A couple of days ago, we published an opinionated and argumentative article on the benefits of censorship. We hoped you liked, and, to follow it up, we have another one for you right here. Use it in every group, in which you find yourself in AEGEE, or even in your personal life, because you should not take what you adore seriously; sacrality is evil.

Like in the previous article, we do not mean that all worship is morally objective, merely one small aspect of veneration, both religious and secular, that can have calamitous consequences. When worshipping, when venerating someone, something, or even yourself, it is extremely important that you do not become or think you cannot become immune to criticism; this is the fundamental danger of sacralisation.

This is a phenomenon that you are all familiar with; if not in yourself, you will have seen it in others. In the case of worshipping someone or something, you may have seen a situation in which, let’s say, a friend of yours has been obsessed with someone, for example, their romantic partner or their hobby. Let’s be clear here, there is nothing wrong with really liking the person with whom you’re in a relationship, but at a certain point the adoration can go so far that you cannot say anything critical about this person.

Some people like their partner so much that you cannot say stuff like that their significant other has behaved appallingly recently. The adoration of your friend for their significant other is so strong that they will not condone any criticism or any phrasing that deviates from the image of the significant other that your friend has created inside head. If your friend sees their partner as beautiful, kind and friendly, then every factual statement that you use to contradict that statement will not be excepted and will be seen as a secular equivalent of a sacrilege.

The main problem with sacralising someone or something happens when you take the sacralised person or object too seriously and start to project it in your head as infallible. The problem with infallibility is that it cannot be wrong in any way, and therefore cannot logically be critiqued for being flawed, even most minutely flawed. One of the best solutions to counter this problem is to accept that nothing is sacred, or at least not too sacred to be flawed.

To use a real life example: the paedophilia scandal in the catholic church was very hard to address for years, because the Church was too sacred to be investigated, until the reporters at the Boston Globe broke with the sacrality of the church. In order to address a negative aspect of a sacred person, object or institution, in this case the catholic Church, it was important to first acknowledge that the sacred could be flawed.

Another example can be seen in Bill Cosby’s rape scandal. For years, nobody dared to confront the alleged rapist, because he was too much adored to be criticised, until one woman came forward. Because she accused Cosby, he was no longer to sacred to accuse, and multiple other victims followed suit.

The idea of the sacred, however, is more banal than just the divine, celebrities or your person for intimate stuff; there are, arguably, also things in AEGEE that are venerated too much to touch. To name only one example, I once met a board of a local, and one of its members venerated the position of board member a bit too much.

The problem with this board member was that they reasoned that, because the board of this local was really actively engaged with its members, and, because the board spend a lot of time and resources on improving the local, they, as the centre of the local, were best to make decisions. And one could certainly construct a case for this reasoning.

The problem with this board member was that this person had become convinced of the sacrality of a board members infallibility that every decision a board member made or every opinion a board member had, was always better than what anyone else of a ‘lower rank’ made or had.

At the event that I was attending, this board member incessantly tried to change, although this person said “improve”, things that the organising committee had worked on for months. That is not to say that a board member is not allowed to comment on the work of a committee member, but it is not productive to try to fix something that is not broken, when the event is currently happening, in front of all the participants.

Nevertheless, because the position of board member was so sacred to this person, this board member continued to see any deviating opinion from this person as a sacrilege; humiliating the committee members and stonewalling and verbally bitch-slapping everyone who voiced their own thoughts. This included things like where to eat, if the group could split up during the group’s free time, or even whether a joke was funny.

The general take away from this article is simple and comes in three parts. One: worshipping or venerating someone, something or even yourself, to a point where the venerated person, object or institution becomes infallible, or too sacred to critique, is detrimental. Two: one way to counter an institution, object, person, or even yourself that has become immune to criticism, is to acknowledge that this thing, person or self is not too sacred to be flawed. Three: concepts, people, et cetera that are too sacred to critique are not limited to the divine or celebrities; it also happens in AEGEE.

Not everything is sacred, but everything is flawed, and this article is no exception. Would you like to respond to the arguments of this article or would you like to write your very own opinionated article about AEGEE or Europe? Ask about the possibilities at aegeean@aegee.org.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen

During some of our earlier years, we used to publish some opinionated and argumentative articles. Starting today, we are back with a brand new series of such articles with a topic that cannot but catch your attention by virtue of its controversial statement coming from a magazine; in defence of censorship. And yes… at times we have to censor things; sometimes necessarily, sometimes sadly so.

For this article, I am only going to talk in particular about the regulated censorship on profanity, because it is, in my opinion, the only kind that can arguably be defended. It is, however, also because it is the most publicly acknowledged and the most abundant kind of censorship in the Western media in the present and in the recent past.

With ‘regulated censorship on profanity’ is meant a certain set of rules that creators, editors, producers, et cetera of, for instance, media must follow as to not produce any content that would include, for example, curse words or references to addictive substances, sex or violence. Regulated, furthermore, means that a network or society has democratically decided to censor certain elements, generally, equally and in all circumstances.

The Beatles

I remain, however, resolutely opposed to any arbitrary censorship of any subject. Nevertheless, the main reason why I am not entirely inclined to universally condemn the regulated censorship on profanity, is because it led to people creatively and humorously bypass this censorship.

Firstly, it is important to realise that the prohibition of speaking about something, does not mean the prevention or restriction of that topic being spoken. Not being allowed to specifically sing about sex did not stop The Beatles from singing about sex. Whenever they sang lyrics like “happiness is like a ‘warm gun’. Bang bang, shoot shoot”, “baby, you can drive ‘my car’” or “and when I ‘touch’ you. I ‘feel happy’ inside”, one can easily see the sexual innuendos.

Alfred Hitchcock did something similar with his films. In North by Northwest (1959), there is a final scene where two characters are going to make love in a train. Around the moment of penetration, however, Hitchcock shows his audience a shot of the train entering a tunnel.

Final Scene from North by Northwest

This does not mean, however, that I think all media should be censored; especially if the profanity is in support of its content. In the song, Stan, by Eminem, for instance, I firmly believe that the lyrics “shut up bitch! I’m tryin’ to talk! Hey Slim, that’s my girlfriend screamin’ in the trunk. But I didn’t slit her throat, I just tied her up” are integral to the deranged persona of the character of Stan. Prohibiting this character from saying any profanities would make him, or at least his derangement, seem unbelievable, and it would, furthermore, lessen the song’s impact.

Nevertheless, I would argue that, while it might very well be frustrating to have to censor your work, it makes a creative product seem much more elegant than when the artist freely expresses, for instance, sexual content. Sex and violence should be able to be expressed in the media, but I would also like to point out that Hitchcock’s movies, to me, seem much more elegant -sometimes even more pleasant to watch- than, for instance, the overkill of titillating private parts in Game of Thrones.

Craig Ferguson

Secondly, it should be said that the regulated censorship of profanity, at times, can be quite silly and comedians have humorously pointed this out. One example is of Craig Ferguson, who, on television, announced that he would “draw something rude”. He then proceeded to slowly draw a penis, but in the end drew facial features and turned it into a silly-looking face.

Another time, Ferguson tested the censor again by turning his hand into a fist and by moving his arm back and forth, but with his knuckles pointing down; as if handling a frying pan. This was completely fine, until he proceeded with this same motion, but with the knuckles now pointing up.

Stephen Colbert similarly explored the silliness of this kind of censorship, drawing “two female breasts”  (two encircled dots). The image was blurred until he drew a nose and mouth underneath, and blurred again as he covered the nose and mouth with his hand.

Stephen Colbert

Colbert, furthermore, repeatedly explored the silliness of this kind of censorship by using witty wordplays, such as “clock block”, “now, it’s JAG-ed off”, “John McCain P.O.W., Donald Trump P.O.S.” The latter abbreviation being implied to stand for Piece Of Shit.

The fact that the regulated censorship of profanity gives comedians the opportunity to create silly sketches about it, seems, to me, a boon rather than a punishment. One might say that, even without the silliness of the censorship, comedians still have plenty enough material to work with. However, I would then like to point out that entire comedy groups have made a living on the silliness of society. Monty Python immediately comes to mind, but also A Bit of Fry and Laurie, in which Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie often made fun of the silliness of language. This includes one sketch where they, almost impossibly, had to describe an action without any innuendos.

The freedom of speech is one of our greatest assets. Yet, I would say that if, in certain cases, we can only indirectly speak freely, without any bit of information being lost, and add a lot of creative material about the silliness of our media because of the regulated censorship of profanity, I am all for it. I would not like to abridge the freedom of speech, but I think that we would collectively be poorer as a culture without the comedic material about how silly our lives and society are, including how silly censorship can be.

In short, while I believe that most censorship would obstruct (creative) speech, the regulated censorship on profanity does the opposite. Instead of stifling creativity, I would argue that it leads to an even greater creative output of delivering a message, which, in my opinion, thus becomes even more elegant.

Would you also like your opinion piece about AEGEE or Europe to be published? Ask about the possibilities at aegeean@aegee.org.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen