Derek Box poses a very troubling and relevant
question in his essay “Protecting Freedom of Expression on
Campus”. As with any other issue regarding censorship, we face
the dilemma of choosing between total freedom to express even that
which violates or offends others, or opting to censor material and
allowing ourselves to step a few precious inches down that slippery
slope to a society without the freedom of creative thought and
expression.
The
question is posed to the reader how we ought to respond to offensive
misconduct of others, allowing us to make the hypothetical decision
between a society of anarchy and delinquency or one choked of human
expression. We are allowed to tarry for a moment in a world of our
own mind’s creation; do we chose to ignore the offensives
expressions as the text suggests, and clothes ourselves with the
blinders of a world too seduced by the impossible idea of an utopia
to see mere rebellion before their eyes? Or do we sentence ourselves
to a world void of expression by allowing ourselves the indulgence of
professing we hold authority great enough to judge another’s
expression as worthy or unworthy.
To me it
appears as a catch-22. While Box certainly makes a point in stating
that students on campuses shouldn’t have fewer or greater
rights than a person in the surrounding society. I can only revert to
the plan supposed so long ago by much greater minds than mine when I
say that free expression, whatever that expression is, should be
allowed provided that it does no physical harm.
