Censors for Freedom
Jacob Sullum | December 5, 2005, 3:58pm
The December 19 issue of National Review, marking the magazine's 50th anniversary, includes a feature in which 10 people offer suggestions on "How to Increase Liberty in America," to which I contributed a few paragraphs about ending the war on drugs. Sandwiched between Clint Bolick on school choice and Ward Connerly on colorblindness is Robert Bork on censorship. Just to be clear: He is for it.
"Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality," writes the former appeals court judge, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Censorship as an enhancement of liberty may seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but dogmatic First Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free." Bork goes on to complain that "relations between the sexes are debased by pornography"; that "large parts of television are unwatchable"; that "motion pictures rely upon sex, gore, and pyrotechnics for the edification of the target audience of 14-year-olds"; and that "popular music hardly deserves the name of music."
Treating speech as a kind of assault and redefining freedom so that it requires its opposite are familiar tricks of the left that National Review usually is quick to mock. How are they any more respectable when deployed by a man who has elevated fuddy-duddyness to a political principle?
Stevo Darkly | December 5, 2005, 4:43pm | #
One thing I remember from Bork's original borkification is that he said he'd once been through "a libertarian phase." Hillary Clinton did also. I'm beginning to think that, just as ex-Commies often make the smartest conservatives (Jerry Pournelle, Thomas Sowell), that ex-libertarians make the most dangerous statists.
"Censorship as an enhancement of our liberty may seem paradoxical."
Ya think, Bob?
"Yet it should be obvious, to all but the most dogmatic First Amendment absolutists..."
"Dogmatic" is not the opposite of wishy-washy and unprincipled.
"... that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture..."
Good thing I'm a dogmatic First Amendment absolutist, Bob, or I'd give you 40 lashes for misuse of the word "forced."
"... are, in a very real sense..."
And another 40 lashes for using weasel-words. "In a very real sense" almost always means, "not in any real, literal sense at all."
"...not wholly free."
And another 40 lashes for more weasel-words: "not wholly."
Unless you can explain how people who are censored are "wholly free." Otherwise, it's no improvement, is it?
"relations between the sexes are debased by pornography"
I know of at least one instance where relations between the sexes were rather enlivened and even deepened by pornography.
"large parts of television are unwatchable"
Then don't watch.
"motion pictures rely upon sex, gore, and pyrotechnics for the edification of the target audience of 14-year-olds"
Then don't watch. And control your 14-year-old.
"popular music hardly deserves the name of music."
So you're going to do a Salman Rushdie on Eminem now?
Pooey upon you.
Jennifer | December 5, 2005, 5:21pm | #
but they could sure as hell could write better poetry and plays than we can.
AMARYLLIS
by Thomas Campion
I care not for these ladies that must be wooed and prayed;
Give me kind Amaryllis, the wanton country maid.
Nature Art disdaineth; her beauty is her own.
Her when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
If I love Amaryllis, she gives me fruit and flowers;
But if we love these ladies, we must give golden showers.
Give them gold that sell love, give me the nut-brown lass,
Who when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
These ladies must have pillows and beds by strangers wrought.
Give me a bower of willows, of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis with milk and honey fed,
Who when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
Translation: Hooray for slutty girls!
Yes, in the old days pop culture dealt with loftier topics than today.
Jennifer | December 5, 2005, 5:42pm | #
I know it was considered smutty and a lot of the best stuff was considered pulp at the time. It just seems to me that it was done with more artistry than the "fuck you bitch" of today.
True story: a few months ago, purely for business purposes, my boss and I had to watch the video for a song called "Candyshop" by 50 Cent. My (old Boomer) boss found it very irritating and finally snapped, "Why don't they just say 'Let's fuck?'" And I stopped laughing long enough to say, "Because of Artistry."
It's a pretty vulgar song, but just you wait and see how "artistic" it becomes as soon as our language changes enough that the average person won't fully understand this (just as the average person nowadays doesn't fully understand just what Shakespeare is saying in some of his smuttier pieces):
[Intro: 50 Cent]
Yeah...
Uh huh
So seductive
[Chorus: 50 Cent & Olivia]
[50 Cent]
I'll take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollypop
Go 'head girl, don't you stop
Keep going 'til you hit the spot (woah)
[Olivia]
I'll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I'll have you spending all you got
Keep going 'til you hit the spot (woah)
[Verse 1: 50 Cent]
You can have it your way, how do you want it
You gon' back that thing up or should i push up on it
Temperature rising, okay lets go to the next level
Dance floor jam packed, hot as a teakettle
I'll break it down for you now, baby it's simple
If you be a nympho, I'll be a nympho
In the hotel or in the back of the rental
On the beach or in the park, it's whatever you into
Got the magic stick, I'm the love doctor
Have your friends teasin you 'bout how sprung I gotcha
Wanna show me how you work it baby, no problem
Get on top then get to bouncing round like a low rider
I'm a seasons vet when it come to this shit
After you work up a sweat you can play with the stick
I'm tryin to explain baby the best way I can
I melt in your mouth girl, not in your hands (ha ha)
[Chorus]
[Bridge: 50 Cent & Olivia]
Girl what we do (what we do)
And where we do (and where we do)
The things we do (things we do)
Are just between me and you (oh yeah)
[Verse 2: 50 Cent]
Give it to me baby, nice and slow
Climb on top, ride like you in the rodeo
You ain't never heard a sound like this before
Cause I ain't never put it down like this
Soon as I come through the door she get to pullin on my zipper
It's like it's a race who can get undressed quicker
Isn't it ironic how erotic it is to watch em in thongs
Had me thinking 'bout that ass after I'm gone
I touch the right spot at the right time
Lights on or lights off, she like it from behind
So seductive, you should see the way she wind
Her hips in slow-mo on the floor when we grind
As Long as she ain't stoppin, homie I aint stoppin
Drippin wet with sweat man its on and popping
All my champagne campaign, bottle after bottle its on
And we gon' sip til every bubble in every bottle is gone
[Chorus 2x]
Jennifer | December 5, 2005, 5:53pm | #
Quickie example of smut and sleaze in Shakespeare, this from Romeo and Juliet (by the way, Mercutio's speeches were all basically dick jokes--read them carefully):
A little later as the Nurse is reminiscing about Juliet, she tells a story about the day before Juliet was weaned. Juliet had fallen and bruised her forehead, and the Nurse's husband had picked her up and made a joke which three-year-old Juliet made even better:
"Yea," quoth he, "dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?" and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying and said "Ay."
To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it: "Wilt thou not, Jule?" quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said "Ay." (1.3.41-48)
A woman would "fall backward" to have sex, but of course little Juliet doesn't know that, so when she says "Ay" it's hilarious in a truth-out-of-the-mouths-of-babes kind of way. The Nurse thinks the story is so funny she tells it twice, laughing and probably imitating the cute, innocent way the child said "Ay." Juliet is present (and blushing?) as this story is being told, and then her mother urges her to marry Paris.
thoreau | December 5, 2005, 5:59pm | #
My favorite example of old school hard core entertainment will always be Macbeth. I'm sure I'm missing some subtleties that an English major could point out, but even the stuff that I've picked up on is pretty bad:
-Somebody's getting killed in every other scene
-These goth chicks are going around, screwing with people's heads
-Lady Macbeth talks about dashing a baby's head against a wall
-For no particular reason, a doorman feels compelled to deliver a long speech about erectile dysfunction and alcohol.
Translated into modern language, that doorman's speech would probably be in a Tarantino movie:
Doorman: Man, you know what it's like when you drink too much, and you're all horny but your dick won't get up.
Other guy: Man, what the hell's your problem?
Doorman: Dude, don't tell me it's never happened to you?
Other guy: Hell yeah it's happened to me but that don't mean I go around talking about it.
Doorman: I'm too drunk to care right now. I remember when I was with this one bitch, and I'm all ready to go, and she's all bent over asking for it, and then I'm like damn! All that gin made me soft.
Other guy: Dude, that's fucked up.
John's great-grandchildren will think that this is profound dialogue.
Stevo Darkly | December 5, 2005, 6:59pm | #
JULES: 'Sooth! I shall travel to fair Europa, it's soil to tread! Upon my very soul, I shall!
VINCENT: It's soil upon thy very sole, indeed! Thou would savor it most among all mortal men! ...But of all that Continent's fair wonders, doest thou know what causeth me greatest laughter?
JULES: Nay, gentle Vincent. What sights upon the Continent doest drive thee to incontinence?
VINCENT: 'Tis not the mightiest, but the merest things. Much there verily abides, the very same as in our homeliest hearth -- yet within the smallest crannies, the greatest differences be.
JULES: What might be one of these great small wonders? Prithee tell!
VINCENT: In fair Amsterdam, good coz, thou might purchase the fairest ale -- not in a public house, but in the very theatre! Nor 'tis a mere thimble-cup, but a goodly flagon!
JULES: Speak thou truly?
VINCENT: 'Strooth! The wonders endeth not there. In gay Parree, thou might purchase ale at the rudest MacDonald's meat-house!
JULES: Zounds, at such a meat-house would'st I fain meet!
VINCENT: Doest thou know how the Parisians call a Quarter-Pounder With Cheese?
JULES: What trick is this? Doest they call it not a Quarter-Pounder With Cheese?
VINCENT: Nay, simple knave! With their foreign measures, they wouldst not know a Quarter-Pounder from a Carronade!
JULES: So thou sayest. What call it they in Parree then?
VINCENT: They grant it a kingly title indeed -- a Royale Crowned With Cheese!
JULES: A Royale Crowned With Cheese! What call they a Big Mac, then?
VINCENT: That article be the very same, yet with a different article be:
Le Big Mac!
JULES: (clapping his hands with delight) What call they a Whopper, then, good Vincent?
VINCENT: I know not, for I entered not the Burgherhouse of the King... But doest thou know what, down in the Netherlands, they put upon their pommes-frittes in homely cat-sup's stead?
JULES: I am confounded. Prithee.
VINCENT: Mayonnaise.
JULES: Zounds!
VINCENT: With mine own eyes I have seen it! Nor do I speak of a mere side-dollop, coz -- they fair drown their victuals in vasty waves of that vile condiment!
JULES: I am undone!
