Censorship: Good or Bad?

Toward the end of the show, Dan poses the question to the group, “Is there anything you’d like to see banned in cultural expression? Is there anything that you all would like to see NOT be publicly available?”

In response, two of the panelists express discomfort with what they see as the harmful effects of different aspects of contemporary culture, although they make clear that they would not call for a ban on the expressions they find problematic.

Gilmour, for example, believes that pornography “harms the soul,” and that “no good can come of it.” Hajdu is disturbed by the level, and kind, of violence that is now common in movies, singling out films like “Hostel: Part II,” and wondering if there is a connection between the numbing effect of young people being exposed to such films in their ordinary cultural diet, and what he sees as a passivity in today’s young people with regard to the events in Iraq. He doesn't want to ban "Hostel: Part II," but he wishes that we lived in a society where people didn't want to go see it.

What do you think?