We’ve all encountered our fair share of controversy. Some more obvious than others, and some you wonder why they’re even controversial at all. Well, that’s the thing about those uncertainties, they’re sometimes completely subjective to our perspective.
So when the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) experienced its dose of controversy, their policies were questioned. A local patron complained about a man viewing pornography in public, but as the complaint went through, the patron discovered that the Ottawa Public Library neither prohibits nor bans the viewing of pornography. It’s important to mention that the patron was a mother complaining on the behalf of her children who saw said content in the confines of a public library.
Now the OPL has taken a few initiatives to avoid this incident from happening again. One includes them asking the viewer to turn off anything that may be deemed offensive, such as violent and sexual behavior and/or threatening language.
So here we stand at this week’s blurred line. Should we be waving our freedom flags or should we frown upon such explicit content? In public, of course.
Well, just like grey areas, the answer isn’t that simple. Let’s start with the most obvious question then. Should censorship be justified when in regards to children? Does it even make a difference? One could argue that with the rise of technology and its accessibility, children are a lot more exposed than we think. But shouldn’t public libraries at least try and shield them from such things?
The answer lies within our second question: should we start censoring? The OPL says no. According to a CBC Ottawa article, the OPL believes that monitoring and censoring content is not a solution and that they have been proven to be ineffective. So, now we have the OPL respecting public freedom, but at the expense of others.
Usually explicit content is anything that involves strong and/or discriminatory language, references to violence (physical and mental abuse), and sexualized behaviour. So, when you see that explicit content sign on your new favourite album or top-rated movie, you know exactly what you’re walking into. This gives you a choice: whether you want to be exposed to such an environment or whether you want to pass and stick to the softer things.
But out in the streets of Ottawa, you really can’t control what you hear, see or even smell, from cheerful good mornings and careless laughter to strong language and offensive gestures, unless you decide to censor.
For me, prohibiting people from viewing what they want in public is one step closer to active censorship. Because when you censor one thing, you can easily find yourself signing a petition to censor another thing that only a collective number of people find disturbing as well.
There isn’t a universal form of disgust amongst us so we can all casually agree to what should be censored and what should not. And there never will be. That’s the thing about us humans and human nature itself. It was not meant to be so uniform. It’s a small speck of an action that I’m exaggerating, but sometimes those tiny actions hide deeper and more problematic outcomes.
So, just like the movies you decide to watch or the albums you want to buy, you can only be responsible for yourself. You can choose to shy away from that kind of exposure, but you cannot choose what to censor for others. I’m not saying that we should turn the public library into a national Pornhub station, but there’s a thick line between proper behaviour in public areas and full-on derogatory, offensive, and/or life-threatening antics.
So next time, I see someone wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ cap in public, I just suck it up and respect their freedom, so I can wear my ‘Down with Trump’ shirt peacefully as well.
