-called "controversial" materials.

Censorship is the act of removing specific parts in movies, books, and songs because it is unacceptable to people. Khaled Hosseini’s

Censorship is “anti-creation” and “the censor’s lie actually succeeds in replacing the artist’s truth”. When something is censored, it is then “thought to have deserved censorship”. This shows that artists need to feel liberated to feel safe enough to be creative and not be silenced by people’s criticism. When something is censored it becomes attacked and starts to define the

I will be informing you about how censorship makes students ignorant, violates the first amendment, and limits teachers from teaching.

Censorship is "the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic or educational materials ... on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of the standards applied by the censor. Challenges to school materials have started to become a more prevalent and common occurrence in society especially in public schools. Public schools usually address censorship issues by taking one or more routes: imposing a list of acceptable literary works on all teachers, providing guidelines for the school district, or giving full authority to teachers to choose appropriate reading material and relying on their discretion. Advocates for censorship in school often target material that discusses race, sexuality, religion, and ethnicity

The subject of censorship is a very controversial one, especially the banning of books. Many people believe they must protect themselves and others from the "evils" of many classic books and works of art because they can be deemed "indecent" in one way or another. Many believe that this is absurd and censorship in its current form is a violation of our First Amendment right to free speech. Personally, I align myself with the latter, however I do feel there are occasions where censorship is justifiable.

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) defines censorship as: “The removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational materials… of images, ideas, and information…on

Being an artist regardless of the medium is all about creativity. Allowing someone step in to enforce rules strips away that creativity. Art is about expressing thoughts and feelings stifling creativity can be detrimental to one's health. People are encouraged throughout life to be creative. Only to be censored by someone if their art is deemed inappropriate is absurd! Igniting that flame, then removing it in the same breath because some might find its offense is counterproductive.

Censorship as defined by Wikipedia is “the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which

Art is supposed for expressing feeling and the visualizing the feeling or thoughts of the artists. Censorship is the suppression of content, which is defined as harmful, politically incorrect or sensitive by the authority (cited in Merriam, n.d.). Art and censorship have been connected for a long period of time together. In the recent society, the censorship on artworks is one of the most severe issues when it comes to censorship and the problem happens internationally. Since every individual has the right to define what is acceptable for him/her or not, instead of the government or others, Art should not be censored. The censorship on Art may influence the freedom of Creativity‬ of the artist; the right of the general public to view different topics of artworks and censorship on political Art may affect the human rights and freedom of speech.