饭芝

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EDITORIAL

Censorship is a plague that has been in the world ever since the invention of writing, and probably even before that. Long ago public authorities punished those said to have written in such a way as to offend the gods. As a matter of fact, Socrates was condemned to death in what essentially was a censorship action. Legal and literary history are sadly splotched with records of a similar nature. Later, the Christian churches claimed the right to control what men might read and know, and decreed burnings without number of those whose writings were judged heretical, this charge often being conveniently linked with that of obscenity.

Although church and state are today supposed to be separated in enlightened countries, the heavy hand of religious censorship is still discernible in many directions. The Index Expurgatorius, listing books classed as heretical or obscene by the Roman Catholic Church, and its Legion of Decency, performing the same office for movies and plays, are but two examples of this form of censorship. Of state censorships, Marxist thought-control is equally notorious, throttling artistic, literary and scientific freedom wherever it can gain the upper hand, just as Japanese thought-control programs prior to World War II attempted to mold the public mind of that country.

The basic issue is quite a simple one-does the individual have the right to read, to think, to evaluate for himself, or is this to be done for him by others, whether of church or of state? One of the most useful weapons at the disposal of the thought-control advocate is that of obscenity. By raising this supposedly moral issue, he can more easily becloud the points in question, and so mislead the public.

Even in United States, which is freer of censorship than perhaps any other country today—a point half-informed intellectuals may hotly dispute the charge of obscenity still serves the censors all too frequently. ONE Magazine, as its readers well know, met this charge of obscenity,

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