Sta,--It seems to me that Mr. Joyce Cary is scarcely
objective in his article on this current problem. His main thesis that, in his own words, 'the answer to evil of any kind is not concealment, evasion, but knowledge and edu- cation,' is open to question. Surely education must be selective: a teacher must direct his pupils' interest along what are, in his judge- ment, healthy lines! 'When we have shown the children how to assess them, they are se- cure against far more seductive dangers.' But are they? Familiarity may breed contempt: it may, on the other hand, make the horror- comic mentality normal and commonplace.
Those of the 'Any Questions?' team who defended the unbridled freedom of the press maintained that it was only the public who could control it : • it was their demand for pornography and sadism that created supply. Could one say, then, that the public demand for TV created it? Or did something supplied please as a licensed novelty, and create the demand? In less desirable matters opportunity may be the father of temptation.
There is danger in the theory that all know- ledge is per se desirable—that being fore- warned as to what can be quickly achieved with a cosh, or even more lethal instrument, is being forearmed against using it. Would leading youth to familiarity with night-life in the purlieus of Leicester Square secure him from seductive dangers?
Whether this particular Censorship Bill is the best way of dealing with the influence of horror comics I wouldn't know. But those who think something should be don vz about it are not, Mr. Cary, necessarily 'fascist reaction- aries.' They do not 'hate liberty of thought, liberty of publication, liberty of experience': they are concerned lest such liberties become licence in those activities. Liberty can never be absolute.—Yours faithfully,
New Milton, Hants
F. D. MERRALLS
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