CILS Review - Bork

CILS Review - Bork Write a review of Bork in simple language for an exam review. The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy attar with Itself The’~m.pfiug of America: The Political Seduction of the Law Rober I-I. Bork MODERN LIBERALIS~V AND AMERICAN DECLINE ReganBooks 8 The Case for Censorship T he destruction of standards is in rad}cal indivkh,- alism, but it cotild hardly lraxe been accomplished rapidly or so completdy without the assistance o{" the American judtciar3~ Wielding a fi~e mndero liberal version nf the First Amendment, the cout’ts have destroyed laws that created pockets ogresistance to vnlgarity and obscenig< Sooner or later censorship is going to have to be considered as popular ctdture continues phmgiug to ever more sickening The alternative to censorship, legal and moral, will be a brulatized and chaotic culture, with all that that en.tails for our societ3q onl}g politics, and physical safety. It is important to be clear a[mut the topic. [ am not suggestir~g that censorship should, or constitutioualty could, be emplwed to cmmtcr the libm~l pdidca! and cultural pagandJzing o[" movies, television, network news, and music. They am protected, and properly so, by the First ~nendment~ guarantees of fivedom of speech and of the press. I am suggesting that ship be considered lbr the most violent and sexually explicit mate- rial ~mw on offer, star£1ug wit]~ the obscen~ prose and pictures available on the Internet, motiou pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap Censorship is a subject that few people want to discuss, hecause it bas been tried and found dangerous or oppressive but because the ethos o[’moder~ liberalism has made any inter[brence with the individnaPs self-gratificatio~ seem shame[tally reactionary’. r?o/e, Bem~ett, Tucker, and Leo, while denouncing some of the wnrst aspects of popular culture, were air quick to protest that they were out t~)r censorship.That may be a tactical necessity, at least at this stage o[" the debate, since it has become virtually a coudition of ilitellectual and social respectability to make that disclaim.er. And it is true that there are a variety of actions short of censorship that should be tried. One is to organize boycotts o~ the othm: products sold by corporations that market filth. But what happens if a corporation decides it prefers the bottom line to responsibil- ity? What happens if the company does not market other products ihat can be boycotted? So long as there exists a lucrative market I’m" obscenity, somebody will supply it. That brings us back to "A~d then what?" Is ce~sorship really as unthinkable as we all seem to assume? That it is unthinkable is a yew recent conceit. Frnm the earlies-t colonies on this continent over 300 hundred ),ears ago, and ~7or abont 175 years of our existence as a nation, we endorsed and lived with censorsbip.We do not have to imagine what censorship might be like; we know from experience. Some of it was irormal, written in ]tatutes or city ordinances; some of it was in[brmal, as iu tl~e movie producers’ agreement to abid~ by dre rulings of the I. hwes ofllce. Some of it wm~ inevitably silly--the rule that ~l~e umvies could out show even a busband and wife fially dressed on a bed uuless each had one foot on the floor--and some of it was no doubt pernicious.The period of Hayes office censorship was also, perhgps ~lot coiucidentally, the golden age of the movies. The questions to be considered are whether such material has harmfill eli:~cts, whed~er it is constitutionally possible to censor it, ;rod whetber tecbnolog3’ may put some of it beyond society~ capacity to control it. It is possible to argue for censorship, as Stanley Brubaker, a ino~ssor of political science, does, ~ on the gronnd that in a repub- lican ti.nrm of government where the people rule, it is crucial that Ihe character oF the citizen W not be debased. By now we should bare gotte:n over tile liberal notion that its citizens’ characters are mine of the business of government. The government ougI~t ~3o~ 142 II, OaEItT It. llo~u( try to i,’npose virtue, but it can de.let incitements to vlce."Libe,als have always takeu the position," the late Christopher Lascb wrote, "that democracy can dispense with civic virtue. According to this way of drinking, it is liberal iustimtions, uot the character" of citi- zens, that make democracy work. ’’~ He cited India and Lalh~ America as proof th.at Formally democratic institutions are not enough for a workable social order, a proof that is disbeartel~ing the conditions in parts of l~vge American cities approach those ~f the ThirdWorld. Lasch stressed "the degree to which liberal democracy has lived off the borrowed c~pital of moral a~d religious tradkions antedating the rise o[liberalism. ’’~ Certainly, the great religions the West--Christiaui~ and Jud;tism~t~ught moral truths ahniFr respect for others, honesty, sexual I[tdeli~,, truth-speaking, the value of work, respect ~br the property of others, and self-restraint. the decline of religious influence, the moral lessom attenuate as well. Morality is an essential soil for free and democratic goveru- nmn~. A people addicted to instant gratification through the vicarious {and sometimes not so vicarious) eujoyment of mindless violence and brutal sex is unlikely .to provide such a soil. A popu- lation, whose’mental Faculties are coarsened arid blunted, who~e emotions are few and simple, is unlikdy to be able to make the distinctiol~s and engage in the discourse that democratic gin,em- inent requires. I find Brubaker and Lasch persuasive. We tend to tbit~k o~’ virtue as a peHonal matter, each o[us to choose whidl virtues to practice or not practice~the privatizatiou of morally, o~:, K yon will, the "pursuit ofhapplness," as each o£us defines happiness. only a public mo~li~, in which trust, truth-telling, and control are proniinen~ features, call long sustain a decent order and hence a stnble and jns~ democratic order. If the socia! order continues to mu:avel, we may respond with a more nnthorl- tat:Jall govermrmnt that is capable of providing at least persmml There is, o~" couHe, more ~o the case for censorship than die need to preserve a viable democracy. We need also to avoid the social devastatiou wrought by pornogr~pi~y and endless incite-. men~s to murder and mayhem. Whatever the e~ect~ upon our capacit~ to govern ourselves, living in a culture that saturates us wilh pictures of sex and violeuce is aesthetically ng].y, eulotim~ally !!;lueuing, aud physically dangerous. There are, no doubt, complex causes for illegitimacy arid lento i~l today’s society, but it seems impossible to dm~y that one Asked about how to diminish illegitimacy, a woman who worked widl nntnarded teenage mottlers replied te~sely: "Shoot Madonna2’That may be .carrying censorsllip a bit far, but o~e sees her point. Madonna’s torte is sexual incitement. W~ live in a sex- ,,ur time are overwhehning to the young, who would, even with- out such stbnulations, have dit~qculty enough resistilxg the song Iheit hormones si~g.There was a time, coinciding with the era of censorship, when ulost did resist. Young males, ~vho are more prone to violence than fi:males or i~hler males, wimess so runny gory depiction~ of killing that they and even subteenag{:rs who shoot it" they feel they have been. "dissed" (shown disrespect). Indeed, tile newspapers bring us sto- ries of murders done for simple pleasure, tile killing of a stranger ~imply because tl~e youth felt llke killii~g someoue, anyone.That is why, for file first time iu American history, you are more likely to I,e murdered by a complete stranger than by someone you know. That is wl w our prisons contain convicted killers who show abso- mmms of tile persons they killed. One response of the entertainment industry to criticisms has heen that Hollywood and the music business did no~ create vio- lence or sexual cltaos in America. Of course not. But they con- tribute to it. They are one of the "root causes" they want us to seek dsewhere and leave them aloue. Tile denial that what the wrong see and hear has any effect on their behavior is the last line ,,t /’he modern liberal, defense of decadence, and it is wilR’ully specious. Accusing Senator Dole ot["pandering [o the right" in his ’;peech deploring obscene and violent elttertainment, die Neti, "li’lm~s argued: "There is much i~l the movies and in hard-core rap music that is disturbing and demeaning to many Americans. l:ap mtlSiC, which 0~ie.u ~zaches tile top ofthq chm-t.s, is alan the in will& women are degraded and men seem to murder each other for sport. But no one has ever dropl?cd dead fi-om ’Natural Born Killers,’ or listening to gangster rap recut,.Is.’" wbicb George Will ~eplied: "’No o~e ever dropped dead *cadhq ’Det Stut-nmr,’ the Nazi nmi-Semific newspaper, but the ruhm," setved caused six million Jews to drop dead. ’’s Those who oppose any [brm og restraint, iucludinl~ restraint, on what is produced insist that there is no be~,een what people ~tch and hear and their bdxavior, h ix why people who sell gangsta rap make that claim, but i~ i.: h’,;.; clear why ~nyoue shoukt believe them. Studies show th,/ d,: ,.,.i deuce of the causal connectioo between popular cultureN viole., ." aod violent behavior is ove~vhdming." A recent study, Sex aml Mass Media, asked: "Does the talk about aud images of" hwc. and relationships promote irresponsible sexual bebavinr? 13,, ~1~,~ encourage unplammd and un~nted pregnancy? Are th," responsible ~br teenagers baying sex earlier, more [reqi~rmJy outside of marriage?" The researchers concloded:"The :,wwer all these questions is a qualified ’yes’. ’’~ The answer was qualifi,’d because not enough research has as yet been done ot~ the elli?cls ~,1 sexual images. The ~uthors relied in p~rt on tbe analog,ms lion ~fmedia depictions ogviolence and their effect ou aggressiw behavior, which woukt appear to be a parallel situation. Sornt" the studies Found positive but relatively sma] ~ffects, betw£’cu and ]5 percent. "One of tbe most compelling o[ the ,~tod]es . . * [OOlld that the homicide rates m flaree couo[1211’s 11 ..... Canada, and South Aft:ira) increased drm~aafica~y 10-[5 ye;,’s the i~ltroduction o£ television." That study "estLm~ted tha~ sue to televisiou violence is a causal £actor in abrupt hall’ of ihe ,~0 ) ho n c des per year in the Umted States and pe,’l,aps hzd~ t l rapes alld assaul~. experience are sufficient to reach the same conclosious. M.~i,. choirs, and bynms. How can ahyone suppose that mosic (1’1"" images o9 teie4isiou, movies, and advertisements) about ’~’, violeoce has no e~ct? Indeed, Hollywood’s writers, pmduaers,, aud e~recutlves popular entertainment aR?cts behavior. It is uot rnmvly dmt sell billions of dollars of advertising ou television on the premise that riley cau influence behavior; they also think 01at the coutem: of their programs can re(otto sucres/ in. a liberal dh’ection, qThey understaod that no single program will cbauge attitudes much, bot they rely upon the cumxdat:ive impact o~" years o[" televisiol~ indoc- rrJoation. ~ ~’1 w sbould we listen to the same people saying that d~eic programs and nmsic have no eli~ct on behavior? That argu- ment is over. The depravity sold hy Hollywood and the record companies is feeding die depravity we see around The television indus~y, under considerable political pressure, has agreed to a ratings system for its programs. Since aasiguing rat- lugs to every program~including every episode in a series-~will be much more difficult than assigning ratings to motion pictures, it is doubtful that the television ra6ng system wdl add much except coufi~sion and rancor. The movie ratings have not pre- vented underage children From fi:eely seeing movies they were not meant to see. No doubt fl~e same will be true of televis:iou ratings. The vaunted V chip will prove no solution. Aside fi’oot the fact d~at many parents simply will not bother with it, the V chip will likdy lead to even .more degrading programming by providing producers with the excuse d~at the chip adequately safeguards childreu, though it does not. Aud the chip certainly dues nothing to prevent adults fi’om enjoying the increasingly salacious and even pen,erred material that is on the way. The debate about censorship, insot?r as there can be said to be a debate, usually centers on the issue of keepiog children away fi:om pornography, There is, of course, a good deal of merit tbnt, but it makes the issue sound like one of child rearing, which most people would like the government to butt out o£ Oppo- nen~ say parents can protect their children by using control fea- tures offered by ma W ser~dces. Both sides are missing a mzjor point. Aside fi’om the &ct that many parents will ~3ot use control features, censorship is alto crucial to protect children~and the rest of tlS~[~om meu encouraged to act by a ateady diet of computer- ized pedophifia, murder, rape, and sado-masochJsui. No one sup- poses that eve W addict of such material will act oot his fantasies, but it is willfully bliud to think that none wilLTbe pleasures the viewers 0fsuch maerial get from watchi,g a thousand rape or child kidnappings is. not worth one actual rape or kidnapping, PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT :)