The Censorship Controversy

When Allen Ginsburg’s published his poem “Howl,” in the 1950s, the public did not respond very welcoming. Not only was the poem culturally shocking for its criticism of a psychially starved culture, but it was also excluded from most stores and libraries due to its obsenities. Thirty years later, the poem was broadcasted on the radio, over which the controversy arose yet again. The Federal Communications Commission posed a difficulty in the process, because of recent rulings on indecent language. Ginsberg himself was interviewed on this issue, and he takes a very rigid stance. Ginsberg called these rules intimidating and chilling for broadcasters and even went so far as to compare the United States government with the Soviet censorship bureaucracy. He claims that by regulating art, freedom of thought and speech is restricted, which should be a given right for a citizen of the United States, which claims to be a free country. Though a lot of people assume this issue has past, it is still very current and debated.