William O. Douglas

“ There is real irony in the fact that Fanny Hill, a rather naive young girl who becomes a prostitute, finds warmth, understanding and the meaning of love and faithfulness amid surroundings and situations which the society, as a whole, condemns as debased and depraved. The world outside the brothel afirms its faith in the dignity of man, but people are often treated as worthless and unimportant creatures. ”

“ As I read the First Amendment, judges cannot gear the literary diet of an entire nation to whatever tepid stuff is incapable of triggering the most demented mind. The First Amendment demands more than a horrible example or two of the perpetrator of a crime of sexual violence, in whose pocket is found a pornographic book, before it allows the Nation to be saddled with a regime of censorship. ”

“ The 'Peale approach' to life breeds contentment, for it suggests that each one of us can be certain as to what is good and true. Standards for thinking and behavior are available and all we need to do is appropriate them for our use. In a day when life is marked by chaos and confusion, this viewpoint offers much in the way of comfort and satisfaction. There is only one trouble with it, however, and that is that it results in conformity, rigid behavior and a lack of understanding. ”

“ On the basis of these few cases, one cannot say that the common-law doctrines with regard to publication of obscenity were anything but uncertain. 'There is no definition of the term. There is no basis of identification. There is no unity in describing what is obscene literature, or in prosecuting it. There is little more than the ability to smell it.' Alpert, Judicial Censorship of Obscene Literature, 52 Harv.L.Rev. ”

“ In fact, I will go as far as to suggest that it represents a more significant view of morality than is represented by Dr. Peale's book Sin, Sex and Self-Control. As is Dr. Peale, Cleland is concerned with the nature of the society and the relationship of the individual to it. Fanny Hill appears to me to be an allegory. In th story, the immoral becomes the moral and the unethical emerges as the ethical. Nothing is more distressing than to discover that what is commonly considered to be evil may, in reality, demonstrate characteristics of love and concern. ”

“ Such an attitude creates certainty, but there is little warmth. The idea develops that there are 'my kind of people' and they are 'right.' It forces us to degrade, dismiss and ultimately attempt to destroy anyone who does not agree with us.
To be alive and sensitive to life means that we have to choose what we want. There is no possible way for a person to be a slave and free at the same time. Self-control and self-expression are at opposite ends of the continuum. ”

“ He takes exception to the idea that repression and restraint create moral individuals. He develops the thought that self-expression is more human than self-control. And he dares to suggest that, in a situation which society calls immoral and debased, a genuine love and respect for life and for people, as human beings, can develop. Far from glorifying vice, John Cleland points an accusing finger at the individual who is so certain as to what it means to be a moral man.
There are those who will quickly say that this 'message' will be missed by the average person who reads Fanny Hill. ”

“ Peale will never understand, because he is a victim of it himself and which John Cleland describes with brilliant clarity and sensitive persuasion is that until we learn to respect ourselves enough that we leave each other alone, we cannot discover the meaning of morality.
Dr. Peale and Fanny Hill offer the two basic choices open to man. Man is free to choose an autocentric existence which is marked by freedom from ambiguity and responsibility. Autocentricity presupposes a 'closed world' where life is predetermined and animal-like. ”

“ However, within the world of prostitution, Fanny Hill finds friendship, understanding, respect and is treated as a person of value. When her absent lover returns, she is not a lost girl of the gutter. One perceives that she is a whole and healthy person who has discovered the ability to love and be loved in a brothel.
I think Cleland is suggesting that one must be cautious about what is condemned and what is held in honor. From Dr. Peale's viewpoint, the story of Fanny Hill is a tragedy because she did not demonstrate self-control. ”

“ Peale is concerned with sick people, John Cleland attempts to describe healthy ones. Fanny Hill is a more modern and certainly more valuable book than Sin, Sex and Self-Control because the author does not tell us how to behave, but attempts to help us understand ourselves and the nature of love and understanding in being related to other persons. Dr. Peale's writing emphasizes the most useful commodities available to man-self-centeredness and self-control. John Cleland suggests that self-understanding and self-expression may not be as popular, but they are more humane. ”

“ Within this variety, it is impossible to define 'hard-core' pornography, as if there were some singly lewd concept from which all profane ideas passed by imperceptible degrees into that sexuality called holy. But there is no 'hard-core.' Everything, every idea, is capable of being obscene if the personality perceiving it so apprehends it. ”

“ He does not believe that individuals should ever be coerced into certain patterns of behavior.
According to Dr. Peale, we live in a day of challenge. Our society has longed for a time when individuals would be disciplined by self-control, rather than being motivated by external compunction. Bravely and forthrightly, he announces that the time has now come when self-control can and must replace external authority. ”

“ We are judges, not literary experts or historians or philosophers. We are not competent to render an independent judgment as to the worth of this or any other book, except in our capacity as private citizens. I would pair my Brother CLARK on Fanny Hill with the Universalist minister I quote in the Appendix. If there is to be censorship, the wisdom of experts on such matters as literary merit and historical significance must be evaluated. ”

“ As far as the general public seems to be concerned, one is moral and the other is hopelessly immoral. While Dr. Peale is attempting to redeem the society, most people believe that Fanny Hill can only serve as another instance in an overall trend toward an immoral social order. Most parents would be pleased to find their children reading a book by Dr. Peale, but I am afraid that the same parents would be sorely distressed to discover a copy of Fanny Hill among the school books of their offspring. ”

“ But this is precisely the point. We become so accustomed to pre-judging what is ethical and what is immoral that we are unable to recognize that what we accept as good may be nothing less than evil because it harms people. ”

“ There is something seriously wrong at home if those facts have not been met and faced and sorted by them; it is not children so much as parents that should receive our concern about this. I should prefer that my own three daughters meet the facts of life and the literature of the world in my library than behind a neighbor's barn, for I can face the adversary there directly. If the young ladies are appalled by what they read, they can close the book at the bottom of page one ”

“ During the scene of the Jewish women dancing about the Golden Calf, all the doubts of his life came clear: Women were the source of the world's trouble and it was his mission to both punish them for this and to execute them. ”

“ Both authors deal with human experience. They are concerned with people and what happens to them in the world in which they live each day. But most significantly of all, both books deal with the age-old question of 'What is moral?' I readily admit that this concern with the moral is more obvious in Dr. Peale's book than it is in the one by John Cleland. The search for the moral in Fanny Hill is clothed in erotic passages which seem to equate morality with debauchery as far as the general public is concerned. ”

“ To internalize external values denies the possibility of self-expression. We must decide what we want, when it comes to conformity and creativity. If we want people to behave in a structured and predictable manner, then the ideal of creativity cannot have meaning. ”

“ Long ago Plato said, 'What is honored in a country * * * will be cultivated there.' More and more, we reward people for thinking alike and as a result, we become frightened, beyond belief, of those who take exception to the current consensus. ”

“ Peale then reflects on the various changes that have taken place in our day and suggests that although he is less than enthusiastic about the loss of allegiance to religion, he is, nevertheless, willing to recognize that one cannot live by illusion. ”

“ In a day when people are overly sensitive in drawing lines between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, as well as the true and the false, it seems to me that there is great irony in the availability of a book such as Fanny Hill. Prostitution may be the oldest profession in the world, but we are ever faced with a question which is becoming more and more disturbing: 'What does a prostitute look like?'
Mr. ”

“ In contrast to this view, there is the allocentric outlook which is marked by an 'open encounter of the total person with the world.' Growth, spontaneity and expression are the goals of such an existence. ”