During this week’s Debate Club, students and teachers discussed the question ‘Should art ever be censored?’ 

Although the initial discussion was in response to recent media coverage of the film Fight Club and how it has been given an altered ending in China, the dialogue quickly switched to consider broader questions: ‘What is art?’, ‘To whom does it belong?’, ‘Who has the responsibility and choice of censorship?’ and ‘Can censorship ever truly exist in the age of the internet?’ 

Despite feeling that censorship was wrong at the beginning of the debate, the group developed a more nuanced argument about its place in society – both positive and negative – concluding that we have to negotiate a fine balance between respecting the laws of a particular place, without limiting ourselves to a narrow world view. Ultimately, they agreed that we all have the right and responsibility to choose what information we access.