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Censorship, as a term in English, goes back to the office of censor established in Rome in 443 bce. That officer, who conducted the census, regulated the morals of the citizens counted and classified.
Thus, Richard McKeon has suggested, “Censorship may be the enforcement of judgments based on power, passion, corruption, or prejudice—political, popular, elite, or sectarian. It may also be based on scholarship and the use of critical methods in the interest of advancing a taste for literature, art, learning, and science.”
In the late 20th century, some called for censorship of so-called hate speech, language deemed threatening (or sometimes merely offensive) to various subsections of the population. Censorship in the U.S. is usually opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
By the time that Queen Victoria came to the throne in Great Britain in 1837, there were more than 50 pornographic shops on Holywell Street (known as “Booksellers’ Row”) in London.
Those who are most strongly opposed to so-called “political correctness” view it as censorship and a curtailment of freedom of speech that places limits on debates in the public arena. They contend that such language boundaries inevitably lead to self-censorship and restrictions on behaviour.
Perhaps the most dramatic form of censorship in Christendom was that displayed in the development by the Roman Catholic Church of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of proscribed books, the origins of which go back (in a primitive form) to the 5th century ce and which continued to have official sanction well into the 20th century.
But liberty is generally born in stormy weather, growing with difficulty amid civil discords, and only when it is already old does one see the blessings it has brought. Among the blessings of liberty may be found the philosophical pursuits that have sometimes appeared so threatening to public order.
After blood was spilled at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, Paine argued that the cause of America should be not just a revolt against taxation but a demand for independence. He put this idea into Common Sense, which came off the press on January 10, 1776.
The MPA, originally called the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), was established in 1922 by the major Hollywood production studios in response to increasing government censorship of films, which arose in turn from a general public outcry against both ...
Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties. They may also employ techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain their public support.