Where do we define our moral lines?
Typically, the power group in control helps define what they believe to be obscene or not obscene. However, when everyone comes from different historical backgrounds, their view of scene most likely differs from another person's view.
Yet, somehow large lines have been drawn in the past and still are drawn for small communities today.
In the early nineties there was the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) controversy which was spawned by Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano (more on him in a later blog), and other controversial artisits. During this controversy, Congress did pass a bill that was later retracted that clearly stated what was art and what was obscene.
Now, I am no big fan of obscenity, but I am definitely less of a fan for censorship. I take more of a Libertarian stance over censorship which consists of absolutely no censorship. Yes, I understand that topics such as child pornography would become legal, and I am not really happy about that because I believe child pornography is obscene. However, I recognize it is obscene for me and is not an absolute. I do believe that measures blocking children into forceful sexual acts should definitely be enforced. But, if someone has an exhibit in which there are a bunch of penises surrounding one picture of a child, then that should be legal. I may not consider it art, but someone else may.
Naturally, human beings are sexual by birth and it is wrong for American society to impose rules or regulations on sexual acts unless they are violent or similar to rape.
Mapplethorpe did not dabble as much with nude children and actually photographed a lot of flowers, but did have a portfolio that included many photographs that later became controversial. Of these photographs, I'm not that interested in, but I do recognize the brilliance in his simple designs and angles... The reason I don't enjoy his photos that much is more due to his lighting and other photographic techniques, but not because of the content.
Ultimately, I reach no conclusion other than there should be no censorship, even though there is based upon the opinions of whomever is control.
I'll cover more later on the genius of Andres Serrano and his censorship issues.
I agree. there is a fine line between censorship and infringement of rights.
The first trial of the official obsenity test is whether or not an average member of the community where the piece is being shown would find that the piece had an obsession with sex. I think this is rediculous, because even if a piece is blatatly sexual, that does not mean that it has no artistic value. Furthermore, everything that has to do with nudity does not neccisarily have anything to do with sex. People need to realize that.
If there is a significant proliferation of extremely regressive and damaging materials in society, then this is a reflection of the part of society that this material has sprung from. Censoring such material doesn't make the problem go away, all it does is hide it and allow it to fester.
As has been stated many times, art is a reflection of life; life is not always beautiful or appealing, thus not all art will be beautiful; some will be violent, exploitative and obscene, for that is what life is for plenty of people. Censoring such art is tantamount to the enforced burial of our collective head in the sand and conducive to propagating the delusion that out of sight means out of existence.
People should be free to express whatever views they want, it should be left up to the individual to choose whether or not they want to endorse or dissent against those views. The danger with censorship lies in it's ability to silence argument. This is never a good thing, because it allows ignorance and fallacy to remain unchallenged.
If we look back through history we can see many examples of instances where the vast majority of a society have held fallacious and regressive beliefs in regard to what is obscene, for example the belief that the Earth was flat. People who even dared to suggest that the Earth may in fact be spherical in those enlightened times were viewed as deeply unsavoury and worthy of execution, such was the level of obscenity perceived in regard to their assertions. However, under weight of evidence based argument, the obscenity was in fact proved to lie in the violent censorship of such individuals by an violent and ignorant religious majority.
Today, in the West, we live in a society which is becoming increasingly tolerant, with censorship being applied with increasing levels of intelligent consideration. The biggest threat to this intelligent, reason based application of censorship lies in the regressive notions of a significant religious element in our society.
They believe that increased freedom of expression and decreased censorship will lead to the imminent destruction of human kind, Sodom and Gomorrah style; but then again, they believed the same when people began asserting that the world may not be flat. Fortunately though, thanks to increased tolerance and decreased censorship, these people are being taken less and less seriously, largely because without their ability to censor dissent, the public is free to enjoy their right to make up their own minds.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™