Who Do You Want to Decide What You Can Read, See, or Hear?

I’m one of those voracious readers. Once I learned to read, I read everything. And other people can tell because there are words I say wrong, because I only read them, not heard them. (Which is sometimes hilarious!)

My folks decided they wouldn’t censor what I read as long as I talked to them when I was confused or upset. We had dictionaries and encyclopedias (yes, I am that old), so I looked up anything that confused me.

In high school and later in college, I met too many women who didn’t understand their bodies. They had several health problems: anorexia, STDs, and pregnancy. Why did they have these problems?

They were ignorant.

They didn’t know how their bodies worked. Often because their parents or religion decided what they could read, see, or hear.

These decisions have a name: censorship. In the Overton Window, that’s less intellectual freedom.

While I’m not fond of parents or religion censoring what children can read, see, or hear, I can see the perspective that the parent knows best. I disagree with that perspective because the world we live in is most decidedly not the world the parents grew up in.

However, ignorance has a huge cost.

The Costs of Ignorance

Think back to when you started to manage your own money. Hopefully, you had a similar experience as mine. My folks gave me an allowance from the time I was in kindergarten, so I had the experience of managing my money. How much did I want to spend on myself and how much on others? What about giving to charity?

By the time I was in high school, I had a clothing allowance and bought my own clothes. (Often, with my mother’s or sister’s guidance, because I have very little fashion sense. Sigh.)

But when I graduated from college, I had no debt, some savings, and I knew how to spend and save. Even before the retirement savings plans came along, I saved for retirement. (Yes, I am that old.)

Did I make mistakes? Of course, I did! I was inexperienced. Sometimes, I had more freedom than I was ready for. That’s one of the effects of the Overton Window.

But I made mistakes I could recover from. And I never made those mistakes again.

There’s a difference between ignorance and inexperience. The more ignorant we are, the less intellectual freedom we have, the more likely we make expensive mistakes.

On the other hand, even with intellectual freedom, we might have less experience. However, we are more likely to prevent and then recover from serious mistakes.

I bet you know people who don’t have “money sense,” who haven’t saved enough for retirement. Too often, those people don’t understand arithmetic, especially compounding interest. I think of that as a basic life skill.

But my girlfriends who made physical mistakes with their bodies? Some of those mistakes had lifetime non-recoverable consequences—including one death.

Ignorance is very expensive.

On the other hand, there are costs when everyone can read, see, and hear everything.

The Costs of Openness

The more open our family, community, and society, the more we can read, see, and hear everything. And that means we have the personal responsibility to choose not just what to read, see, and hear, but to choose how to act.

Someone might choose a personal action I disagree with. Unless their actions harm their family, our community, or our society, do I have the right to interfere with those actions? No.

If someone chooses to act in ways that harm others, we have options for how to bring those people to justice.

But censorship doesn’t prevent people from thinking. Instead, censorship prevents people from thinking critically, well, or clearly. Censorship creates a bubble where the people reinforce what they already know and close themselves off to new ideas.

Instead, if we are more open to reading, seeing, and hearing “everything,” we can see our reality. That allows us to discuss and choose how to respond.

When we don’t know our reality, we reinforce ignorance. That ignorance causes us to make too many mistakes that are too difficult, expensive—or impossible—to recover from.

Regardless of how you consume news and entertainment, I hope you enjoy or appreciate what you read, see, and hear. I hope you make choices that work for you. Because the costs of ignorance are way too high for any of us to bear.

Some people want to decide for others—and they will take that right, regardless of what you think. Who do you want to decide what you can read, see, or hear?