"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
news:E79FF8044B52463D9BDCCAF39E66EE3A@HomePC...
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Darren New [mailto:dne### [at] sanrrcom]
> > Chambers wrote:
> > > I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
> > > negative effect on society by not being censored?
> >
> > Hitler?
>
> There are two major negative events associated with Hitler, being the
> Holocaust and World War II.
>
> Of the two, neither can be attributed to Hitler himself.
>
> As far as the Holocaust goes, antisemitism had been around for centuries
> before Hitler, and had been particularly strong in Germany in the decades
> leading up to the 30s.  For instance, Richard Wagner, the noted composer,
> was widely known for his hatred of the Jews, and he died six years before
> Hitler was born.  Yet even he didn't cause popular opinion, but rather
> expressed and echoed it.
>
> In other words, Germany as a societal whole had been moving towards the
> Holocaust for some time.

You can say the same thing for positive changes as well. Society as a whole
has been moving towards democracy, freedom, equality... etc. In other words,
no individual had a significant positive effect on society by not being
censored.

> So again, we have an outspoken individual, yes, but society accepted him
> because he mirrored popular opinion at the time.  Removing Hitler from the
> scene would have prevented neither the Holocaust nor WWII.

Neither would censoring any individual would have prevented the positive
changes, then.

> The answer, of course, is "no."  While you will trim the comments from
> YouTube, those same people will continue to use foul language in their
> daily lives and on other web sites they frequent.  In other words, the
> symptom of offensive YouTube comments will be gone, but the underlying
> problem of people using offensive language will remain (and will be
> unchanged).

I have to disagree. It's not a one way street. Yes, we express what we feel,
but we also get shaped by what we see. As far as monkey see monkey do goes,
we are not much removed from our ancestors. Internet is not just a medium
for expressing, it is, maybe more importantly, a medium for immitation and
learning.

> If you really want to affect people's actions and attitudes, then you
> can't legislate or proscribe your own mores on them.  All you'll do is
> inspire resentment, anger and bitterness (and a resentful, angry and
> bitter crowd of internet commenters deprived of their favorite outlet is
> not a group you want to have pissed off at you, *especially* if you don't
> like foul language).  The long-term solution, of course, is for parents to
> teach their children what is and isn't appropriate.  And if, over time,
> parents neglect to teach their children that certain language is
> inappropriate, doesn't that language become appropriate - and make
> censorship of it a moot point in the process?

Many of the advances in society were in fact legislated. Democracy, freedom,
equality have pretty much all been forced or legislated, and imposed on the
masses. Once you have enough supporters to force the issue, you act on these
things, you don't wait for everyone to volunarily change their opinions.
Bitterness and resentment is unavoidable when you force a change, but
opinions eventually will change as people will get used to the new way of
life.

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