Every Work of Art Serves a Purpose
To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and Animal Farm are well-known literary classics that share a commonality. They have all been banned at some time during their existence. Books are the most commonly banned form of art, but films, music, and video games are subject to this fate as well. One of the first groups of people to ban books for political reasons were the Romans, even though they were considered to be somewhat liberal. In Germany during the 20th century, the Nazis, a fascist group led by Adolf Hitler, burned 25,000 books in one night for public display (Murphy 2). When a person or group of people such as a government suppress words, ideas, or images that are considered "offensive" to some, it …show more content…
On the other hand, the secretive and powerful Australian Board of Censorship banned the most books on the grounds of obscenity from 1933 to the early 1970s. Possessing topless photos in Australia 's Northern Territory during this time could have resulted in two years in prison or a $22,000 fine (Murphy 2). This strategy of banning art with offensive content to prevent people from reading, watching, or listening to it is absurd. Taking away works of art from people makes them curious about what is in the book that they are not supposed to read (3). This makes the popularity of the art grow which defeats the purpose of the …show more content…
This is one of the main reasons works of art are censored in several democratic countries. Pro-censorship forces and politicians cite false scientific studies to force this idea on others; however, there is no real evidence that this is true ("Freedom of Expression” 3). Since aggressive people such as psychopaths tend to watch violent television, many assume the shows they are watching lead to their vicious behavior. This is not necessarily true because it still remains uncertain whether this type of television causes aggressive people to act violently (4). Also, if art was banned based on the actions of psychopaths, even the Bible would not be safe since psychopaths often refer to it for justification
To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and Animal Farm are well-known literary classics that share a commonality. They have all been banned at some time during their existence. Books are the most commonly banned form of art, but films, music, and video games are subject to this fate as well. One of the first groups of people to ban books for political reasons were the Romans, even though they were considered to be somewhat liberal. In Germany during the 20th century, the Nazis, a fascist group led by Adolf Hitler, burned 25,000 books in one night for public display (Murphy 2). When a person or group of people such as a government suppress words, ideas, or images that are considered "offensive" to some, it …show more content…
On the other hand, the secretive and powerful Australian Board of Censorship banned the most books on the grounds of obscenity from 1933 to the early 1970s. Possessing topless photos in Australia 's Northern Territory during this time could have resulted in two years in prison or a $22,000 fine (Murphy 2). This strategy of banning art with offensive content to prevent people from reading, watching, or listening to it is absurd. Taking away works of art from people makes them curious about what is in the book that they are not supposed to read (3). This makes the popularity of the art grow which defeats the purpose of the …show more content…
This is one of the main reasons works of art are censored in several democratic countries. Pro-censorship forces and politicians cite false scientific studies to force this idea on others; however, there is no real evidence that this is true ("Freedom of Expression” 3). Since aggressive people such as psychopaths tend to watch violent television, many assume the shows they are watching lead to their vicious behavior. This is not necessarily true because it still remains uncertain whether this type of television causes aggressive people to act violently (4). Also, if art was banned based on the actions of psychopaths, even the Bible would not be safe since psychopaths often refer to it for justification