It occurs to me that all known arguments for censorship–in fact, all possible arguments for censorship–are logically rude.
Gerda: | I wish to { purchase, view, broadcast } this material. |
Grobian: | Upon reviewing this material, I find it to obscene. You may not { purchase, view, broadcast } it; it is harmful to the mind, inhibiting moral judgment and causing its viewers to confuse fantasy with reality. |
Gerda: | Why is it permitted for you to review the material and judge it, and not for me to do so? |
Grobian: | I have been tasked with reviewing such material, and would not be so tasked if I were incapable of viewing it safely. |
Gerda: | But if the material impairs judgment to such a degree, and prevents its viewer from realizing that his or her judgment has been impaired, how do you know that your verdict is not the result of impaired judgment? |
Grobian: | I am striking it down as obscene, instead of running out to commit vicious criminal acts, which I would clearly do if the material had affected me. |
Gerda: | So your prediction is the opposite of the only available evidence–your own case–of the effects of reading this material. Doesn’t this empirically disprove your prediction? |
Grobian: | No. If you, for example, were to view this material, you would commit vicious criminal acts. |
Gerda: | How do you know that? |
Grobian: | You’re a pervert. The fact that you want to { purchase, view, broadcast } this material proves it. |
That’s just one example–not all arguments for censorship use such flagrant circular logic (but the FCC certainly does). I’d have a more powerful argument here if logical rudeness were inherently invalid, but unfortunately, it’s not. Then again, if one’s going to be logically rude in the first place, one isn’t terribly likely to mind being invalid too, is one?