In the 1970s, I recall listening to a radio interview with the ‘beat’ writer William S. Burroughs in which he was asked if he thought that censorship was ever warranted.
Obviously, this was a question that the author had more than a passing interest in since his uncompromising accounts of hard drug use and gay sex meant that his novels constantly fell foul of obscenity laws.
His answer to the question was a categorical ‘NO’. In his view, censorship was never justified.
At the time, I thought his was an overly extreme position. Surely there were some instances where censorship was needed to protect the public from words or images which, to use the words of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, “tend to deprave or corrupt persons”. Now, I am inclined to agree with Mr Burroughs. Continue reading
