What qualities are desirable in a good censor? (Promo 2001)

Singapore's ban on Janet Jackson's album The Velvet Rope in 1997 caused quite a stir both within and outside of the country — it was shocking to many that a seemingly harmless pop album could be deemed so unsuitable for public performance, especially in conservative Singapore. The album then went on to become an icon of the pop music world as one of the most artistic works of the decade. Such incidents can only perhaps scratch the surface of censorship arguments, but perhaps illustrate best the need for discerning censorship, or at least a censor who is able to distinguish between good and bad.

What, then, would make a good censor? The issue of censorship is in itself a Pandora's box of conflicting perspectives, for most things are not so easily categorised as "good" or "evil". Art which is censored is a particularly sensitive topic, as artists striving to depict reality may often be criticised for their frank portrayal of sordid reality — of sex, violence or even politics. Political art, in particular, can be a very insidious force, claim many politicians, and therefore must be subject to censorship. Yet the censor here should exercise discretion. Censoring extremist views may be excusable, but a line should be drawn distinguishing the censorship of extreme political views and the censorship of political criticisms. A society in which all political dissent is censored becomes a Stalinist, repressive one à la George Orwell's 1984, and the censor becomes an icon of repression rather than liberation from extreme views, perpetuating the very evil it attempted to subjugate. The censor, then, has to have an intellectual mind capable of making such distinctions. Often censorship, especially in Singapore, becomes associated with a taboo mentality towards criticism stemming from a Confucianist-Maoist political tradition, and less with intellectual consideration of the work in question, and thus becomes a form of social castigation rather than a deliberate attempt to free society from harmful views.

What about the other aspects of artistic censorship, then? Art often portrays nudity and sexuality, which is also a cause for concern in many conservative societies. Here it is important for the censor to possess an aesthetic eye that is capable of distinguishing pornography from artistic sexuality. A few years ago the portrait of a man masturbating done in blue charcoal in the Tate Modern set the artistic world abuzz with fierce controversy over the tastefulness of the piece. In choosing whether to censor such an artistic endeavour, for instance, the censor would have to possess sufficient artistic temperament to evaluate whether the piece was done as a portrayal of, as the artist claimed, the essential and atavistic solitude in a post-modern world, or whether it was created to sexually titillate and gratify the lustful urges of many women, and perhaps some men. Such an evaluation based on artistic perception would be infinitely preferable to a knee-jerk, sex-is-mystically-evil reaction which would render the society the artistic equivalent of wallpaper. The censor should also be keenly aware of the fact that most patrons of artistic efforts tend to be intelligent, discerning adults, and not children — such awareness of the state of art in a society would be absolutely necessary in a discerning and sensitive censor.

Furthermore, the censor should not be subject to the whims and fancies of his own personal opinion or taste, and rather seek not to impose his own hang-ups upon society but instead attempt an objective measure of the object in question. Homosexuality is often censored in many conservative countries in its portrayal, but issues of morality in which, such as homosexuality, there is nothing inherently wrong or detrimental about the issue per se, should not be imposed upon by the psychological hang-ups of the censor or the censorship board. Clearly pornography should be censored, but issues subject to the innate prejudice and ignorance of the censor should not be censored for such a reason. Morality, which should legally relate to harm done to society only, should not be subject to censorship in an almost superstitious manner, unless it provokes offence — the censor should be philosophically aware of the limitations and superficiality of such prejudices and rigid thinking, what Foucault might have described as a paradigm of morality, which might have, in the past, fuelled such distinctions as "Jews are bad" or "blacks are inferior" for without such enlightenment, and trapped within the limitations of a moral paradigm, the censor is no longer protecting the society from detrimental forces but rather propagating views such as the ideas that homosexuality is evil. Rather than being a passive reaction to offensive material, censorship becomes an active, paranoid propaganda machine, an extension of the personal views of the censor or the censorship board. Such action immediately invites comparison with McCarthyism and even fascism.

Ultimately, perhaps the concept of censorship should seek to be progressive, not regressive. The censor in question should have a respect for the forces of society which cannot be repressed so easily, and be flexible enough to allow for progress in the form of censorship. Whilst a poorly-educated, obedient society may well accept a blanket form of censorship, there inevitably comes a time when the society no longer seeks to be protected by a paternalistic censorship board but rather prefers to involve self-determinism and individuality censorship has to adjust likewise. In Singapore, such inflexibility is manifested in the pouring out of pent-up desires through Palm-Pilot pornography, of which most of its subscribers are Singaporeans, as well as the proliferation and popularity of underground pirated pornographic video compact discs. The excessive prohibition of material tends to undermine itself as people turn to outlets which are far less desirable — in the case of pornography, to prostitution and even sex clubs — which renders censorship ineffective, and even acts as a catalyst to sexual revolution rather than gradual liberation, best illustrated by the Sexual Revolution of the seventies resulting from an excess of conservatism and censorship in earlier years. A good censor, or at least an effective censor, must be able to balance these societal forces for fear that censorship may cause the opposite of its intended effect.

Perhaps, then, the censor should be intimately and essentially human. To be aware of the human and societal needs of censorship, to have intellectual and aesthetic appreciation, as well as empathy for the people for whom he or she is censoring requires a human response to the work that is being censored. Rigidity and stagnation are the qualities of a machine which is bound to become obsolete eventually, and quite ineffective at its task — censorship is no different. An intimate human response to the work in question would be essential to the proper use of the tool of censorship, and only fair to society, failing which the society might reach the nadir of civilisation — that which no longer progresses, but wallows in its own decay, exulting the ghastly, rancid virtues of the infernal machine of repression and, ultimately, death.

Marks: Content = 25/30, Expression = 18/20, Total = 43/50 (A1).
Examiner's comments: Good work — soundly, eloquently argued. Very impressive response to a difficult question.