Honesty of Obscenity

“The battle of censorship will not be finally settled by your honor's decision, but you will either add to liberal-educated thinking, or by your decision you will add fuel to the fire of ignorance. Let there be light. Let there be honesty. Let there be no running from non-existent destroyers of morals. Let there be honest understanding.” 1:08

The lawyer of this trial finishes his beautiful speech about censorship with this quote and this could be used as defense for Howl and all of this books used in this course. People are not comfortable with subject matter in Howl, Lolita, etc. because the subject matter is uncomfortable. Allen Ginsberg seems to make the point in Howl that uncomfortable topics are what drive people and they should write about the feelings that are weighing on them. He wrote Howl to be true to himself and because of this Howl does have true literary merit. In the trial the prosecuting attorney seems to focus on the the subject matter as not relating first hand to Ginsberg as the character of Ginsberg tells snippets of the poem with stories showing how it relates to his life which begs the question: why not call Ginsberg to the trial to testify? The lawyer knows that this trial stands for all “obscene” literature and there will always be more works to come in the future. He makes the perfect point that banning this poem will not stop obscenity, but will hinder true liberty of opinions allowed to be expressed. Honesty, he seems to say, is not only the story but the vocabulary used to tell the whole story that contributes to the work as a whole.

Will the banning of this work add to liberal-educated thinking? Without this specific work will the world be ignorant? Is the use of obscene language enough to deem a whole work obscene? Did Ginsberg need to use obscenity to be honest?