How Censorship can Hinder Progress
How Censorship can Hinder Progress
Censoring is like keeping a wild animal in a cage. You isolate it from its natural environment trying to protect it in some way but actually you imprison it, reducing its freedom and ignoring its personal will and right to be free. Censoring is limiting freedom and avoiding or ignoring the unpleasant part of our every day life and the social problems we encounter. But the animal in the cage can never develop its habits as its wild brothers and when let out into nature it can not survive. In the same way society can not thrive and progress if censorship exists.
Censoring makes difficult the process of constant change and evolution of society by preventing new ideas from being presented to people, thus adopted and replacing the old ones. But in order for a society to thrive, it should be continuously developing. While this happens, many contradictions and crisis are experienced. New ideas are at first rejected and the old ones are refusing to “free space” for them. People like to feel secure and stick to their view about how things should be. It takes some time for the prejudices and the shock of the new to be slowly overcome. Society’s principles change and it reaches a new level of its development. This won’ t be possible if censorship exists. Since it is determined by the prejudiced and established principles of society, it will reject the new as shocking and bad. Thus, society will stay at one and the same level of its development or will develop only in the direction that a few people with power choose. All of the branches but one branch of the vulnerable stem of change and novelty will be broken before it can grow and turn into a flourishing tree of progress and improvement.
Also society should not have the illusion, which censorship creates, that the world is perfect and that there aren’t any problems. The first step towards solving a problem is the realization of its existence. It has to be faced and not hidden behind the heavy curtain of ignorance. Bad is inseparable part of good. You have to experience both in order to make distinction between them. Society should be given the chance to know the real situation and decide what to do based on reality and not on its beautiful mask....