joejohnston ● us

How quaint.  I wrote about Banned Book Week in October when Marian, the Librarian proclaimed an entire week to rail against the evils of censorship.  During that same week, non-Christians worldwide celebrated International Blasphemy Day supposedly as a protest to censorship, but really bordering on “hate-speech” against the Christian God.  Even the founder of the sponsoring organization, Paul Kurtz, found the “celebration” objectionable – to say the least (Paul Kurtz Blasts Blasphemy Day).  It wasn’t and isn’t clear how promoting “hate speech” against Christianity had any impact on proposals to bar similar speech – even merely criticism – against religion in general (primarily Islam).  It seemed that censorship was regarded as a bad thing.

In the case of Banned Book Week, it is claimed fairly universally that any attempt to remove, or even disapprove, of a book in the library is to censor it. International Blasphemy Day was supposedly a reaction to attempts to limit free speech about religion – censor it. So can we conclude from these protests that censorship is bad?

What is Censorship?

Dictionary.com defines a censor as:

1. an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.  (To definition 2, we should add person or pressure group.)

The key concepts in the definitions above involve the suppression (sometimes referred to as prior restraint).  Further, this suppression is based on moral, political, military or other grounds.  In all cases, to censor is to limit free speech regardless of whether that limitation is justified.  Justifying the limiting of free speech is a tall order for some, but for others it’s real easy.

Another so-called dictum – related to censorship — has developed.  That is the right “not to be offended.”  People routinely cite their “offense” or in some cases “possible offense” to, in effect, stifle free speech.  This topic could be an entire article, but let’s just keep it on the burner. (see The Right Not To Be Offended).

Another item for the burner is a rather sophisticated version of an ad hominem attack.  An ad hominem attack is one that sidesteps issues in favor of discrediting the opponents.  We’ll get to the details, but it boils down to assumptions about another and imputing all kinds of motives to them – uh, not in a good way!.

The topic of both attempts at censorship and the rationale of not being offended shall be a part of this discussion of the controversy over the so-far unseen Super Bowl ad about Tim Tebow.  This 30-second ad is being paid for by Focus on the Family, an admittedly conservative Christian organization.

Most of the furor, in the absence of not seeing the ad, can be pretty much ascribe to ad hominem assumptions based on preconceived opinions of the advertiser, Focus on the Family.

Let’s start with the issue of “not being offended.”  Below is a list of Super Bowl 2010 advertisers.  Without seeing their ads, let’s delve into their possible offense

Anheuser-Busch – 5 minutes:  Uses sports figure (Lance Armstrong), a helping-hand community, and a “good times heritage” to promote beer drinking.
Audi – one 60 second spot:  A rock group in promote the car.
Boost Mobile – one 30 second spot: sports celebrities promote the company in song and dance.
Bridgestone – Sponsoring the half-time appearance of The Who.
Cars.com – one 60 second spot:  “helping” people buy cars.
Hyundai – two 30 second during-game spots, two 5 second billboards, pregame show spots.
Chrysler – Dodge – one 30 second spot “with a message of irreverence.”
Volkswagen -
Coca-Cola – two 60 second spots including one with a character from “The Simpsons” teaching valuable lessons about enjoying life
Denny’s Restaurants – two 30 second and one 15 second spot offering a free Grand Slam breakfast in February 
Diamond Foods – Pop Secret Popcorn 
Mars – Snickers
Doritos -
E*Trade, FLO TV, Focus on the Family, GoDaddy.com – The Girl again, Dockers – khaki pants or no pants. HomeAway – Vacation, Intel, kgb, Monster.com, Careerbuilder  Motorola, Teleflora – send flowers via the internet, truTV, U.S. Census Bureau, Viacom & Paramount Pictures, Vizio,  (NOTE: Different sources have slightly different lists of advertisers.  It’s not necessary for our purposes to fact check any further.)

Before we talk about the Tebow ad in question, let’s look at all of the advertisers and see if their ads have at least the potential for offense.  Clearly if their ads have the potential for offense – or if it can be shown their motivations for advertising are suspect – then perhaps we should broaden the controversy to include more ads.

Many, Many Beer Ads
I’M OFFENDED!  The Anheuser-Bush ads are glamorizing beer swilling by using glamorous athletes and the glamour of the Super Bowl to promote a practice known to have ill health effects.  Authorities nationwide have written ubiquitously on how these types of ads – especially the ones in the Super Bowl emphasizing the “good time heritage” of beer – encourage binge drinking among many, especially the young – and perhaps women who are pregnant.

Cars, Cars, Cars
I’M OFFENDED!  In an era when there are worldwide scientific meetings about the damaging effects of carbon emissions and global warming, we have multiple ads encouraging not only car ownership, but implicitly discouraging more “green” modes of transportation  Don’t the Super Bowl authorities care about global warming?  How can we in this event designed to “unite America,” at least by implication, discredit greener transportation in favor of individual car ownership?  A “green car” is only a relative improvement, but not nearly as important as breaking the one person, one car norm in America.

Food, Food, But Not Healthy Food
I’M OFFENDED!  Every time a public service announcement comes on, there’s a good chance it’s about the ravages of poor nutrition, high fat diets, childhood obesity and scores of other “you’re not eating healthy” messages. Denny’s is giving away Grand Slam breakfasts.  Is this a healthy way to eat  (795 calories, 50 grams of fat, 65 carbs and only 35 grams of protein)?   Not even necessary to discuss Doritos, Snickers, sugared up soda (pop),and maybe even tacos.  Why are we preaching healthy (and even threatening to tax unhealthy foods) while promoting quite the opposite?

ALL Ads Have One Goal
It would be easy to take offense at most of the ads for one reason or another.  The clothing ads create status symbols of clothing and thus widen the rich-poor gap.  Many – if not all – ads compel you to associate a desirable attribute to a product whether the connection is real or stupid.  For example, how sexy is a domain name sales company? 

But all ads promote all the positives and sidestep the negatives.  In short, all advertising is designed to persuade.  To criticize an ad for this is ridiculous!

Further, all ads are advocacy ads – the only issue is your opinion thereof.  It does no good to try to make products distinct from other issues as products are behaviors in their consumers.

No one has seen the ad to be broadcast during the Super Bowl about Tebow.  The rumor mill indicates a discussion of the mother’s choice to have the child rather than abort it.

In spite of not seeing the ad,Terry O’Neill of NOW, is sure she knows plenty about it.

Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said she had respect for the private choices made by women such as Pam Tebow but condemned the planned ad as “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.”

“That’s not being respectful of other people’s lives,” O’Neill said. “It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else’s.”

(NOW doesn’t have any opinion of what way is better, apparently. OR, they presume everybody agrees with them.)  In spite of not seeing the ad, her assertion that it is “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning” leaves a lot of questions.  Does Ms. O’Neill find any assertion that is not in agreement with her offensive?  If someone has the colossal nerve to have a differing opinion, does this demean Ms. O’Neill?  Beyond that, “offensive and demeaning” to who?  There are clearly many who find pro-abortion opinions as offensive and demeaning to defenseless not-quite-newborns. 

Ms. O’Neill asserts that what is offensive is holding one way out as being a superior way.”  Puzzling.  If holding out pro-life as being superior is offensive so is holding out pro-choice.  And we don’t even know if that is actually in the ad.  We (actually they)  ad hominem presume based on the ads sponsors.  Ms. O’Neill is clearly guilty of what she accuses the Toboy’s and Focus on the Family  of doing.  In fact, if thinking-one-way-is-superior is a justification for not running an ad, then any beer company other then Anheuser-Busch, any temperance organization, any car company not represented in the ads, any domain name registrar, any health food provider, can use the same complaint to squash any competing ad.  All ads are promoting a life-choice.  Swilling beer, driving a carbon-emitting car, eating chips, and eating a high-fat meal are all ways of doing things. The  NOW organization are not the only whiners here.

In spite of not seeing the actual ad, the Women’s Media Center commented thusly in a letter to CBS:

“It (the ad) uses one family’s story to dictate morality to the American public, and encourages young women to disregard medical advice, putting their lives at risk,” said the letter sent to CBS by the Women’s Media Center.

Here’s the puzzle.  There is no possible way to know what the ad says.  So accusations, in the absence of the precise wording, are premature at best. Also, accusing the ad of putting lives “at risk” is a bit of an overstatement.  This women’s group knows what the ad might say and that’s enough for them.

Lest you think  the Women’s Media Center was harmlessly advising caution, the next quote will show that – without seeing the ad – they want to pressure against running it:

“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year — an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jehmu Greene, president of the New York-based Women’s Media Center.

Every single ad in the Super Bowl is “using sports.”  A television ad is always in the context of a televised event.  Ads “use” the event.  That’s why we tolerate ads.   Further, by definition, most – if not all – ads are seeking to divide.  Anheuser-Busch – whether consciously or not – is seeking to differentiate beer drinkers and make those not drinking a certain product to feel stupid or inferior in some way.  GoDaddy is dividing domain name registrars.  Diamond foods wants to divide snackers into healthier and not so healthy (to Doritos detriment).

So it seems the president of the Women’s Media Center should be against all sports advertising because it all uses sports to divide rather than unite.  This is not a valid argument or even valid point.

By the way, who really thinks, let alone knows, the Super Bowl was designed to bring Americans together?  This was neither its purpose nor even of any design.  Two teams are competing — one will win, one will lose.  At least half of the spectators will be separated from the rest by the outcome of the game.  This argument contains at least one logical fallacy. Have the good people at the Women’s Media Center never seen the reports of violence at sporting events?

Makes one wonder if the nature of sports – especially football – is understood by these women.  Sports might unite a team.  Sports might unite a group of fans.  Sports won’t unite – nor could it – unite humanity.

By the way, telling about one person’s decision not to abort isn’t “un-uniting” America.  It is not “using sports” any more than any other ad.  Some “might” be put off by the ad, but just as many won’t be.  In spite of delusions to the contrary, America is already very divided on this topic.

The furor over the Tebow ad is nothing more than not-so-subtle attempts to strong-arm the network.  In other words, coerse the network to CENSOR.  This is a pressure move about one point of view.  The “shoulds” and “oughts” they use to argue their case are not even close to valid.

Every complaint about sex or violence on TV or in the movies has usually been met by one or more variations of “Don’t watch then.”  This has been nothing more than “porcupining” the argument.  But let’s use that same argument.  Anyone objecting to the ad – rather than resorting to prior restraint cenoring – should take that advise:  Hit the mute button, flip to another channel, or just let somebody beside you have the right to free speech.  Or, while the commercial is on, you can start writing your pressure-letter to any producer who advertises products injurious to women’s health (there’s plenty of them  just in the Super Bowl).

–Joe Johnston Sr.

Tags: blasphemy, censorship, hate speech, National Organization for Women, Pam Tebow, prior restraint, pro-choice, pro-life
Filed under: Rants About the News