Censorship

Editors note: These two letters, by the same reader, were delivered separately but have been included together because they are written about similar themes. The latter is critical of the Littlehampton Academy’s decision to teach the play 4.48 Psychosis, as reported in the Gazette last week. However, many people who commented on the Gazette’s Facebook page have supported the decision to teach the play.

There is something which always amazes me whenever I come across it – the labelling of adult-only, i.e. pornographic items and literature, as ‘adult’.

It surprises me even more that so few people complain about the blatant mis-labelling. There is children’s literature and there is adult literature.

If books are adult reading, they could be set for school-leaving examinations, as they are part of the standard reading of the adult community.

Are we now supposed to accept that War and Peace and Fifty Shades of Grey are the same sort of thing?

How about the diaries of Belle de Jour going on the secondary school syllabus?

There should be a clear difference in attitude and labelling between standard and pornographic – and there used to be.

This linguistic change is more serious than the silliness of following the verb ‘to free’ with ‘up’ or having ‘a weather event’ instead of having weather.

Palming us off with adult-only items labelled as standard adult ones is a conscious degrading of taste and ethics (and probbly an attempt by industry to make prospective purchasers feel at home). More people should be objecting to the lack of differentiation before it is too late and the younger generation really starts to think to be an adult means to be pornographic.

Regarding Littlehampton Academy: teachers are in ‘loco parentis’ – replacing parents.

Does anyone think parents of mid-teens would choose an obscenity-laden, unwholesome book as a study subject for them?

It is time for cinema-type censorship on school literature.

Developing brains are vulnerable and schools are meant to produce well-balanced young people who can express themselves effectively in standard English and fit into society.

How is analysing the obscene machinations of an unhealthy mind going to contribute to this?

Jacqueline Deeks

Bryn Hir

Rustington

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