In particular, state sponsored censorship is the least important and least helpful type of censorship (but still helpful in limited doses, at least for sorting and categorizing material so it remains in the appropriate venues). It’s also one of the most dangerous kinds, so it should always be a goal to use the minimum amount of state censorship possible. Categorizing and labeling are very different from outright suppression. They exist (or should) more to assist self regulation than they operate as direct forms of censorship.

The best kind of censorship is always going to be self censorship and self control. And having the appropriate info so you can avoid what you want to avoid and find what you want to find makes sense. Free discussion is always the best option when it comes to ideas. I do not in any way support state suppression of thinking.

Art is a special case. It bypasses thinking in many ways, and it has the ability to reach anyone. That doesn’t mean we should censor it, but it does mean, and this was my real point in my thesis, that we should allow criticism of art and take it seriously. The problem with the case I cited, of a politician being mocked for expressing concerns about a TV show, was that it was, in fact a kind of censorship by derision. It was an argument that such discussions weren’t worth having or didn’t matter, and that raising moral or intellectual concerns about popular art (in particular) was an outdated and foolish idea. Any civilization worth its salt has realized that art matters, and that the popular art of a civilization says something about its character. And it not only says it, it influences it. It’s a reciprocal relationship.

So I wasn’t arguing for state censorship, but I was arguing that it is in fact worth discussing and being aware and being able to make criticisms of moral and intellectual issues in popular art. People should care about what gets said in art. And in actuality they do. People get upset all the time now about what moral content is or isn’t in a film or TV show. Shows are often marketed based on how they check some social-moral box and reveal their higher consciousness and bring awareness to or advance some ethical cause. This is something that people actually broadly agree on, if only by revealing that appeals and arguments along those lines work on them. So criticizing Dan Quayle as an idiot and a philistine just for raising moral concerns about a TV show isn’t only unfounded, it’s hypocritical. You might disagree about his judgements and have responses to his arguments, but you at least have to acknowledge that something was said that is in keeping with traditional and contemporary attitudes about art.