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Entry: Free Speech and Filters Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/free_speech_and_filters#1281 Post contents: You may be barking at the wrong tree. The filth in mass media is a symptom, not a cause. Producers put out this stuff, because they have to get an audience to get money from advertisers, and by trial and error they have learned that filth and insults get people to tune in. Don't despair, however. Twice in its history Europe has grown more moral. The first time was in the late medieval period. (See last two chapters of Peter Burke, "Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe.") The second time was in the late eighteenth century, when the remarkably dissolute Englishmen of the enlightenment turned into Victorians. There was a period around 1800, when older members of the House of Lords had to be careful with their language, so they would not shock the strict moral sensibilities of the younger lords. The most intriguing aspect of this movement toward morality is that it happened in the top elite, i.e., in people who could not be compelled. These people appear to have concluded that there was something wrong with the dissolutenes, and as a result they adopted a strict, quite ascetical, religion-based morality. This change was totally voluntary. The slide toward decadence is by no means a one-way street. Sent at: 2009 01 07