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The Forum > Article Comments > The art of censorship > Comments

The art of censorship : Comments

By Christopher van Opstal, published 28/12/2005

Christopher van Opstal argues student publications may often go too far but should they be censored?

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Scout, my degree is in IT, not a particularly political arena but I suspect my views hurt my results on at least one occasion.
Two facts
- I disagreed with a lecturer on a political matter once (regarding the company I worked for)
- I got 1 four during my time at Uni in a subject which I thought I was handling well.

Guess which lecturer assessed me for that four.
No proof, subjective opinion etc but suspicious.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Tuesday, 3 January 2006 7:39:47 AM
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Bozzie - I only completed 3 years of my degree - a car accident.

I did do some humanities subjects also - they were a part of the curriculum specifically introduced for the engineering students and Landscapers & Architects were included.

I still believe that stifling freedom of expression stifles imagination and creativity and flies in the face of what education is all about.

While I do not practice as a L.A. I still have alot of benefits of such an education, however you are right about not being inspired by my workplace - I find office admin work boring and frequently irrelevant. But thats my problem and has no bearing on the need for students to learn to question and think for themselves and not forced to conform to the limiting standards of others be they left or right wing.
Posted by Scout, Tuesday, 3 January 2006 9:48:45 AM
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I hear you Bozzie. The Marxist march on the institutions is almost complete in our universities - sadly. Forget being able to express all viewpoints without fear or favour.
Posted by Noos, Wednesday, 4 January 2006 6:06:30 PM
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"I think it is important to understand that civil dissent and disobedience contributes to the flourishing of a democracy." MarkdMark, I find such a statement naive in the extreme. You can't see a case where civil disent and disobedience undermines democracy? I do see your point however I also see how pointlessly narrow it is.
It is certainly a duty to disobey unjust laws, if we have the courage.
Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and the list is long, as you are no doubt aware. HOWEVER, Civil disobedience for the sake of disobedience does nothing more than denigrate the people that fought for real change in real situations.
Democracy flourishes, not by irrelevant acts of defiance enacted by small minds on tiny issues, but by the majority of people understanding and rejoicing in freedoms that are anathema to many countries in the world today. It is far from perfect but we are all subject to the human condition that creates the democracy in which we live.
Perhaps we should look at the places of the world from which people are fleeing and the places to which they aspire to go. That may give some credence to the society in which we live.
I know campus life and I for one, have found it to be one of the most stultifying experiences of my life as far as freedom of thought is concerned and I am a mature age student.
I also agree with VSU, but only because the student body kept bashing me over the head and telling me that voluntary is evil and true salvation lies within compulsory funding of a body that is supposed to promote freedoms. Sorry, but they lost me, and many others that cherish independant thought, at that point.
Posted by Craig Blanch, Thursday, 5 January 2006 9:15:10 AM
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"It is certainly a duty to disobey unjust laws, if we have the courage." But who decides, Craig, whether or not a law is just? Take voluntary euthanasia for example. That's against the law, in fact it's classed as murder. But the vast majority of Australians want it legalised and have felt this way for many years. So who is preventing this? Politicians, led by the nose by a handful of religious extremists. Surely a very just reason for widespread civil disobedience if anyone felt like taking it up.

How about the traditional Australian day at the beach.

"It comes as a surprise to many, then, that ocean beach swimming was long outlawed down under.

In 1843 the government New South Wales, Australia, passed an act prohibiting bathing in the ocean between the hours of 6am and 8pm. (In those days, the British colony of NSW accounted for most of what we know as Australia today.) Seventy years later, in September, 1902, some yachtsmen landed at the ocean beach of Manly (one of the city of Sydney’s northern beaches – “Seven miles from Sydney, and a thousand miles from care” has long been its motto), hauled their craft ashore and took a dip in the sea. They were immediately arrested by the dutiful constabulary.

A Manly newspaper proprietor, William Henry Gocher, challenged what he believed to be an absurd and unjust law. He announced in his paper, the Manly and North Sydney News, that he intended to go bathing on October 2 in daylight hours, thus breaking the Victorian law. Though Gocher invited arrest by plunging into the ocean at midday, police didn’t take his bait, but finally on his third violation of the law, they did take him off to the lockup."

With acknowledgements to Wilson's Almanack, a great source of examples of civil disobedience.
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/oct2.html

Maybe to some people William Gocher's "act of defiance" was concerning a "tiny issue", but if someone had not successfully taken a stand on ocean bathing, Australia could have been a lot different.
Posted by Rex, Thursday, 5 January 2006 5:42:26 PM
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Who decides what an unjust law is, indeed, a difficult question to answer and your point is well taken. The bathing example is not a new one and do I believe it to be a "tiny" issue? Yes. The law holds many redundant statutes in its books at federal and state level that have never been repealed because they do not hold any real practical application anymore and no-one has gotten around to clean them out.
I believe the swimming issue would have gone the same way if it were not pursued to sell a newspaper.
There is an ocean of difference between blatant issues such as Australia's involvement in armed conflict or Indigenous concerns and pursuits that trivialise such issues by putting them in the same domain. Promoting theft as civil disobedience, as featured in the article, is irresponsible at best. Trivialising real struggle by pretending that promoting theft is some sort of important message tells more of the writers than the text.
Having said this, your central dilemma still exists and I do empathise with its point. When and who decides when a law is unjust is a discussion that will continue and will require a mind much greater than mine to achieve a solution.
Posted by Craig Blanch, Thursday, 5 January 2006 7:29:43 PM
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