Save the Dummies

As this semester comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect upon all the censorship cases that we’ve gone through and relay back to the beginning. Coming into this class I’m pretty sure most of us were against censorship, recounting our own trials and tribulations about putting on a school play or simply in reading certain books. In general our generation tends to be quite liberal and perhaps it is this glimmer of hope, this adherence to the importance of civil and human liberty that keeps us going. It’s almost as if now more than ever, we are remembering our own origins of these types of ideas and trying to reinstitute them into the common norm. Building a community that values the freedom of speech is certainly no easy task, but in the end I still believe the benefits outweigh the costs. I am perhaps now more than before, a strong proponent of fighting against censorship. But what I didn’t expect going through this class is how I would be able to suddenly put myself on the side of censorship. Clearly I am a young woman and have yet to have children of my own, but I was beginning to think like a “parent.” Besides the initial scare of the “motherly bug,” it is important to understand where these ideas of censorship come from. It’s the need to protect, to shelter, and in most cases to coddle the younger generations. It would be almost elitist to think of ourselves knowing what’s best for the next generation, but yet we always say that parents know what’s best for their kids. It is not about the idea of knowing however, it’s the concept of trying to allow our younger counterparts to grow and develop their own ideas with our guidance. The biggest issue I see in all of these censorship cases is the lack of establishment of an exposed communication. People are afraid to talk. But these topics that seem so taboo to many of us, need to be addressed. It’s a community’s duty to not try and coddle our young but to expose them to things in an educational manner. We need to open up the lines of communication and give some credit to our youth that they do have a brain. We mustn’t believe that they are dumb and although this statement seems silly, it’s the unfortunate state of mind that the older generation seems to hold.