I see what you mean Mark.
That's what I said this at the end of the post:
Should the public be kept in the dark about certain things? If so, how do you figure out what should be censored and what shouldn't?
-Sab
Do you believe in censoring information at all?
by sabastious 14 Replies latest jw friends
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sabastious
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Nathan Natas
I believe that INFORMATION itself cannot be judged: it is neither right nor wrong. It is what people DO with the information they have that can be judged.
Take, for example knowledge of how to pick a lock. In Canada a person is not permitted to buy a book that teaches lockpicking; the government wants to "protect" people. But is picking a lock always a criminal act? Suppose a fire breaks out in a building and all the doors are locked. In such a situation, being able to pick a lock could be a lifesaving skill (as could being willing to throw a chair through a window, possibly).
How many women and girls are the victims of predatory violence each year? Would it be a bad thing if these women had a better knowledge of how to protect themselves from violent men? Or should they be denied the use of knives, gunes or commando killing techniques and simply consent to rape, battery, crippling or death? I don't think so.
I suppose on this issue you could put me down as a laissez-faire libertarian. I believe that people should have both the freedom and the freedom to act and full responsibility for their actions.
By the way, I do not know how to pick a lock, but I do know how to throw a chair through a window, and other stuff.
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Markfromcali
Misery your intuition is basically correct, however it's not that I don't think such information should not be available, (as if I personally have much control over that beyond what I personally reveal anyway) but rather that one needs to go in with a serious intention of developing a comprehensive understanding of both themselves and the information they are processing. At times you may find someone talking about something that you have better knowledge about, but the person talking about it is really just skimming and you're thinking "boy they're leaving out a bunch of stuff" or that they just don't really understand the subject. Depending on what's going on I guess you can share more to help the person understand, but if they're not really interested because they just like to show off or have some other agenda you personally may not be all that interested in adding more information simply because it's just going to create a more sophisticated sounding mess.
Anyway, because we're talking about info that could cause frenzy or some kind of psychological reaction it just makes sense to have some kind of foundation in place there. As I've said before with the JW issue I think the psychological understanding should be a part of how the info is disclosed since people do have issues around coping. If nothing else I just think it's good to talk about this kind of stuff at the same time so that a psychological context can be embedded in the way the info is presented since it's potentially world shattering for people, but I kind of wonder if that even goes far enough.
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Markfromcali
BTW the Jaron Lanier quote that "information is alienated experience" would be relevant here. Once again with the JW issue which we're all intimately aware, someone can gather info about the subject but the JW experience is quite another story.
Perhaps a related subject that would be of interest is censoring experience. Often people probably do find themselves in situations where it's just considered too messy to really be open to anothers experience, like say a homeless person or something where it's much easier to reduce people to a piece of information in your life agenda, which may itself be a reduction of your own life experience.
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AnneB
IMO, information (more properly, data) should never be censored however it should be presented at an appropriate time in an appropriate way (if possible).
Example: When my son was six we discovered that a child molester lived two doors away. He began to follow my son to and from school every day. As soon as I became aware of it I walked him to and from. When the molester tried to accost my son while he was in front of our own home we had to explain quite a lot of things that a six-year-old commonly wouldn't learn until he was much older. We wanted him to understand what the danger was, not just comply with our wishes blindly since, doing that, he might be put into a situation that we hadn't covered thus wouldn't know how to handle. Had we censored (held back information) he would have been even more vulnerable, more likely to be victimized. BTW, we moved soon after.
Give people information. If it's too much or too deep it will go right over their heads and no harm done. If, though, something comes along later they may just remember some of what they heard and it may be of assistance.