I hesitated to make a post at all about photographs of naked/nude people. Having done so anyway, responses have varied quite a lot, some responses are very interesting to me personally, and some a lot less so. I’m going to start by responding to some of what @beachbum had to say. He covered a lot of ground, so this will take more than one post:
As @Reptorian said, America is a rather diverse place with a wide spectrum of views on sexuality, nudity, guns, and just about everything else you can think of.
Regarding Nazi/racist/etc tendencies in the US, sadly it doesn’t seem that France or Europe as a whole is doing any better on this front:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/13/frances-dangerous-move-to-remove-race-from-its-constitution/
Regarding “allowed to publish Nazi propaganda”, American policy of free speech is deeply grounded in John Stuart Mill’s thoughts on freedom of speech. This is why America allows the publishing of documents that espouse Nazi and other beliefs grounded in the odd notion that ancestry/race/religion/etc somehow justify some groups of people going out and harming/killing/ostracizing/ other groups of people.
Personally I’m inclined to think that the only thing worse than allowing the public to read this sort of garbage, is to forbid the reading of same, because where do you draw the lines between what is allowable to read and what isn’t, and who exactly gets to draw these lines?
Mills himself drew lines between acceptable and not acceptable free speech. Shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre when in fact there is no fire, is the standard example of something that with a high degree of certainty will lead to harm that overrides the individual’s right to shout fire.
But the situation is more complicated today than it was in Mills’ time. Mills was writing in a time when communcation was slow and reaching/recruiting/inciting large numbers of like-minded individuals was a time-consuming task requiring a great deal of dedication. There are a lot more people on the planet today and communication via the internet is instantaneous, which means reaching/recruiting/inciting like-minded individuals is hugely easier than it ever was before.
Regarding the amount of violence on American television, studies going back several decades have shown how powerfully television and violence on television influences actual behavior. But people still keep watching violent shows anyways. I greatly admire Mandy Patinkin’s decision to leave the popular TV show “Criminal Minds” because he was deeply disturbed by the content of the series during Season 3. In my household we stopped watching that show for the same reason, and then we stopped watching television altogether. I wish more actors, producers, writers, and (most of all) television viewers would respond similarly.
Is French television is less violent than American television? If yes, is this from censorship? If yes, who does the censoring? Do French viewers watch violent American movies and TV shows?