Censorship in general is stupid

The reason there should be no censorship in media and music boils down to one thing: Freedom Of Expression. Freedom of expression is not expression when you are limited in ‘how’ you can express yourself because some people find something offensive. Music is a form of art, once censorship of arts starts it becomes a slippery sloop as definitions for what is appropriate and what isn’t are blurred and subjective. Who decides after all when something becomes 'offensive' or not 'appropriate' to be played when these things are subjective? How many people would they have to offend to be banned? Musicians have often been criticised for the content of their music and told they can’t perform songs relating to topics the broadcaster didn’t believe in, such as in 1968 when The Doors ‘Unknown Soldier’ was banned by many radio stations for being anti-war. The same happened to Loretta Lynn’s ‘The Pill’ () in 1975 because it was about birth control and had a positive impact in educating women on birth control which allowed them to take control of their reproductive rights. In fact songs which deal with ‘sensitive’ issues have actually help encourage people to be more interested in them or to take action against them, especially when these issues are rarely otherwise talked about. Censoring these songs in the past has been used to repress the views of people in the past, notably in Apartheid South Africa and America when songs against racism and segregation, for example when Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ a song which had a particular impact on people were censored. In the case of South Africa, songs were could be censored for “unfair promotion of a political party or movement” meaning protest songs were represented. This use of music to talk about issues continues today, such as in the song the ‘A team’ which was censored on 4Music to remove the word ‘class’ due to it being a reference to drugs, dispute the fact the song has a anti-drug message. Music has traditionally captures the feeling and events of times and places, censorship erodes this by restricting how artists can depict feelings and events. People who listen to and buy music which contains swear words don’t usually give a shi…sorry ‘defecation’ whether music contains swearing, it’s the people who don’t who actually mind. Why should these people be able to censor the others music? As Frank Zappa said during his testimony at the PMRC hearing in relation to children listening to explicit lyrics “… a teenager may go into a record store unescorted with $8.98 in his pocket, but very young children do not. If they go into a record store, the $8.98 is in mom or dad’s pocket, and they can always say, Johnny, buy a book. They can say, Johnny, buy instrumental music; there is some nice classical music for you here; why do you not listen to that? The parent can ask or guide the child in another direction, away from Sheena Easton, Prince, or whoever else you have been complaining about.” Parents are responsible for what their young child is exposed to, as Mr Zappa points out if parents don’t want their child listening to certain music with swear words, a young child is unlikely to be able to go against their parents. When this child becomes old enough to find ways of buying and listening to music their parents don’t approve off they’re at an age where the explicit content of the song would have no have a ‘negative’ effect on them and it wouldn’t offend them. They would have already picked up swear words found in the lyrics from their friends and family and by the age of 11-12 they'd have an adult-like vocabulary of swearing. In the same time violent Rap was at its most popular crime fell. The opposite would have been shown if music affected the likelihood of someone committing a crime due to listening to explicit music. Media censorship is a worryingly bad idea, mainly for reasons touched upon above and in Round 2 surrounding the rights of people to access information and express their views and how this can be taken away once we give the government the ability to decide what should be accessed and breach our rights. People who would read a media articles, for instance in the newspaper tend to be mature and have encountered swearing, so seeing an uncensored swear word is unlikely to offend. Therefore there is no point in using grawlixes like f*ck, ***k, f**k or f*** when they mean ‘Phuck’ just as much as ‘ph.u.c.k ‘ does (we may even see ‘phuck’ written more in grawlixes than as a word), and everyone knows that they mean ‘phuck’ and they read them as ‘phuck’ when they’re reading it in their head anyway. In addition swear words get less strong and less offensive the more they are used, for example 40 years ago George Carlin ‘s ‘Seven words you can never say on television’: “Sh!t, p*ss, phuck, *unt, *ocksucker, motherphucker, and t!ts.”Are used in everyday language and often feature on TV, they’re less offensive now that they’re so regularly used. Therefore when you bleep out a swear word every time it’s said on TV it starts getting more and more offensive again as it become more taboo, censoring swear words just makes them more offensive. Hiding something doesn’t make it go away, and cushioning swear words with asterisks and beeps doesn’t make then less shocking in the long run when we consider that everyone will encounter, pure, unedited swear words at some point. Censoring them just makes it more shocking when this happens as words are seen as more taboo. In relation to the use of censorship of swear words in media and music, people have always been swearing to express many thing, as shown by ‘Vsauce’ in the video “”Why Are Bad Words Bad?” () Swear words are necessary in language, contrary to what people who are pro censorship argue. They are among the most versatile words in our language, the word ‘phuck’ falls into many grammatical categories including. transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, conjunctions, interjections and nouns among others so cutting them out of our speech reduces our vocabulary as well as ability to express ourselves via swearing using Dysphemisms, empathetic swearing. They can show a range of emotions e.g. Joy, frustration and anger and are often the best words for people to express these emotions and can make expressions of emotion more powerful (observe the ascending emotive expression as potency of words used increase “What’s wrong with you?!” , “What the hell’s wrong with you?!” and “What the phuck's wrong with you!” this proves alternatives to swear words aren’t always continually appropriate as they are less good at conveying feelings and emotions). In conclusion, even when music and censorship is done for good intentions, ‘to protect innocence’, in the process of doing this we are taking away someone’s rights. We should take offense from people preventing our freedom of expression, not from the expressive freedom itself. Everyone is equally entitled to express themselves under Human Rights laws, even when some people perceive it as ‘offensive’ . (Is it ironic just spent a hour trying to censor all the 'prophanity' ((i got frustrated and tried to post the whole debate in the comments)) out of this debate because this website is a suppresive douchbag?) https://soulsafari.wordpress.com... http://www.billboard.com... http://hangout.altsounds.com... http://www.theguardian.com...; http://psychcentral.com... http://www.neontommy.com...; http://downlode.org...; http://www.psychologicalscience.org... https://soulsafari.wordpress.com...