RE: surfing uncesored

Wayne Radinsky (waynerad@oz.net)
Sun, 9 Mar 1997 22:12:49 -0800

What concerns me most about the censorship debate is that it
is so misguided. Denmark repealed all its obscenity laws in the
1960's, and everybody there has since totally lost interest in
pornography; it's boring to them. The country with the biggest
pornography industry is the United States, in spite of Denmarks
more liberal laws. Because here it's "naughty" and there it's
"who cares". It's normal for young people to be interested in
nudity and sex and there are some real dangers to trying to keep
them in the dark, for example the belief, which is implicit in what
a lot of anti-pornography arguments, that lack of knowledge will
lead to lack of sexual activity, is incorrect. Similarly, the debate
over foul language is equally absurd. How many kids have never
heard and don't know how to use bad words? Most of them get
bored with bad words after they find out that they don't get the
same shock value from the words when they get overused.

The reason I say this is misguided is that it distracts from debate
about the kinds of information that might ACTUALLY be dangerous.
Things like how to build and use guns and bombs and stuff. I'm
not saying I believe that the Anarchist's Cookbook should be banned
from the net, only that THAT's what we should be debating, not
naughty pictures or foul language. I know it's counter-intuitive that
pornography is harmless, but Denmark has proven it.

Besides that, WHAT does this have to do with SVS??? Sudbury
Vally School has to comply with the law of the land. It may not
be against the school's philosophy to censor, but the law says,
for example, that people under 18 shouldn't see pornography, (this
can vary from place to place), so an SVS-school will comply with
that. So in my opinion this issue doesn't have anything to do with
SVS.

I apologize for the outburst but felt I had to say something.

Wayne

----------
From: Charles[SMTP:quester@eskimo.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 1997 2:02 PM
To: discuss-sudbury-model@europe.std.com
Subject: Re: surfing uncesored

On Sat, 8 Mar 1997 Rockitone@aol.com wrote:

>
> as for censorship, i would say probably the most resistance would be from
> parents of the children. i know for a fact that some of the children could
> not handle the responsibility of the uncensored net, they would be drawn to
> the "bad" parts, and on the other hand there are alot of the kids who would
> surf just fine, who don't need to go to the "bad" places.

OK, so they'll go to the `bad' parts. So? Will they be zapped and
changed into toads or something? Everyone sees a bit of naughtiness now
and then, and almost everyone likes it, now and then.

Why don't parents grow up?


- Charles -