Censorship harms more people than it helps. Citizens in China grow up without any knowledge of the events that unfolded in Tiananmen Square. North Korean citizens continue to live without knowledge of the world around them. Between 1949-1989 Eastern Germany lived in government mandated indoctrination under the communist Soviet regime. These three historical examples are the extreme limits of censorship in action. They illustrate the necessary fuction of the free exchange of ideas. Government control of the flow of information results in negative consequence. Censhorship prevents the development of a society’s people.
Pick up a book, magazine, or newspaper. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Do you know why you, John Q. Middleclass, are able to read that text, in what I’ll assume for the sake of argument, in English? That benign concept actually goes back to the 1500’s. The timely development of Gutenberg’s printing press and Luther’s translation of the bible empowered an entire demographic of previously illiterate people. Before that time there were two groups of people who could read and write. They were either aristocracy or clergy. Along comes a monk, condemned as a heretic by the Pope, who bides his time hiding in Wittenburg translating the bible from Latin to what would become the basis for Modern German. His work destroys the need to understand Latin, a language primarly reserved for scholars of the day. The censorship employed by the church through intellectual hurdles was disolved. Today a majority Catholics would not even give a second thought to picking up a bible in English. They can thank a heretic for that one.
The internet is this generation’s printing press. Gutenberg could have never imagined being able to publish a document and have it seen on the opposite side of the globe in mere seconds. The internet contains the sum of published human knowledge at the push of a button. In many public schools, however, access is stunted by software that censors search results.
German has a history which, unfortunately, includes the systematic elimination of a people, horrific scientific experiments, xenophobia on an unimaginable scale, and the mobilization of an entire nation to destruction. During the war the Nazi Party would hold “Degenerate Art” exhibits. Art created by liberals, subversives, and those of inferior blood were displayed to reinforce the superior aesthetic qualities of Nazi approved themes. These superior themes included Blood and Soil, the Übermensch, and the perfect Aryan. Records from the degenerate art exhibits show a dramatic increase in attendance over exhibits with Nazi approved pieces. Their efforts at artistic censorship backfired. People were genuinely more interested in degenerate art because it was new, controversial, and explored the taboo. It gave them something to talk about.
Censorship of the internet in public schools prevents the discovery and exploration of these themes. Granted certain search results, such as adult content, should be monitored. Decisions for what is to be censored are often made arbitrarily. These decisions may affect the following critical subject themes.
Is it wrong to tell high school German students about the very end of World War II where Hitler Youth were pressed into military service? Is it wrong to tell them about highly organized youth opposition gangs that succesfully terrorized senior Nazi officials? Is it wrong to tell them of their grim fate? What happened to the poor and starving children of Europe during and after the war? I’ll give you a hint, when your body is the only thing you own…
Denying their role in history through censorhip not only betrays our youth today, but the memories of those who lived it. These themes invite cognitive dissonance, which can be resolved through conversation and lead to a better understanding. With censorship in place these themes will never be addressed and lessons go unlearned.
This post fulfills the requirement for the second blog entry for Educational Technology 325. If it is good enough to hand in on paper, it is good enough for the blog.