While I can't help but agree with most of Charles Taylor's points -- I quite often felt like a member of the choir to his preacher -- one glaring inaccuracy made me stumble a bit. He cites the ratings system used by the MPAA and the associated effects (such as lack of advertising for associated films), holding it up as a perfect example of unconstitutional behavior.

The MPAA and all businesses associated with it aren't part of the U.S. government. The MPAA can, as an order of business, require the studios to do pretty much anything it wants without worrying about the constitutionality of its actions. Anyone's free to make a film containing adult material -- the media outlets that aren't government-owned or -controlled can decide not to advertise it, distribute it, promote it or show it without trampling the filmmaker's rights. To call that "unconstitutional" is like saying that not passing on something told you by a friend is abridging the teller's rights.

-- Scott Thomas

The MPAA's rating system has many flaws, but it is not unconstitutional. The First Amendment applies only to efforts by the government to infringe on freedom of speech; it has no application whatsoever to a private program like that sponsored by the MPAA, a trade association made up of seven of the eight major film studios. Even those studios are free to disregard the ratings system -- movies like "Center of the World," for example, are released unrated so that they can include material that would have triggered an NC-17 rating but still advertise in newspapers. (The decision of newspapers not to run ads for NC-17 films is, of course, private action and in no way unconstitutional.) And parents are free to disregard the ratings as well. Any child can buy a ticket to a PG-13-rated movie and parents can bring any child to an R-rated movie if they think it is appropriate. Anyone who edits a film to take out material that would garner an NC-17 or requires that a movie funded by the studio qualify for a PG-13 rating is making a financial and marketing decision, not a moral or public policy decision. No censorship is involved.

Taylor's friend decides to remove some material that he considers improper to protect his 10-year-old niece. That is certainly not unconstitutional, and it is also not censorship. It is no different from putting plugs in the electrical sockets and locks on the medicine cabinet or saying "No television until your homework is done."

Taylor may disagree with his friend or the girl's parents on the level of protection needed for a particular child or a particular age group, but I hope he would defend to the death the right of anyone charged with the care of a child to make that decision without interference. He undercuts his own argument by making a distinction between the material his friend removed and Henry Miller or "The Story of O" and between young children and teenagers (or between 13-year-olds and 18-year-olds). So what he is really saying is that children should be protected from some material, just not material that he thinks is OK.

Taylor says, "There is not a shred, not an iota, not an atom of proof" that images can harm children. On the contrary: There have been well over 1,000 academic studies about the impact of media violence on children. You can read some of them here. No one is ever going to prove that the more violence a kid sees on television, the more likely he or she is to become violent -- there's an unsolvable cause-and-effect problem there. But the studies do show that watching violence has an impact on the way a child sees the world and on the ability to consider the impact of his or her actions on others.

And what kids see does influence what they do. So far in 2001 alone, a boy has been convicted of murder for trying out WWF moves on a little girl and three teenagers have been hospitalized for harming themselves by imitating the MTV show "Jackass." I suspect there may be girls out there who were inspired by Buffy (or Chandler and Monica or Joey and Pacey) to have sex with their boyfriends. Billions of dollars are spent each year on advertising designed to influence the behavior of adults, and much of what kids and teens consider "cool" comes to them through movies, television and radio. Is Taylor really willing to say that people are not influenced by what they see in the media?

Efforts to protect children have been awkward at best, counterproductive at worst. But that is no reason to give up. Taylor fails to make the kinds of thoughtful, substantive, fact-based arguments that could make a contribution and instead relies on generalization and attacks. I do have a sense of irony, and I find it ironic that he complains about censorship when an article like this one is available to anyone with a modem.

-- Nell Minow

Anyone involved in education knows that when you are teaching someone something, you have to start simply and build from there. The more they learn, the more complex information they are able to incorporate into what they have already learned.

This is why I shelter my children, why I don't teach them certain things that Taylor thinks would be OK for them. They are not ready for them. Yes, life is very complex and often contradictory. But children aren't ready for those contradictions or complexities.

As each one gets older, I let them have access to more information. But I like to control it. I do read reviews of movies, not really relying on the ratings system. I rely on the ratings on the back of videos at video stores. I like public assistance in knowing what is appropriate.

Taylor's fundamental error is that he thinks it's bad that my children have fewer rights than adults. But this is the case in many areas. My children can't vote. They can't buy alcohol or cigarettes, legally. They can't drive. My children have far fewer rights than I and this is OK. They are not ready for them yet. The problem with sex is that most children are not ready for it, even when they are 14 or 16. Sex is far more dangerous than driving a car. Just think of the AIDS epidemic in Africa or the growing incidence of divorce and broken families due to adultery. Look at Holland, where the incidence of incest has skyrocketed and where penalties for it have weakened to the point of insignificance.

Sex is not some neutral pleasurable activity. It has very complex ramifications. My children know how babies are made, but there is a whole lot about sex they don't know. When they are ready they will know. The problem is that many children get this information or experience before they are ready. We as a society have an obligation to prevent this.

-- Richard W.D. Ganton

Even though I only have a B.A. in psychology, Taylor's review of the research on entertainment and violence is a vast oversimplification, and definitely misleading.

But even so, I find something more problematic in his type of debate. Is the right to free speech really the right to make disgusting sexual jokes or obscenity in public entertainment? I don't believe that the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment to specifically defend obscenity. Rather, the First Amendment is our right to criticize the government. This is a right that has been shirked by the public media, which seldom seems to take its responsibility to scrutinize certain public figures to the needed extent, while overblowing "sensational" stories.

As for entertainment, I find the obscenity that laces through our entertainment to be nothing short of laziness on the part of the writers. Why work hard to find a clever plot when you can make the audience laugh by just screaming out four-letter words? "Shrek," one of the more recent "children's" movies, also indulges in this kind of toilet humor. Considering its power in animation, the toilet humor jokes were totally unnecessary. But they were in there, it seems, because the creators could get away with it. And of course they could, as entertainment has deteriorated to the point where nearly every movie indulges in this type of vile humor. George Lucas didn't have to make jokes about people stepping in dog doo during the original "Star Wars" trilogy, but somehow this was "funny" for the "Phantom Menace." But did this communicate anything important, to see Jar Jar Binks placing his foot where he shouldn't? So much of the vulgarity is just simply unnecessary. And children will become desensitized to sex and violence. Just ask any teacher who hears children repeating the lyrics of certain rap musicians. Meanwhile, stories of real relevance, concerning the fate of our democracy, will be swept under the rug. This is where more free speech is needed, not less.

-- Benjamin Epstein

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"