No More Censorship!

Recently I have been made more and more aware of a disturbing truth , that has rocked my perception of who I am and the people I relate to. That revelation is that, whatever peoples political persuasion, censorship is accepted, embraced and promoted by all.

I used to think that the liberal, artistic, milleu that I in some way belong to, was the bastion of the reasonable, the intellectually astute and aware, the objective ones who could see both sides of an argument. I thought my strata was the one where, people said let and let live, containing as it does, the environmental, economic, sexual, idealistic refugees from the mainstream.

How wrong I was and how disturbed I am to find out that people on both sides of the fence are mortally afraid of words and images, in short, afraid of ideas. Not only that but they are preapared to become their worst enemy to fight these ideas that threaten them.
No word or image has ever hurt anyone, only the interpretations of them have caused harm. It is those interpretations that we fear, that are dangerous, maybe because on paper they are harmless, such is their insidious power.

Recently I was dismayed to find a lot of 'pro-democracy, anti-rascist' friends petitioning to overturn a valid, democratic election result for a right-wing British Party. Apparently THEY shouldn't be allowed in a democratic forum (Which paradoxically would make it undemocratic). Luckily as opposed to freedom of expression about sexuality, religious views etc. we all know 'rascism is bad', it has been 'proved' to be 'evil', so we are free to damn it with al the scorn in our hearts, aren't we? Is rascism inherently bad? Is the instinctive, fear of the stranger, uneccessary now in our enlightened world? Curiously our instincts also tell us that mating with, strangers makes the human race stronger. Fear first, join later, seems to be the natural way to go. What is the difference between the self-protection of indigenous culture and the self-protective intent of caucasian right-wing groups - colour?

There are many bad ideas in the world and many bad intentions and none of them have ever been stopped by censorship, only by engagement. We need to hear what is being said and thought and felt, both good and bad, to understand, 'what condition our condition is in'. Know your enemy, you will learn more from one person who opposes you than a thousand who stand by your side.

So don't be afraid of images, words and ideas, soak it all up or not (You have a choice!) and let it all out, let the rascists rant, the fundamentalists chant and let the perverts groan. We should be evolved enough to stop reacting with that most dangerously erratic of organs, the heart and start thinking with the far more balanced organ that is our brain.

The PC world is the politics of victimhood, it is about mutual repression, blame, guilt and most of all it is about low-esteem. Saying to us all that; you are too fragile, too facile, too damaged to be able to withstand what you have already endured. Serving only to supress the negative, until it festers and boils over into something truly tragic. I thought that we were tougher, smarter and better than that?