 Blind gatekeeper
You must guard the public from thoughts
and words which are patently obscene and offensive
By Je Sea
April 22, 2004
iranian.com
Dear Editor,
I would like to lend my voice to the rising chorus
of criticism that has been heard from many quarters in response
to the salacious content contained in Iranian.com's
recently published articles; "Guys
are stupid" and "Use
your brain".
I shan't, however, join those who have, unequivocally and
unambiguously expressed to the author, via your
letters,
their absolute revulsion with her personal mores and
values as well as the licentious nature of her articles. No,
she has been upbraided enough.
You, on the other hand, have
not.
What were you thinking when you made the decision to give this
young, perhaps disturbed, and most certainly deviant, woman a public
platform to espouse her reprehensible and morally bankrupt views
on healthy interpersonal relationships between men and women? In
my estimation, sir, you have wholly abrogated your editorial responsibilities
to your readers, to the world-wide Iranian community, to young
women everywhere, and most importantly to Mitra, herself.
Before I discuss the harm that each of these parties has suffered
at your hands, I
would like to explain what I believe your proper function should be as the editor
of iranian.com and what your responsibility is to those of us who patronize iranian.com
both as regular readers and/or contributors.
First, however, I
think I ought to clearly state that I am in no way encouraging
or endorsing censorship
in any way, shape or form. I tell you this now because I wish to avoid any confusion
on your part which might cause you to mistakenly believe that I am in favor of
censorship. To my mind, the responsibilities incumbent upon any editor do
not include the right to censor the freely expressed words, thoughts and ideas
of others.
A censor, in the most pejorative sense of the word,
is one who inhibits or suppresses the free flow of ideas that are
of import or merit within
any community. Unlike a censor, I believe that any idea having the most
minimal degree of redeeming worth or value should take its rightful
place in the marketplace of social thought and discourse. This does not
mean, though, that I believe that every thought which can be conceived within
the deep recesses of the human mind possesses a redeeming quality making it worthy
of public circulation.
Unconventional ideas, unorthodox ideas, even ideas which are hateful and
despicable to the prevailing climate of public opinion should be
and must be afforded the right to open and public discussion, or we risk
one of our
most cherished freedoms; the right to voice our opinions and ideas
freely and without fear of persecution or retribution. Any idea sufficiently
consequential to make it worthy of widespread currency must possess one essential
expository element without which the thought deserves to remain exclusively
within the private sphere.
That simple element is that the thought or idea
must seek to broaden the scope of human knowledge, to influence
prevailing opinions,
to entertain, to uplift, to inspire, to warn, to advise, or to sincerely
search for some, heretofore, unrevealed truth. Neither of Mitra's
submissions
did any of these, unfortunately. It is not her fault, however, that you gave
credence to her prurient prattle. Your exercise in editorial and expository
egalitarianism
has proved to be little more than the equivalent of intellectual masturbation.
Just as nothing blossoms from any act of self-gratification, nothing good
has resulted from your lack of sound judgment in vetting and approving
these two
articles for publication.
Your dearth of sound judgment mocks the spirit of free speech when you disseminate
material of such a sexually explicit nature as represented by the recent
writings of Mitra. I need not lecture you about the millions in Iran who
are denied the fundamental human right to speak freely, which you abuse
in such a cavalier and unconscionable manner. How many Iranians have paid with
their lives during the past 25 years to give your people this very right
which you so flippantly toy with?
You, in your capacity as Editor, are a gatekeeper. You have the responsibility
to guard the public from being assaulted by thoughts and words in you publication
which are patently obscene and offensive unless of course such materials
have even a scintilla of redeeming social value in one of the many
fields of human thought and enquiry that exist today.
When,
however, lewd and obscene thoughts and ideas are not essential to the exposition
of socially relevant discourse and bereft of any purpose other than to
shock the senses with prurient subject matter, then you are obliged
to exercise your
authority as gatekeeper and reject any such submission. Surely articles
of a grossly lascivious nature can find a home amongst the plethora
of sexually explicit
publications and web sites found everywhere today. Such publications specialize
in the circulation of sexually tantalizing material and to subscribers
that are specifically interested in a shocking, sexually explicit
genre of writing.
Not for one second, do I deny Mitra's right express herself in
an obscene and vulgar style of discourse. Far too many young soldiers
from western nations, over the years, have paid with their lives and with
their blood
to protect her right to speak in such a manner. On the other hand,
I do challenge your unwarranted assault on the sensibilities of your
unsuspecting readers by publishing not once, but twice her socially
unredeeming commentaries vis-a-vis your unfettered failure to live up to
your gate keeping obligations.
Try as you might, you can't hide behind iranian.com's all-encompassing
mantra "Nothing is Sacred" in hopes of evading your ethical duties
to your readers. We, your readers have an unwritten contract with iranian.com.
We will continue to read and from time to time contribute to iranian.com as
long as it remains fresh and socially relevant. While iranian.com should
be proud of its eclectic approach to journalism, it must not make the one
unforgivable
and fatal mistake that any publication can commit and that is to take its
readers for granted.
No one ought to feel aggrieved or taken
for granted when iranian.com merely gives a platform to an unpopular
speaker, or to a speaker
espousing unpopular ideas. However, when iranian.com gives a speaker
who has nothing to contribute to the marketplace of socially relevant
thoughts
and ideas,
a platform from which to the assault the sensibilities of the many thousands
of its readers with vulgar language and unseemly tales of sexual intercourse,
then one may in all fairness feel that they have been taken for granted.
Iranian.com has published many articles and
photographs, in past issues, which have dealt with sexually
explicit images, words, thoughts, and ideas. None of these can
legitimately
be regarded as obscene or offensive because each
one attempted to expand the rubric of intellectual exchange and social
discourse in some redeemable way. Whether one is talking about subjects
as diverse as medicine, art, literature, human psychology, or any other area
of human inquiry, the notion of sex, sexual acts or one's beliefs,
morals and ideas related to sex may very well serve a legitimate
and essential element of public discourse. Such was not the case with
the two articles written by Mitra.
Why should iranian.com be concerned when it publishes
articles like those of Ms. Mitra? Because someone is always harmed
and in this instance
a
number of
people have been harmed. While I do not suppose that this list is
exhaustive, I would
like to briefly discuss how you have harmed each one.
First, by publishing
Ms. Mitra's articles iranian.com has encouraged her to continue
pursuing a course of personal behavior which may very well prove
highly
damaging to
her reputation as well as her physical and mental health. This
young women has now been held up to public scorn and ridicule in
every
corner of the
world. This
was only made possible by iranian.com's printing of her unfortunate
articles.
Second, by printing these articles iranian.com has
given Mitra a
loud voice and powerful platform with which to influence the
behavior of young
women around
the world. Parents worldwide can only pray that their daughters
who read "Use
your brain" will not heed Mitra's advice that
they should
acquire
as
many sexual partners as they can and as quickly as possible.
This kind of reckless and injurious advice completely ignores
the potential
ruin
of a girl's
reputation (especially an Iranian girl) as well as the very real
danger of contracting a sexually transmitted disease and being
burdened with
an unwanted
pregnancy.
Third, you have injured the worldwide Iranian community.
By peddling smut under the banner of iranian.com you invite scorn
upon the entire
Iranian community,
especially by those who don't personally know an Iranian, or are
unaware that
many
individual Iranians were dismayed with iranian.com's publication
of these articles. You make the descendants of the great and noble
Persian civilizations
of the past appear to be a people unworthy of respect in the modern
world.
Moreover, iranian.com has harmed and confused the
generation of Iranian children (including
my children who are half-Iranian) that have grown up outside of
Iran, through its promotion of behavior which most Iranian and
mixed-Iranian
families find
morally unacceptable. Iranian parents throughout the world struggle
daily to impart to their foreign-born children both Persian values
and family values as
well as a pride in what it means to be Iranian. When iranian.com
publishes socially unredeeming articles of the kind written by
Mitra, it undermines the efforts
made by millions of Iranian mothers and/or fathers everywhere and
it doesn't make it much easier on those of us who are the non-Iranian
parent of Iranian
children.
Many people of good conscious in Western countries are fighting
as hard as they can against the ever increasing levels of moral
impoverishment
and decay
afflicting
their cultures. These people would warmly welcome you as an ally
in their
struggle to combat any further moral degradation of their once
proud cultures. Bringing
an Iranian cultural perspective to computer screens around the
world, iranian.com has a unique opportunity to bring a breath of
fresh air
to English-language
journalism every week.
Why would iranian.com want to jump head
first into the
muck and mire
of Western sextoxication when it can just as easily take the journalistic
high-road? By taking the road less traveled, iranian.com would
help in a very meaningful
way to shape the minds and morals of the next generation of Iranian
intellectuals and leaders worldwide. Moreover, you as editor could
help to morally
fortify the culture of the country that helped you when you needed
it. Iranian.com
can and should always see itself as being part of the solution
rather than as being part of the problem.
.................... Say
goodbye to spam!
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Blind gatekeeper
