Censorship: A Moral Fallacy?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I want to take a close look into the nature of “censorship” as well as other contemporary morals.

If you want to, feel free to just start typing what your opinions on the subject are - you don’t need to read mine. I want people to give a discussion, not a review of what I’ve said (although if they want to review what I’ve said too, that’s fine).

First of all, why is it considered “wrong” or “inappropriate” to use profanity such as “fuck”, “shit”, “bastard”, “bitch”, etc… ?
We could posit that profanity instigates angst and conflict in the person they are directed at, and this is why their use is inappropriate.

However, lets consider some possibilities:

  • These words would not instigate such negative emotions if there was no censorship against them, and if they became commonly used.
  • When these words are taboo, it handicaps the natural spectrum of linguistic expression. For example, if such words are commonly used to express anger, a person may find themselves unable to adequately express anger without them. If such words are used for emphasis, a person may find it hard to show emphasis without them. Or if an individual is trying to add emphasis when speaking to a group that normally uses curse words for their emphasis, they may find that the desired emphasis was not successfully communicated.

Now, lets consider some positive possibilities of verbal censorship:

  • It adds diversity to the atmosphere of our language. There are varying situations where certain language becomes “right” or “wrong” to use. This gives us a wide variety of different social personas to help us communicate with a more specific level of expression. Due to language censorship, we can express formal tones, friendly tones, slang tones, etc. We can imply respect, friendliness, acceptance, rebelliousness, and innumerable other implications simply with our choice of words.
  • Contrary to the possibility mentioned above that goes against verbal censorship, making certain words “taboo” might actually enhance the spectrum of linguistic expression. For example, if a person were to say “What the fuck!”, and this person does not normally use profanity, other people listening will know to take him more seriously - since whatever he is talking about must obviously be important if he is choosing to use profanity even though he normally doesn’t use profanity.

For verbal censorship, I would have to view it as a positive. If verbal censorship was abolished and everyone began talking at a similar level, I would find the whole act of socialization to be rather bland. Besides, the choice of words used help give us information about the individual using them. For example, I wouldn’t want to hear a politician to say something in a speech like:
“Yeah, I know the economy is real fucked up and shit, but these assholes need to get off our fucking backs about it, we’re doing all that we can… shit… Besides, all the dumbasses against me couldn’t do any better in our shoes, you all don’t know shit about the intimacies of handling the economy.”
If everyone talked like that, arguments would just be one loud shouting match, and it would be totally disorganized.

However, there is a dark side to verbal censorship. It can get obsessive and excessive. Radical supporters of verbal censorship are often deluded regarding just how much censorship is necessary… I believe Schopenhauer said something along the lines of “When a new word is chosen to replace an old word because the old word is considered inappropriate and politically incorrect, the new word soon shares the same fate as the old word. This is because it is not the word that contains any derogatory or inappropriate meaning, but it is that which the word represents.”

Now, let’s review other types of censorship.

What about nudity? For those who have grown up with western morals (including me), it seems intuitive to know that “nudity is wrong”… But why? Really think about the reason why. It is so random and arbitrary, “we are ashamed of our bare skin”.
Some may say “Nudity is wrong because it promotes sexual thoughts”, yet if nudity were commonplace, it would no longer be abnormal and would cease to be as provocative. Ironically, the morals against nudity are the very thing that make nudity considered sexually promiscuous.

What about drugs? Again, the censorship against drugs is the very thing causing the problem with them. If I am not mistaken, the rate of cannabis use is lower in Holland and other countries where its use is decriminalized, and the rate of cannabis use is higher in the United States. Same with alcohol. In most of Europe, it is legal to drink alcohol at any age, and it is not any sort of a problem. However, because alcohol is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 in the United States, its consumption becomes idolized by youth and considered “cool” - the debate on “coolness” aside, there is no doubt that there is a direct correlation between anti-alcohol laws and irresponsible alcohol use.

2

Censorship is a natural occurance anywhere two or more people share a language or ideas. The psychological unconscious need to align one’s meaning, intent, emotions, expectations, assumptions, biases, values and perspectives to those of another person whom we are conversing with generate implicit and spontaneous censorship.* In large groups and over time (and especially with the institutionalisation and social-political centralisation of common langauge forms, styles and symbols) these natural filters and blocks lead to large-scale censorship as an effect all its own, powerful and independent. Once it exists it is immediately appropriated by the status quo proper and incorporated into the fabric of common discourse with respect to the needs of the moment for social maintenance and stability. Language is a social phenomenon that reaches into the individual and private spaces, defining, determining and pre-empting them to a large extent. . . this pre-empting takes the form of taboos, shock, offense and avoidance at new forms of expression (novelty equates with threat to large structures predicated on enduring stability), and closed meanings (meanings which are prevented from expanding unnecessarily). Censorship, once a natural outcome of the unconscious operations of interpersonal communication (as well as inner-personal communication - you do censor while you speak to yourself!), becomes a more pervasive and dominant effect within the society, guided collectively via the properties of emergent group phenomena and regulated in an evolutionary sense: the most effective censorships will be repeated into the future, the least effective or ineffective will be naturally weeded out over time . . . in addition, of course, censorship is subject to the large permutations of random movements and unpredictable “butterfly effects” within language fields.

There is nothing moral (or immoral) about censorship, nor is it a “fallacy”. It is natural, and inevitable given that no two people will share the same internal content, expectations or needs of interactive communications. If you dislike it, as I personally do, then make a habit to train yourself to recognise it (in yourself as well as from others), and to avoid it and avoid practicing it yourself. You will never be able to avoid it in social discourse, but that does not mean you cannot become more aware of it and thus insulate yourself somewhat from its effects upon you.

*Another large source of this naturally-occuring censorship is the unconscious need to sufficiently mitigate cognitive uncertainties, as described and modeled in some generality by Information Theory.

3

What you are saying makes sense, but it denies the function of forbidden words. Forbidden words are the MSG of cooking. In order to make a dish taste bold, to stand out, it really does need a certain amount of MSG. Be it in powdered form or contained within the ingredients.

A dish without MSG is bland and boring. By eliminating all forbidden concepts, we can make all social dishes bland and boring but what would be the point of that?

There is undeniably a need for balance but I will say that if we had no concept of the word “Fuck” in English, we would have need to invent it. Likewise with “cunt” “nigger” and a million other words that one simply cannot say. Indeed, many swearwords are words that were formerly acceptable but became unacceptable because of their associations.

4

Agreed. There does seem to be an ever-present need for “shock-value” words which “pack a punch”, so to speak. Perhaps it is this power behind the word that is most important, and thus it is for this reason that these words tend to over time fall underneath the umbrella of censorship, as they represent the largest potential for disruption or instability.

Language is primarily expressive and translational, not communicative. So of course the catharsis, as well as the implicit signaling effects (signal SES-related antipathies or sympathies, as one example), which words such as Fuck allow for is going to make sure these types of “power words” are retained. Yet I wonder if, through censorship, society both keeps these words as needed while at the same time managing them effectively, directing them away from certain channels of importance (media, politics, academia, the more institutional channels) while allowing them in “lesser” common discourse.

5

Censoring something can cause it to lose meaning, perhaps detracting from what would be an important message, but at the same time censorship can prevent fruitless harm caused by vulgarity, depravity, or mal-intent.

Because of this i feel each circumstance of censorship would need to be analyzed on a case by case basis where one takes into account risks and rights…

to give two contrasting analogies, you would not want a kindergarten teacher to use profanity, nor would we want to censor the right to promote our own political views through free speech.

6

I hope you’ll admit this is an outrageously flawed analogy. I mean, I could send you a cookbook or two as an act of charity.

7

I think it’s a strong analogy. You eat a lot of Chinese food, you habituate to MSG. Eat a lot of Thai food, you get used to chilli pepper.

Use a lot of swear words, you need to pull something special out of the swearbox to make your point when you really want to express sheer rage.

8

This is the great fallacy of the bogeyman that is PC - the sounds don’t contain the hate, concepts do. In the UK, a charity called the Spastics Society changed its name to Scope, to escape the stigma associated with the word “spastic”, used as a playground insult. Within a year, kids up and down the country were calling each other “Scopers”

This is true, most weed smokers in the coffee shops are teenagers or foreigners. I don’t think decriminalisation is the sole factor, though, use is lower in similar countries where it is banned. Culture has everything to do with which drugs are popular, and criminal cachet is only one point, in certain cultures.

Not direct; the UK and Finland have ridiculous binge-drinking cultures, while alcohol is far more relaxed than in the US. Sweden and Denmark would have too, if the beer weren’t so damn expensive :stuck_out_tongue:

To an extent, it’s a truism - when you make it hard to get alcohol, only the people who really want alcohol will bother, and they’ll make it worth the risk. But again, rebellion isn’t a prime mover in that, or heroin would be all the rage everywhere except Afghanistan.

There are many good arguments for legalising and controlling drugs from a safety and crime point of view, and the moral atmosphere of drug panic causes a lot more harm than a responsible attitude to mitigating the effects would do.

9

Ah, ok. You’re approaching it from the opposite end.

10

Savoriness just happens to be one of the flavors that we can trace to a particular compound. I could just as easily have said “salt” but I have to keep my exotic image up :slight_smile: Plus, whereas there can be dishes that lack savoriness, MSG, and be acceptable if a little unexciting (the Kellog diet is not well regarded for the exciting flavors it offers) dishes without salt are pretty much entirely unacceptable to the human palate. That doesn’t mean that you should eat dishes saturated in MSG or pre-packaged foods with 100% of your daily sodium intake per serving. Moderation is key here.

A little MSG can make a bland dish exciting, a wonderful exclamation point! BUT YOU CAN’T ALWAYS TALK LIKE THIS EITHER!

And if these things become the norm, you’ve either got some serious health problems or you’ll go elsewhere seeking satisfaction. Swears are like that too. Overuse them and you’ll isolate yourself or if everybody does, new forbidden words arise.

With substances, I don’t think that is the case. At least not all of them, it needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. Marijuana shows a low abuse potential which is supported by the fact that even in areas where it is legal it is not a problem. Opiates, on the other hand, have a very poor track-record when they become widely available. With other substances the form matters more than the actual substance, like cocaine and khat. Coca plants seem to integrate into a society just fine, just as khat plants do. Cocaine salt and β-ketoamphetamine salt, on the other hand, seem rather destructive. Amphetamine salt isn’t great but doesn’t cause widespread collapse whereas methamphetamine salt does.

In all these cases there are, of course, exceptions. For comedians, swearing on the job is actually a plus. Some people become dependent on the “safe” drugs whereas other people can be weekend warriors with the “unsafe” drugs with no problems. The broader demographics are what we need to be concerned with.

11

But Xunzian, why do you tend to follow this kind of reasonableness with shit like this:

What does “is” mean here, if not “is always”? Why not say “can be”? I’d chalk it up to careless grammar if you hadn’t previously said shit like this:

If “does” wasn’t strong enough, you had to say “really does” for good measure? Really? For real?

Look, I know you’re just playing here. There’s no way you’re **** enough to believe that swearing always makes a comedian funnier or that MSG always makes food tastier. I just can’t help but be baited sometimes though.

12

I never suggested either, merely that different situations call for different approaches.

A comedian that doesn’t swear is rarely funny, especially in terms of stand-up. At the same time, a comedian whose entire act is based around swearing and being offensive is also rarely funny.

Likewise, MSG is a vital flavor component. A dish that relies on MSG is terrible. A dish with too much MSG is terrible. But a dish without any MSG is also rarely good – unless, of course, you like flavorless dishes.

I never used the term “always” and I have stressed the need for balance. As for “really”, just a bit of emphasis that is normally used in verbal communication and because internet-communication ought be closer to verbal communication, I often include little filler words like that in my posts.

13

When I home-cook my meals from scratch, which I do on a regular basis, I do not use MSG, but I use many natural seasonings and spices for flavor. I can say that there is nothing lacking in taste or flavor even though I refrain from adding products with MSG in them. It is not essential for good tasting food, rather it is a short-cut to taste stimulation, and I in fact prefer the natural flavors of non-MSG prepared foods. I think that to a refined palate, natural flavorings and seasoning does taste a lot better. I can usually detect MSG merely by tasting a food, and I try to avoid it in part because it is an excitotoxin, and also because it just doesn’t taste as good.

14

So you don’t have any meat, seaweed, non-low protein wheat (or any other gluten containing grain), stock, cheese, mushrooms, or soy sauce in any of your home-cooked foods? What do you eat?

MSG isn’t just some random chemical, it is an amino acid.

See, and that is what censorship is about. Sure, pure MSG is “bad”. So anything with MSG in it is “bad”. But we have MSG in pretty much everything we eat. The sentiment remains but the expression is variable. There are dishes that call for a more pronounced savory-flavor so we add a more rich source of MSG to it. It can be a powerful accent. Or disgusting when overused.

15

That’s not what people mean when they refer to “MSG”. According to one source for instance:

“When found in plant or animal protein, it is referred to as glutamic acid, L-glutamic acid, glutamate, or L-glutamate. When produced outside of the human body, consumers call it MSG. When captured as a single amino acid, it is known as monosodium glutamate.”

“MSG” is a food additive, and is obviously unnecessary for any taste consideration.

16

Sure. I was thinking of “MSG” as in “the ligand for the mGlu4R on the taste buds”.

Though I do think that distinction is rather silly – and in keeping with the OP, a matter of censorship in line with Newspeak. What does “when captured as a single amino acid” really mean in this case? Meat is generally conditioned after slaughter. One of the things that happens during this process is that some of the proteins break down into their respective amino acids – including glutamate. So, meat does have MSG in it. As saprobes, yeast generate a lot of single amino acids, including MSG.

What people mean when they say “MSG” is a bogeyman.

Why do we create such a censorship? To avoid excessive MSG. That way you can say, “MSG (the powder) is bad!” while neglecting the fact that MSG is already heavily present in the diet.

17

Hmm, the old “plastic is natural” argument. I don’t buy that.

I’ve lost track of what this has to do with censorship. Though I admit I was only ever in this thread for the MSG stuff.

I did try to do something clever earlier with the censorship stuff, but nobody commented. Oh well. :neutral_face:

18

It isn’t a “plastic is natural” argument at all. In an aqueous environment, like in your mouth when you are eating, glutamine binds to mGlu4 and we taste “savory”. MSG isn’t a form of glutamine, it is a salt of glutamine. There is nothing special or magical about it.

Whether it is present in meat from proteolytic processes or in a salt-shaker, it is the same compound.

That is why it is a form of censorship, or at least a form of Newspeak. We’ve created several identical names for the same compound depending on slightly different (in terms of culinary use, almost imperceptibly different) criteria and therefore judge them to be different things. It is an illusion created by language.

Forbidden words.

19

I have plenty. But I can also cook plenty of great-tasting non-bland stuff that doesn’t have any of those present. :slight_smile:

20

No, we do not have “MSG in pretty much everything we eat”, we have Glutamate in pretty much everything we eat. Natural glutamate in protein is not what MSG is. Monosodium Glutamate does not occur naturally.

The glutamate found in nature is not what is in MSG. MSG represents “free-floating” glutamic acid, where the protein is broken up into its animo acids directly, through hydrolyzation or other processes (in fact most MSG today is made by using genetically engineered bacteria to secrete it in fermentation). So when you are consuming MSG you are not consuming natural or normal glutamate found in proteins, but you are consuming the pure glutamic acid itself. This is why MSG triggers directly the taste receptors in the mouth, those which key to “savory” aka meats/proteins. Free processed glutamic acid is not the same as naturally occuring glutamate - the body responds differently to them, and you cannot find free glutamic acid in nature, but the amino acid is only found bound up in proteins - the amino acids are always naturally bound up in proteins and thus require digestion to be released into the body. Consuming un-bounded or free amino acids directly has a very different effect on the body. Hence the flavor-additive effect of MSG as opposed to eating natural proteins in food.

The problem with MSG is that it is excitotoxic due to its free form; free gluatmic acid is not processed and digested naturally but is absorbed directly into the bloodstream, leading to an unnatural spike in glutamate throughout the body - most importantly, in the brain, where this free glutamic acid crosses the blood brain barrier. This leads to overstimulation of neurons, causing in part the feeling of hunger (MSG-laden foods do not trigger the “I am full, stop eating” response as well as normal food), but also causing neurological damage as cells are overstimulated and die (this damage has been documented in mice as well as primates).

Processed free glutamic acid (MSG) carries with it material not found with unprocessed glutamic acid. Unprocessed glutamic acid in higher organisms is L-glutamic acid, only. Processed free glutamic acid (MSG) is both L-glutamic acid and D-glutamic acid, and is accompanied by pyroglutamic acid and other impurities. The impurities differ according to the materials and methods used to produce the glutamic acid. Under certain circumstances, processed free glutamic acid is accompanied by mono and dichloro propanols (which are carcinogenic) or heterocyclic amines (which are also carcinogenic).

Neurological damage caused by MSG:

Brain lesions were found in 6 rhesus infant monkeys exposed to varying levels of a single MSG dose. Researchers at the Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine conducted the study with rhesus monkeys because of hypotheses from other researchers stating that susceptibility to MSG induced brain damage may be limited to sub-primates (mice, rats, rabbits, etc.)

A subcommittee of nutritional experts appointed by the Food Protection Committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) declared MSG to be a safe food additive requiring no regulation. The nutritional experts did admit susceptibility of infant rodents to brain damage from orally administered MSG at even the low doses of 1 gram per kilogram body weight (g/kg) but reasoned that the primate infant was most likely not at risk to MSG brain damage because it had a more mature central nervous system and more highly developed blood brain barrier at birth.

However, this theory did not hold true when tested by Dr. John Olney and colleagues at the Department of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine. Here, the researchers exposed 6 infant rhesus monkeys to a single MSG dose ranging from 1 to 4 g/kg and were compared to 3 control monkeys exposed in the same manner to sodium salt (table salt). The researchers found that all MSG exposed monkeys developed damage to the brain area known as the infundibular region of the hypothalamus (this corresponds to the arcuate nucleus hypothalamus area in mice).

Results of their study were as follows:

Infant monkey A was treated with 2.6 g/kg MSG via injection on the first day of birth A lesion developed in the hypothalamus that was quite conspicuous as early as 3 hours following treatment.
Infant B received the same dose as the first infant but was seven days old. Its lesion was slightly smaller in terms of the percentage of the hypothalamus.
Infant C received the smallest 1 g/kg dose orally and showed degeneration of about 50 neurons in the hypothalamus.
Infant D received a 2 g/kg oral dose and showed degeneration of about 80 neurons in the hypothalamus.
Infant E received the highest 4 g/kg dose orally and showed degeneration of about 90 neurons. This infant also experienced vomiting which decreased the amount of MSG absorbed into the system. The sixth infant monkey to receive an MSG dose (labeled infant I) received 4 g/kg via injection and developed severe reactions including cyanosis, vomiting and convulsions.
In concluding remarks, Dr. Olney states,

“Our data do not support the view that only subprimates (i.e mice & rats) are susceptible to MSG-induced neurotoxicity. The lesions in our primate infants A, B and I following relatively high subcutaneous doses of MSG were so similar to those consistently observed in mice treated with high doses of MSG that it seems unrealistic to deny primate susceptibility to the MSG effect. Since lesions we detected in infants treated orally with lower doses were also similar in localization and identical in cytopathological detail to those we routinely find in infant mice treated orally with low doses of MSG, a causal link between low oral doses of MSG and necrosis (damage) of neurons in the infant primate hypothalamus also seems likely. However, since the lesions in these infants were quite small, careful consideration should be given to possible explanations other than MSG toxicity.”

. . .

"I have made two discoveries that I believe are almost equally important; both stand out as more important than other discoveries I have made.

The first pertains to the neurotransmitter and excitotoxic properties of glutamate. When I began studying glutamate in the late 1960s it was not known why the brain contains a high concentration of glutamate, and the dogma at that time was that glutamate could not possibly be a transmitter. My discovery of glutamate’s excitotoxic activity led me to propose that glutamate must be a major excitatory transmitter throughout the the brain, and the most logical explanation for its toxic activity would be that its excitatory activity had gotten out of control. I further proposed that if this natural transmitter can destroy neurons when it gets out of control, it might play a role in neurodegenerative disorders. I proposed this circa 1971 and subsequent research in the 1980s confirmed that glutamate is the predominant excitatory transmitter throughout the central nervous system and it plays a primary role in numerous brain disorders." (Interview with Dr. John Olney)

Some info sources:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r812533160427121/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity
http://www.chem-tox.com/pregnancy/pregmsg.htm
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/28/dangers-of-msg.aspx
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2141666279271222294#