ALP Legal Affairs Policy Committee - Discussion Paper on Censorship - by Andrew Oliver

Fourth edition, further references added to reply to Fiona Patten M.L.C. for Northern Metropolitans misguided and ill-considered legislation to allow sale of X 18+ pornographic films in Victoria. Revision dated 26th June 2015.

Third edition, sanitised for Internet publication on the web, 21st November 2012. References expanded to include credits to sources of inspiration.

Second edition, prepared for tabling at February 2002 policy committee meeting: not so tabled.

First edition was tabled at a committee meeting in early 2000, and dated October 1999. Never adopted as policy. Neither federal policy nor state policy changed one iota.

0.0Contents0.1Statement of Bias0.1.1Liberty and Licence0.2A Survey of Media I Consider Problematic0.2.1Women's Magazines0.2.2Pornographic Magazines0.2.3Rock Videos (and Music)0.2.4Television0.2.5Films, Hollywood0.2.6Television Advertisements0.2.7 The Internet0.2.8Pornographic Films0.2.9Books0.2.10Blasphemy0.2.11Newspapers0.3Enforcement of Censorship0.4Priorities for Censorship0.5Action0.6References

1.0Statement of Bias

Censorship is an area of public policy where the public interest, public benefit, and values must take precedence over rights and liberties.

Whilst I do not intend to labour this point, too many labour lawyers sound like leftliberals, endlessly debating rights and liberties. I am tempted to say that ALP members whose politics are merely about rights and liberties are in the wrong party.

1.1Liberty and Licence

A more traditional approach to the general idea of liberty is to recognise that liberties can be abused, that those "pushing the boundaries" are mistaking liberty for licence. The liberty to be creative should not be taken as licence to incite violence, to incite crime, et al. Rather than view law as merely about rights and liberties, social democrats and socialists must consider public policy issues, especially in dealing with those who would make money out of detriment to the public.

2.0A Survey of Media I Consider Problematic

These notes are a brief exercise of cultural criticism, designed to develop the theme that Australia needs stricter censorship laws. The idea is also to persuade: I will try to give some idea of how I understand the issues in order to make people think differently.

2.1Women's Magazines

Women's magazines are published for profit. They feature "heroin waifs", which undermine the self-esteem of many young people. They promote cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery is partly about contempt for the natural process of growing old. Our society would be better were there to be no cosmetic surgery (save for those with injuries, or cripples.) They also give bad advice that either is just wrong or is just nonsense.

And people like Kerry Packer make billions. It could be argued that this industry - in its present manifestation - is against public policy, a standing conspiracy to derive profit from social harm.

2.2Pornographic Magazines

A few per cent of pornographic magazines are artistic and classy. Fifty per cent (or more) are crass, offensive, objectionable ... Stopping the distribution of objectionable magazines is a low priority of the police force.

It would seem that too many men of a misogynist bent involve themselves in this industry to express their women hatred onto society. This is why so high a proportion of the magazines are so offensive.

Governments, ALP, and Liberal, and National, ignore the problem.

I do not agree with feminists who see heterosexual cultural forms as inherently illegitimate. However, I do think there is strong evidence that most serial killers and most of the mass murderers who perpetrate massacres have overdosed on pornographic magazines. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to my mind that most sexual assaults are in any way caused by pornography. Most sexual assaults, after all, are by acquaintances, relatives, friends, boyfriends (and girlfriends), the person you've just been talking to in the bar ...

A few feminists take a more liberal approach, yet, still detest the objectionable and classless material: what would you expect?

2.3Rock Videos (and Music)

Some rock videos are crass, offensive; most are not. In two ABC TV Rage Top 50's that I reviewed and rated on a five point scale for taste and decency earlier this year, I found only two and only three really offensive rock videos.

The secret of success in rock videos is to have sufficient quality, sufficient artisticness, lyrics with passion, clever themes and innovative visuals, to generate CD sales. The feedback from sales to corporate executives to musicians ensures some level of quality.

This is not to say there are not issues here too. The cult of youth is a social problem in western society. Anyone over thirty is past it, shoot the lot. Retrenched employees over forty find it very difficult to find work, and Hollywood and the rock video machine are part of the cause.

Some songs incite violence either on the basis of race or sex. [Omitted example ] or Rose Tattoo's lyrics about the solution to marital infidelity (guns), the failure of the authorities to prosecute for incitement to violence is universal.

When rock videos took off in the early 1980's, narcissism was the mood. The dominant mood has since changed to melancholia. Artists and musicians should use their talents to promote human welfare. People need self-esteem, self-worth, they need to express their sadness, their grief, their happiness, their friendship. Artists and musicians should shape events not swim with the tide.

2.4Television

Television is quite variable in its quality and tastefulness.

I watch "Seinfeld" occasionally. Only a few episodes have offensive content, most are witty, clever and well done. "The Simpsons" - a show allegedly for children - has episodes that are clever and amusing, but, in my opinion, much too much offensive content. Many episodes are not suitable for children. Its defenders say that it is subversive. But the task is not to subvert, it is to build the better society. We need vision much more than subversion.

Where does the idea of subversion lead? From the "Anarcho-Futurist Manifesto", Kharkov, Russia, 1919:-

Ah-ah-ah, ha-ha, ho-ho!

All those who are still fresh and young and not dehumanised - to the streets! ... The pot-bellied mortar of laughter stands in a square drunk with joy. ... Tear down the churches and their allies the museums! Blast to smithereens the fragile idols of Civilisation! ... Convulsions - flesh - life - death - everything! Everything! Such is the poetry of our love! ... The north wind rages in the heads of the Children of Nature. Something frightful has appeared - some vampire of melancholy! Perdition - the world is dying! ...

This leads nowhere. The task is to build a movement with ideas and vision that builds a better world.

2.5Films, Hollywood

I believe standards at Hollywood are degenerating. But what does "degenerating" mean?

From the 1930's to the 1960's Hollywood promoted old-fashioned morality tales, i.e. good versus evil, bourgeois romantic love, historical dramas upholding traditions and values, et cetera.

Nowadays the themes are more likely to be guilt-free hedonism and guilt-free selfishness, narcissism, sex without romance or affection or friendship, and the perpetrator's viewpoint.

Of these, the most pernicious theme is that of the perpetrator's viewpoint. One learns to understand the serial killer. Their joy at each new kill. The taste of human flesh. The triumph of evil over "banal" goodness and law.

Of course, "old fashioned" themes still exist in many films. These are merely the trends and emphases.

If these people just think they are being subversive, they need to be driven out. What the world needs is vision, that of a better world.

It's a values thing.

2.6Television Advertisements

Television advertisements are more likely to be tasteless or offensive or such like than the shows that they are shown with. This may be because advertising executives figure that irritating advertisements will be remembered by viewers leading to higher sales.

The authorities take no action in relation to offensive advertisements, even when viewers take up the issue.

2.7The Internet

Whilst the Internet could be a great force for good in the areas of culture, education, et cetera, at present it is polluted with trash.

Imposing censorship onto the Internet is a simple matter if the political will is there to do it. Essentially what is needed is random wiretaps and the building of a few jails for the offenders. After all, pirate software sites are shut down by the authorities because Bill Gates insists.

2.8Pornographic Films

The dialectics of the media - the medium is the message - mean that pornographic films tend to be more value-free, more generally degenerate, than the magazines. Films with no dialogue, no context, tend to present sex in an inherently objectionable way.

If a film has dialogue, a plot, character development, context, then it should be more a matter of classification.

2.9Books

Allegedly according to a short item in a newspaper I read somewhere a sometime M.H.R. for Oxley wrote a book that claimed, incorrectly, that many Australian Aboriginal tribes had practiced cannibalism. This led to an increase in bashings and the like.

Imagine a book entitled "How To Be A Contract Killer":

How to purchase guns: speak to an ex-convict in a hotel. What to charge: spouses, $10000; business rivals: $50000. Avoid contracts on organised criminals or their relatives. How to trace a runaway spouse. Fake it as a hit-and-run. Don't leave fingerprints - wear gloves when on surveillance. In case your hotel's raided, take the labels off your suits. Poisons - where to buy, what to use, how to make it appear a natural death. How to advertise your services ...

Would a book - or an Internet site - offering such advice be liable for criminal incitement and criminal conspiracy? Would the police act?

A number of books on sale in Australia today pollute public debate with contrived malice that seeks to blame Aboriginals for their poverty in order to make them scapegoats. This is done to protect the interests of the rich and powerful. This is clearly incitement to racial hatred. It should be actionable.

There is a difference between tolerance, polite intolerance, and political censorship. There are limits to tolerance. Would the British government have tolerated the distribution of German propaganda leaflets in London in 1941? And would the following be tolerated by the James Bond film cult?

2.9Books (Continued)

Take "The Story Of S.M.E.R.S.H.," by Ronald Seth, a book about the history of spies, and world wars I/II.

SMERSH Machine Pistol Specification

Dum-Dum Lead Jacket, 14;Tracer - Magnesium Alloy;Steel Coated Lead Inner Tip T.N.T. Explosive Impact Five Second Chemical Fuse, 13;Tracer - Magnesium Alloy;Curare Steel Tipped Lead Weighted, 12;Tracer - Magnesium Alloy;Tungsten Carbide Steel Slimline Lead Weighted, 11;Tracer - Magnesium Alloy;Granite Pre-Fractured With Sapphire Spacers, Lead Fill, Lead Coated, 10;Tracer - Magnesium Alloy;Last Bullet, Steel, Lead Coated, engraved requisition for a SMERSH machine pistol magazine.

Notes:-(1) Machine pistols don't spin the bullets, unlike automatic rifles. To spin the bullets requires them to be larger, whence automatic rifle magazines have less bullets.(2) There was a modus vivendi between the British and German engineers in June 1945 to suppress machine pistol technology, replaced with the inferior automatic rifle technology, which inherently has smaller magazines.(3) With the latest in precision engineering it would not be difficult to develop a "five - five" magazine that had 15, 14, 13, 12, 12 rounds in the five concentric chambers, a la 1930's machine pistols with 4.5 inch cylinders. This machine pistol specification has a design limit of 66 bullets in a full magazine.

2.10Blasphemy

The Church owns the intellectual property in the name Jesus and the symbol of the cross.

Some artists and filmmakers try to be deliberately offensive to Christians to express their deep hatred of the Church or of Christianity or of Christians.

There is a difference between heresy, i.e. doctrinal errors, and blasphemy, i.e. defamatory of the Church or God, and it is possible to draft laws so as to allow religious freedom and to allow free criticism of Church doctrine without allowing people to maliciously be objectionable.

The two Melbourne youths who took direct action against the National Gallery of Victoria by vandalising a painting that no state funded gallery should ever display under any circumstances whatsoever brings up the failure of the art authorities to show leadership on the issue of tastefulness in art.

2.11Newspapers

I support censorship of newspapers, though I do not regard this as high priority. I know that censorship of newspapers tends to make social change more difficult. This explains the ambivalence of the right wingers to student newspapers.

"The Age" and "The Australian" have had a long series of articles ridiculing Paul Keating's business involvements in pig-farming. This is a bit rich, as Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire, promotes neo-liberal causes in his newspapers.

The newspapers tend to take a rather liberal attitude to gambling, as do A.L.P. parliamentarians. I think that A.L.P. leaders should re-consider their extreme positions on gambling, and support a few of the criticisms that Tim Costello has advanced in the newspapers about the issue of gambling.

3.0Enforcement of Censorship

It is my view that enforcement of censorship is not difficult providing that (1) the authorities are enforcing the standards of the wider public, and (2) there is the political will to enforce the law by putting people into jail.

The US National Security Agency knows how to intercept and trace messages: there are no technical problems in censorship of the Internet; only the political will is needed.

It is also a matter of public leadership and values. Leaders of the ALP should not stand up and say: "There are no values - everything is permitted!" Yet this is what they do, in effect, by not supporting censorship, or, alternatively, by not supporting enforcement of censorship.

The public expenditure on art, libraries, schools, and the broadcast media should be subject to public policy in that objectionable and offensive material that promotes public detriment should not be subsidised.

Censorship is mostly about appropriate classification, and about banning material that promotes public detriment.

4.0Priorities for Censorship

Priorities for censorship in terms of final outcomes:

(1) magazines (all): values, taste, lack of contempt needed;(2) films (all): if no context, no values, should not be made;(3) television, television advertising, rock videos: the wide accessibility mean that standards are important;(4) books: true crime, perpetrator's viewpoint material should not be published;(5) music, whether rock videos or C.D.'s;(6) newspapers, which should not be an outlet for offensive material;(7) art, which should embody taste and decency.

Priorities for censorship in terms of achieving social change:

(1) books: but only a few need to be banned, those that incite hatred or crime;(2) art: but only because a very few artists promote hatred and contempt and because stopping their art enables censorship to be imposed more widely;(3) rock videos: because of the centrality of youth culture;(4) films for cinema: context, values should be the criteria;(5) television: because we live in the age of television, and because popular culture matters.

N.B. The censorship of newspapers tends to make social change more difficult, no bullshit. The revolutionary left, moreover, do not have to consider the issue of social change except as a means. The reformist left have to consider social change implications irrespective of the attitude of the revolutionary left, who desire a revolutionary situation that will never happen, at least not for thousands of years.

5.0Annotated References

ALP National Platform 1998. The sentence that provoked this discussion paper was:-

10.44 Labor believes that adults should be entitled to read, hear and see what they wish in private and in public, subject to adequate protection against persons being exposed to unsolicited material offensive to them, and preventing conduct exploiting, or detrimental to the rights of others, particularly women and children.

The Age Green Guide, published Thursdays.

The Australian Womens Weekly.

Avrich, Paul, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, Thames and Hudson, London 1973.

Basic Instinct, as mentioned in newspaper and Internet opinion pieces on censorship.

Caplan, Paula J., The Myth of Womens Masochism, Methuen, London 1985.

Crick, Bernard, In Defence of Politics, Pelican 2nd Edition, Harmondsworth 1964.

Crick, B, and Robson, W., Protest and Discontent, Pelican 1st Edition, Harmondsworth 1970.

Cleo.

Cosmopolitan.

Daly, Mary, Pure Lust, Womens Press, London 1984.

Dworkin, Andrea, Right Wing Women, Women's Press, London 1983.

Eisenstein, Hester, Contemporary Feminist Thought, Counterpoint, London 1984.

Farrago, a university student newspaper published approximately fortnightly at the University of Melbourne.

Ice Cube, Death Certificate: song Black Korea 1991.

Lewis, Clive Staples, Mere Christianity, Fount, London 1997.

Lewis, Clive Staples, The Four Loves, Fount, London 1977.

Lewis, Clive Staples, The Abolition of Man, Fount, London 1978.

Lewis, Clive Staples, The Screwtape Letters, Fount, London 1992.

Lycett, Andrew, Ian Fleming, Phoenix Paperback Ed, Orion Books Ltd, 1995.

McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media, Sphere Books Ltd Edition, London 1967.

Lots Wife, a university student newspaper published approximately fortnightly at the Monash University.

Mad Magazine, a caricaturist publication published in New York, New York in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, Crofts Classic Paperback Edition 1947, New York, New York.

Moss, Robert, The Collapse of Democracy, Abacus 2nd Edition, Sphere Books Ltd, London 1977. Sometime speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain.

National Student, a university student newspaper published approximately fortnightly by the Australian Union of Students from 1979 to 1984.

New Socialist # 13, Labour Party, London 1983.

Penthouse.

Rose Tattoo, Rose Tattoo: song Bad Boy For Love 1978.

Seth, Ronald, The Executioners: The Story Of S.M.E.R.S.H., Tempo Books, New York 1967.

Seinfeld.

Shopping on the Black, an article published in Farrago in the 1970s.

The Silence Of The Lambs, newspaper and Internet reviews, The Age, The Weekend Australian, 1991.

The Simpsons.

The Bible Societies, Good News Bible, Collins Fontana 1976.

The Holy Bible, Authorised King James Version, 1611 Text, Presbyterian Bookroom, Melbourne.

Tillich, Paul, The Courage To Be, Yale University Press 1952.

TV Week.

Valverde, Marina, Sex, Power & Pleasure, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia 1987.

Vansittart, Peter, Dictators, Studio Vista, London 1973. An authority on Weimar cinema.

The Weekend Australian Review, published Saturdays.

Wolf, Naomi, The Beauty Myth, Vintage, London 1991.