Well!
All I can say is “wow.” Things have certainly been moving along since I last checked in.
DaasYochid and Middle Path definitely win the award for most respectful and polite disagreement on this forum. I, like MiddlePath, was a bit confused by the vehemence and general closeminded “nopenopenope” attitude that my statement seemed to generate in some people. To those people–whom I do not seek to make famous by mentioning their names–I will only say this: please try learning how to argue your points so that your arguments graduate from schoolyard posturing to actual content. Then we will talk.
Next, a few points:
1. The whole concept of “use a filter” is an artificial moral construct, despite what anyone says. It’s not the same thing as “keep kosher” or “keep Shabbas,” in that the action of installing a filter does not automatically make you kosher v’yosher in the eyes of God.
Someone decided that filters are the be-all and end-all of internet safety. Wake up, people: no they’re not. Any fifteen year old that knows about by-proxy locators or how to torrent and seed would laugh you out of the room. Filters present as much barrier against going where you want to go on the internet as a “Do Not Cross Between Railway Cars” sign presents to subway riders.
2. “But DBM,” I hear some of you bleating, “are you saying that we mere mortals can trust ourselves not to seek out the forbidden? Don’t Chazal say that we cannot police ourselves in matters of arayos?”
Well, if it’s nose-to-nose with you, yeah. Few, if any, human beings can resist THAT sort of temptation. Notice, however, that Chazal did NOT say that we cannot police ourselves in, say, talking to a woman, walking on the same side of the street or even (gasp!) seating oneself next to a woman on a bus. Do you why? Because WE HAVE THE HUMAN CAPACITY TO SET LIMITS AND BIDE BY THEM.
If you read my original post, you will notice that I mention simply not going online or going online in the presence of my wife as deterrents to visiting improper content. Those are natural–not artificial and pandering–means of self-control.
(To the one sick soul who derived from that post that I was confessing to not being able to help visiting certain sites: shame on you. Are you not aware of the many interstitial advertisments and banners that one encounters in the media?)
3. To tout a filter as the device that does what we ourselves are meant to be doing is to create an artificial moral construct. Why?
Imagine for a moment if it suddenly became fashionable to drink only boiling water in order to avoid the infinitesimal concern that a living organism remains in it. Imagine the signs popping up in restaurant windows throughout the Jewish world. WE ONLY SERVE BOILING WATER. GET IT WHILE IT’S SCALDING.
Basically, we are buying into the idea that a good Jew drinks his water at the boiling point. We HAVE to, you see, because otherwise we will fall prey to our ta’avos to drink unboiled water. We are all intrinsically animals who cannot control ourselves when faced with clear, sparkling goy-water that isn’t even properly steaming. It follows, of course, that only an awful, morally corrupt Jew who has drunk cold water so often that he’s become desensitized would dare regard plain, common-sense filtering as sufficient.
To recap: Someone creates a pious thing to do. Everyone buys into the piety because nobody wants to be That Guy Who Shouldn’t Even Be Jewish. Anyone who questions the new piety by examining it using actual brainpower is a heretic.