Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/97

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Loyalty

that criminality is so closely allied to anti-Semitism.

In the attitude of the public toward literary and stage censorship I find the clearest illustration of this distinction between the breaking of law and the denial of law. A play which is "indecent" may be so for one of two reasons. Either it deals with sex within the frame of morality or it denies the validity of this morality. In the first case (which covers most successful plays) we have no attack on current notions of what is right and wrong in the sexual relationship. We have, indeed, complete acceptances of the current principles of sex morality. But with this acceptance en principe goes a generous denial in practice; plays of this kind cover countless breaches of morality with a knowing wink, a tolerant appeal to human weakness. It is ludicrous to deny that the desire to tickle and provoke the sexual appetite, and covertly to encourage its promiscuous satisfaction, governs these plays; but it is not made a principle at all. It is the breaking of the law, not the

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