Reading Lolita at Guantanamo or, This Page Cannot Be Displayed

Abstract

The familiar question, whether it makes any sense at all to say that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, sheds light on an apparently unrelated issue: the peculiar self-deceptions that underlie the practice of the "war on terror." Depictions of evil that make evil attractive are troublesome. But if the law polices what we see to be sure that we never feel empathy with evil people, then we cannot see our own temptations. The comfortable, secure belief in our own innocence is the most insidious temptation of all. Next to that, the seductiveness of sex is pretty tame.

Keywords: pornography, obscenity, first amendment

JEL Classification: K1, K10, K19, K3, K39