FREE EXPRESSION

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From Senator McCarthy’s "witch-hunts" in the 1950s to Mayor Giuliani’s censorship practices in the 1990s, creative freedom, diversity and experimentation has often been misunderstood, feared, even threatened -- especially when it’s challenged the status quo. Here are some amusing -- and amazing – reactions to such art.

"It is not the function of art to wallow in dirt for dirt’s sake, never its task to paint men only in states of decay, to draw cretins as the symbol of motherhood, to picture hunchbacked idiots as representatives of manly strength… Art must be the handmaiden of sublimity and beauty and thus promote whatever is natural and healthy. If art does not do this, then any money spent on it is squandered."
 
-- Adolf Hitler
Speech at Nuremberg Rally, 1935
 

"Positivity and harmony last forever; negativity and dissonance die an ugly death."
 
-- Mike Love
The Beach Boys: An American Family
 

"Help save the youth of America. Don’t buy negro records. The screaming, idiotic words and savage music of these records are undermining the morals of our white youth in America. Call the advertisers of the radio stations that play this type of music and complain to them!"
 
-- Segregationists’ propaganda, early 1960s

 
"If I could find some way constitutionally to do away with it I would."
 
-- U.S. Senator Ernest (Fritz) Hollings
Senate PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) hearings, 1985
in response to "objectionable" lyrics

 
"It seems to me that musicians who use odd time signatures are just trying to disturb people."
 
-- Recording engineer

 
"I don’t even acknowledge the fellow who did this [artwork] was an artist."

-- U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, 1989
 in sponsoring a Constitutional amendment to censor art and withhold NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) funding

 
"I only listen to music I’ve heard before."
 
-- Pop singer

By contrast, the following can be seen as a response to issues of censorship or other forms of artistic restriction.

"The more a taboo is broken, the more it loses its power.”

-- Lenny Bruce

"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us…  Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do…  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."