[I] Those photos
MP
and no doubt all other national paper readers over the last few days),
I have some questions about the Saatchi photos by Tierney Gearon: why
was she taking photos of her son going to the toilet anyway? And does
the other one really look spontaneous? And with current fears of child
pornography being faked so that school websites, for example, are
advised against showing children in _sports clothing_, is it really
suprising that a set of photos that were being used in an exhibition
of naked children are being objected to by authorities? Yes, they are
fine for her photo album - but printed in every national paper in the
country? Strike you as a bit irresponsible?
If you haven't guessed - I really hate child abusers. These photos are
not child abuse, but they could be misused, IMO. And that would be a
very bad thing.
BTW, I would write to an even more prestigious forum than afp, but
there are more influential people than me doing that, so I'd probably
be ignored. As it is, I can be ignored here (although the number of
times something is discussed on here and then appears in a column in a
weekend supplement is far too high for just coincidence, surely...)
instead, which is much better (again, IMO... :-} )
MP
[1] Who also have a very minor Pratchett reference to spot - see ABP
for PTerry's post...
Mike Stevens
news:3aabf96f...@news.york.ac.uk...
> For Independent on Sunday readers[1] (or Guardian on Saturday readers,
> and no doubt all other national paper readers over the last few days),
> I have some questions about the Saatchi photos by Tierney Gearon: why
> was she taking photos of her son going to the toilet anyway?
I felt vaguely disturbed by the one with the masks. But then good art is
often disturbing.
> These photos are not child abuse, but they could be misused, IMO. And that
would be a
> very bad thing.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. There are many things which are good (or
neutral) in themselves but which can be very bad if abused. Alcohol, sex,
some drugs, politics, the media, etc etc. I don't think that's any reason
for censoring the originals.
--
Mike Stevens
The old farts' old fart
Off-list replies please to michael...@which.net
web site http://mike-stevens.co.uk
("Waterways World" magazine's website of the month, March 2001)
The Flying Hamster
>For Independent on Sunday readers[1] (or Guardian on Saturday readers,
>and no doubt all other national paper readers over the last few days),
>If you haven't guessed - I really hate child abusers. These photos are
>not child abuse, but they could be misused, IMO. And that would be a
>very bad thing.
Yes their misuse would be a bad thing, however is that a reason to bad
it? Let's list some dangerous or disturbing things which can be
misused, knives, guns, televisions, radios, cars, pens, computers, the
internet (and all services contained within)....
Hey... these photographs were taken with a camera, that's being
misused let's ban it.
Child abusers need help, they need treatment and they need removing
from any form of temptation (LK would also add the use of a couple of
bricks and I won't argue with her because she's small and scarey).
These photos are not abuse and IMHO it's yet another bloody
overreaction to a non-issue because someone is either (a) a
fundamentalist in their outlook on the issue[1] (b) worried that
there's going to be bad press and wants "to be seen doing something
for the sake of the children".
Personally I wouldn't wish to put photos of that nature of my kids up
for public consumption and there is a whole other argument on whether
the artist should be allowed to publish these images however let's not
confuse that with issues of child abuse or pornography.
To be honest I find it deeply worrying to see the scare tactics being
used by the government and similar organisations against the net and
other forms of publishing in the name of 'protecting the children' and
to be frank I don't trust their true motives. The world is a
dangerous place, though nowhere near as dangerous as the press would
have you believe. Also why aren't the courts handing out decent
custodial terms against the evil shits who _DO_ abuse children rather
than the slap on the wrist and "don't get caught doing it again" which
was handed out to the wonderland scumbags.
Mark
Hmm... two rants in a day, can I make the hattrick....
[1] Not necessarily religious
--
The Flying Hamster <ham...@suespammers.org> http://hamster.wibble.org/
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're
overdoing it. Josh Jenkins
Jenny Radcliffe
> For Independent on Sunday readers[1] (or Guardian on Saturday readers,
> and no doubt all other national paper readers over the last few days),
> I have some questions about the Saatchi photos by Tierney Gearon: why
> was she taking photos of her son going to the toilet anyway? And does
> the other one really look spontaneous?
That's the question I asked, too. Art? No. They're family snaps. Nice
family snaps, no doubt, although if I had kids I don't think I'd want
pictures of them peeing, but naked on the beach? Yes, possibly, if it
was ... a nice picture for a memory. But it isn't art.
> And with current fears of child
> pornography being faked so that school websites, for example, are
> advised against showing children in _sports clothing_,
*Really*? That's ludicrous.
> is it really
> suprising that a set of photos that were being used in an exhibition
> of naked children are being objected to by authorities? Yes, they are
> fine for her photo album - but printed in every national paper in the
> country? Strike you as a bit irresponsible?
> If you haven't guessed - I really hate child abusers. These photos are
> not child abuse, but they could be misused, IMO. And that would be a
> very bad thing.
<shrugs>
If someone gets off on those photos, it isn't harming the kids. They
could be doing a lot worse.
Don't get me wrong, I'd argue that child abuse is probably the worst
possible kind of crime. But someone drooling over innocently-taken
pictures of kids (when they could be going out and finding photos that
*weren't* taken innocently) is fairly harmless. IMHO. It's what it could
lead to that's the problem, of course.
> BTW, I would write to an even more prestigious forum than afp, but
> there are more influential people than me doing that, so I'd probably
> be ignored. As it is, I can be ignored here (although the number of
> times something is discussed on here and then appears in a column in a
> weekend supplement is far too high for just coincidence, surely...)
> instead, which is much better (again, IMO... :-} )
You should write to the prestigious things as well. The letter itself
may be ignored, but it will add more to the weight of all the others
that it is backed up by all and sundry.
--
"This Kimmy tastes very nice" - Tom York
MP
<mike...@which.net> wrote, on Sun, 11 Mar 2001 23:10:58 -0000, that:
>MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote in message
>news:3aabf96f...@news.york.ac.uk...
>
>> For Independent on Sunday readers[1] (or Guardian on Saturday readers,
>> and no doubt all other national paper readers over the last few days),
>> I have some questions about the Saatchi photos by Tierney Gearon: why
>> was she taking photos of her son going to the toilet anyway?
>
>I felt vaguely disturbed by the one with the masks. But then good art is
>often disturbing.
>
>> These photos are not child abuse, but they could be misused, IMO. And that
>would be a
>> very bad thing.
>
>Up to a point, Lord Copper. There are many things which are good (or
>neutral) in themselves but which can be very bad if abused. Alcohol, sex,
>some drugs, politics, the media, etc etc. I don't think that's any reason
>for censoring the originals.
I'm not so much for censoring the originals (as I said, they are fine
for a family album, IMO), but just for not printing them in every
national paper around - fine, the police do go OTT on this issue (they
attempted to prosecute a woman who took a photograph of her child in
the bath, and she didn't even attempt to show it to anyone - I presume
this was so the child could be easily embarassed in 20 years time when
they are rich and famous and appearing on HIGNFY), but that is because
there are sick people out there. They are unlikely to be the ones
visiting the Saatchi exhibition, but by threatening to prosecute,
those children have been pasted everywhere - there must be few people
in the country who haven't seen the photos now. Bad thing.
There's also a sheer moral issue - would you want to be those
children? You know, those ones which the whole world has seen naked?
Want to go to the playground after that? Want to be recognised as
"that boy having a piss in the snow"? Really?
IMO, the exhibition was a poor enough forum for the pictures - the
national media is a far worse one.
MP
--
"Only you can save mankind. If not you, who else?" - Only You Can Save
Mankind, Terry Pratchett
Mike Stevens
> There's also a sheer moral issue - would you want to be those
> children? You know, those ones which the whole world has seen naked?
> Want to go to the playground after that? Want to be recognised as
> "that boy having a piss in the snow"? Really?
It's interesting that in each of the two photos that were published in the
"Grauniad the children's faces were hidden, in one by the marks and in the
other by ski-goggles.
MP
<jenny.r...@physics.org> wrote, on Mon, 12 Mar 2001 09:32:03
-0000, that:
>MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>> And with current fears of child
>> pornography being faked so that school websites, for example, are
>> advised against showing children in _sports clothing_,
>
>*Really*? That's ludicrous.
>
This is according to the TES, who should know (not in response to
these pictures, but a general article back in about September, when
they were promoting the idea of school websites heavily) based on
advise given by some police web use group and one or another of the
teaching unions.
Of course, they then show examples of suitable and unsuitable photos,
which rather defeats the point really...
MP
Stevie D
> If someone gets off on those photos, it isn't harming the kids.
Not at that instant in time, no. Later, who knows?
> They could be doing a lot worse.
That's never a good argument in favour of anything!
> Don't get me wrong, I'd argue that child abuse is probably the
> worst possible kind of crime. But someone drooling over innocently
> -taken pictures of kids (when they could be going out and finding
> photos that *weren't* taken innocently) is fairly harmless. IMHO.
> It's what it could lead to that's the problem, of course.
And here you hit the nail on the head. If innocently-taken pictures of
kiddies are readily available like this and there is no social stigma
against them, you are giving out *totally* the wrong message to any
potential pćdophiles out there.
Don't forget that these people are seriously disturbed. Most of them are
having enough difficulty in telling right from wrong as it is; you just
can't afford to do anything that sends them down the wrong track.
Yes, I think the media has overreacted in this case, but at the same
time I don't see why the hell those photos were considered art in the
first place. But then I've given up trying to understand what
constitutes 'art' these days.
--
Time heals. That's why doctors keep you waiting for so long.
Eric Jarvis
but possibly illustrates the real point very clearly
it's very nice to have a clearly defined enemy that can be attacked
without fear of any public comeback...and that is what much of this
is really about...the newspapers can persuade their readers that
they are fearless and dedicated defenders of the weak, and nobody
will complain
most of it strikes me as total nonsense...most of the danger to
children is from relatives or friends of the family...the best way
of dealing with paedophilia is to identify and treat the paedophiles
the very worst thing that you can possibly do is persuade children
that all adult strangers are dangerous...how the hell does a kid
being abused by Dad get anything done about it if strangers are even
more dangerous than family?...yet that is exactly the atmosphere the
press seem to be trying to promote
it just strikes me that this is yet another aspect of something
designed entirely to sell newspapers and to hell with truth, human
rights, or children's welfare
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Miq
>Jenny Radcliffe wrote:
>
>> If someone gets off on those photos, it isn't harming the kids.
>
>Not at that instant in time, no. Later, who knows?
>
>> They could be doing a lot worse.
>
>That's never a good argument in favour of anything!
Nor is 'Later, who knows?'
You will *never* know all the ramifications of your actions down through
the rest of time. That's no reason not to do something.
>> Don't get me wrong, I'd argue that child abuse is probably the
>> worst possible kind of crime. But someone drooling over innocently
>> -taken pictures of kids (when they could be going out and finding
>> photos that *weren't* taken innocently) is fairly harmless. IMHO.
AOL to that.
>> It's what it could lead to that's the problem, of course.
>
>And here you hit the nail on the head. If innocently-taken pictures of
>kiddies are readily available like this and there is no social stigma
>against them, you are giving out *totally* the wrong message to any
>potential pćdophiles out there.
What on earth is a "*potential* paedophile"? Would you talk about
"potential gays", or "potential foreigners"?
I'm aware that this might well make me the most shunned person on afp,
but this question has been bothering me for a while now...
As I understand it, paedophilia is a sexual inclination. Yet people
seem to talk about it as if it were either a choice or an illness.
It's not so long ago that homosexuality was seen in *precisely* those
terms, and treated accordingly - as either a criminal act or a form of
insanity. It's only in the past 30 years or so that it's earned
recognition as morally *neutral* - a part of someone's makeup, no more
morally meaningful than having red hair or hay fever. Many
institutions, and individuals, have still not caught up with the idea.
So here's a thought experiment. In any sentence involving paedophiles,
try substituting the idea 'gays'. Does it still seem reasonable? By
that test, I think every post in this thread except Jenny's would fail
abysmally.
Obviously, the key thing about paedophiles is that, to exercise their
sexuality, they need to involve children, and children, uniquely, are
not capable of giving the sort of informed consent that is considered to
make other sexual acts acceptable. Paedophiles are considered 'evil'
because they harm children.
But what if there's a whole class - a huge majority, perhaps - of
paedophiles who *don't* harm children? Who repress, just as Christ-
alone-knows how many gays, for *centuries*, lived their whole lives in
"the closet"? Paedophiles who never lay a finger on a child, who have
no interest in any but the most mundane pictures - pictures that could
be taken on any street or park? Should they all be gassed for this
thought-crime, just in case they lose control one day?
>Don't forget that these people are seriously disturbed. Most of them are
>having enough difficulty in telling right from wrong as it is; you just
>can't afford to do anything that sends them down the wrong track.
Now, *there's* a sweeping judgement about a whole class of people... may
I ask what is the source of your specialist knowledge on the subject?
(After making this post, I half expect the police to confiscate my
computer and spend six weeks looking for dodgy pictures on my hard disc.
And what *really* disturbs me is the number of people who would probably
consider that perfectly reasonable.)
--
Miq
Eric Jarvis
>
> What on earth is a "*potential* paedophile"? Would you talk about
> "potential gays", or "potential foreigners"?
>
> I'm aware that this might well make me the most shunned person on afp,
> but this question has been bothering me for a while now...
>
it had better not...or afp has gone insane
>
> As I understand it, paedophilia is a sexual inclination. Yet people
> seem to talk about it as if it were either a choice or an illness.
>
I don't think that's quite the case...I don't think most people see
very far past the label itself
>
> It's not so long ago that homosexuality was seen in *precisely* those
> terms, and treated accordingly - as either a criminal act or a form of
> insanity. It's only in the past 30 years or so that it's earned
> recognition as morally *neutral* - a part of someone's makeup, no more
> morally meaningful than having red hair or hay fever. Many
> institutions, and individuals, have still not caught up with the idea.
>
> So here's a thought experiment. In any sentence involving paedophiles,
> try substituting the idea 'gays'. Does it still seem reasonable? By
> that test, I think every post in this thread except Jenny's would fail
> abysmally.
>
this is important...try substituting communist or Jewish...or
politician
it's the current vogue "hateword"...the thing you can attack without
fear of any comeback...it has the advantage over many previous
"hatewords" in that there is an act associated with it that is
genuinely a bad thing...but mostly it's not a word used with any
precision...it's used to epitomise "them" as opposed to us
>
> Obviously, the key thing about paedophiles is that, to exercise their
> sexuality, they need to involve children, and children, uniquely, are
> not capable of giving the sort of informed consent that is considered to
> make other sexual acts acceptable. Paedophiles are considered 'evil'
> because they harm children.
>
> But what if there's a whole class - a huge majority, perhaps - of
> paedophiles who *don't* harm children? Who repress, just as Christ-
> alone-knows how many gays, for *centuries*, lived their whole lives in
> "the closet"? Paedophiles who never lay a finger on a child, who have
> no interest in any but the most mundane pictures - pictures that could
> be taken on any street or park? Should they all be gassed for this
> thought-crime, just in case they lose control one day?
>
> >Don't forget that these people are seriously disturbed. Most of them are
> >having enough difficulty in telling right from wrong as it is; you just
> >can't afford to do anything that sends them down the wrong track.
>
> Now, *there's* a sweeping judgement about a whole class of people... may
> I ask what is the source of your specialist knowledge on the subject?
>
> (After making this post, I half expect the police to confiscate my
> computer and spend six weeks looking for dodgy pictures on my hard disc.
> And what *really* disturbs me is the number of people who would probably
> consider that perfectly reasonable.)
>
did anyone follow the David Jones case in the news...the man lost
his job and a good solid year out of his career...being accused of
paedophilia was national headline news...being cleared in court
barely made the sports pages...as for the fact that it turned out to
be two related and unsubstantiated accusations from people who
didn't repeat the accusation on oath, in one case because it turned
out the accused couldn't possibly have been there...how many spotted
that in he papers?...it wasn't exactly news of the day
it's now becoming a fad apparently...I'm shifting into rumour
here...but whilst there are genuine concerns about the "coaching" at
one of the three league football teams in a nameless county, the one
where accusations against a coach actually are being reported in the
local papers happens to be one where there is a boardroom
struggle...one side is using an accusation from several years ago in
which a coach was investigated and cleared as a reason to cry cover
up to attack their rivals for control of the club...to cap it all
the fans of that club have a chant accusing the former manager of
the remaining club of being a paedophile
the reality is lost in the smokescreen set up by people who have
realised this is a word they can throw around and get a 100%
predictable reaction
there are some truly horrendous thing being done in this
world...there are horrendous things being done here in the UK...but
it seems to me that people would by and large prefer to deal with
the easiest targets rather than the serious problems
anyone read much about the Kincora Boys Home affair?...that was
serious...that was barely taken up by the press because it involved
some powerful people and needed serious and careful research before
anything could be printed at all...it just slipped by barely noticed
as a result
but a couple of photos in the Saatchi gallery get treated as a
serious crime
I just get the feeling that if Watergate had happened in the UK, the
papers would be full of news about some soap stars latest romance
don't get me wrong...I think any abuse of children is a truly
terrible thing...but I think dealing with it should be treated as
important enough to do carefully, not as a handy banner to rally
round to show how "good" one is
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"money can't buy you love, but sometimes dinner
is much more important"
Spuddie
cummerbund, Miq <m...@lspace.org> experienced a borborygamus, looked
suspiciously at the cat and said :
>On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, Stevie D <stev...@castrule.garfield.com> wrote
<lotsa snippage throughout>
>You will *never* know all the ramifications of your actions down through
>the rest of time. That's no reason not to do something.
So, so true, that is....and it applies to just about everything in
life. Nike hit it spot on. Just do it.
>Obviously, the key thing about paedophiles is that, to exercise their
>sexuality, they need to involve children, and children, uniquely, are
>not capable of giving the sort of informed consent that is considered to
>make other sexual acts acceptable. Paedophiles are considered 'evil'
>because they harm children.
And that's the key, as you say. Pedophiles don't even do well in
prison because even *criminals* detest pedophiles. Myself, I classify
them as slightly more nasty than rapists...anyone who does sexual
things (or physical beatings, or even mental torture, really) to
someone against their will is the lowest form of pond scum out there,
IMO. Which is the big difference between interchanging the term 'gay'
and 'pedophile' as you mentioned above...homosexuals engaging in sex
are consenting adults, whereas when a pedophile engages in sex,
his/her partner is not consenting and is sometimes not even
*understanding* what is happening.
>But what if there's a whole class - a huge majority, perhaps - of
>paedophiles who *don't* harm children? Who repress, just as Christ-
>alone-knows how many gays, for *centuries*, lived their whole lives in
>"the closet"? Paedophiles who never lay a finger on a child, who have
>no interest in any but the most mundane pictures - pictures that could
>be taken on any street or park? Should they all be gassed for this
>thought-crime, just in case they lose control one day?
Now that's just silly. How on earth is anyone going to prove they're
a pedophile so that they can be gassed if all they do is think about
it? (Unless you have some kind of mind-reading machine, of course.)
I'm sure there are *many* of them out there who manage to restrain
themselves from following through with their fantasies. I'm not sure
if that actually classifies them as pedophiles, or if they actually
have to act them out to be one.
IMO, a person's thoughts and fantasies are their own and no one ought
to be able to take them away from you or punish you for them. As long
as a pedophile doesn't actually involve a child and act out those
fantasies, there is no crime. Heck, I'm a potential LOT of nasty
things...but unless I actually DO those things, I plead not guilty,
yer 'onor.
>>Don't forget that these people are seriously disturbed. Most of them are
>>having enough difficulty in telling right from wrong as it is; you just
>>can't afford to do anything that sends them down the wrong track.
Oh...so now WE should feel guilty because of something someone ELSE
does? I don't *think* so. There's got to be a little personal
responsibility here. The idea that I shouldn't put a picture of my
kids at the beach up on my website because it might make some
'potential pedophile' go out and commit sexual acts with children is
ludicrous. If I put up a picture of my dog I suppose I might be
tempting those who are prone to bestiality too....and ghod forbid that
I put up a picture of my grandpa...he's dead you know, those
necrophiliacs will be out en force...
>Now, *there's* a sweeping judgement about a whole class of people... may
>I ask what is the source of your specialist knowledge on the subject?
>(After making this post, I half expect the police to confiscate my
>computer and spend six weeks looking for dodgy pictures on my hard disc.
>And what *really* disturbs me is the number of people who would probably
>consider that perfectly reasonable.)
Nah. Not without probable cause. :)
Cheryl
~~~I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My
idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on
their own, so both of them together is certain death.~~~
(George Carlin)
Mike Stevens
news:MPG.1518f2ad...@news.dircon.co.uk...
> anyone read much about the Kincora Boys Home affair?...that was
> serious...that was barely taken up by the press because it involved
> some powerful people and needed serious and careful research before
> anything could be printed at all...it just slipped by barely noticed
> as a result
>
> but a couple of photos in the Saatchi gallery get treated as a
> serious crime.
I agree with nearly all of Eric's posting, *except* the bit quoted above.
He obviously follows different news media to me. I did read quite a bit in
the Press about the Kincora Boys Home affair, and see TV reports of it. And
the only newspaper I've heard of taking the line that there's something
wrong with the photos in question is the "News of the World" and I don't
know whether they've branded it a "serious crime" or not. My source of
information of it is the Grauniad, which has published both sides of the
argument but clearly sided with the "the police got it wrong" view, to the
extent of publishing yesterday an excellent article by the artist giving her
views of the situation.
MP
<stev...@castrule.garfield.com> wrote, on Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:25:22
+0000, that:
<snip>
>Yes, I think the media has overreacted in this case, but at the same
>time I don't see why the hell those photos were considered art in the
>first place. But then I've given up trying to understand what
>constitutes 'art' these days.
>
Ditto. Some things are very nice to look at and not art (fractals are,
according to most people I know, not art but mathematics - I say they
are generated by mathematics, but does it exclude them from being
art?) and some things are not nice to look at, but art (that bed
thing? If I really wanted to see a messy bed, there are about 450
within 500 yards of where I am now...).
Those pictures, IMO, were family snapshots. Not art. They hold
memories for the family, but were not, again IMO, really suited to
being waved in the face of the public, either in a gallery, or in
papers. The fact that they are out there, IMO, gives a dangerous
precident - what next? Think about it...
MP
Mike Stevens
> Hmm, he may be wrong, but MP thinks that Stevie D
> Ditto. Some things are very nice to look at and not art (fractals are,
> according to most people I know, not art but mathematics - I say they
> are generated by mathematics, but does it exclude them from being
> art?) and some things are not nice to look at, but art (that bed
> thing? If I really wanted to see a messy bed, there are about 450
> within 500 yards of where I am now...).
> Those pictures, IMO, were family snapshots. Not art. They hold
> memories for the family, but were not, again IMO, really suited to
> being waved in the face of the public, either in a gallery, or in
> papers. The fact that they are out there, IMO, gives a dangerous
> precident - what next? Think about it...
According to some artists (I think Picasso was one of them, but I'm sure
there are others) what makes something "art" is the act of choice is
selecting it to go on display. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Adrian Ogden
>According to some artists (I think Picasso was one of them, but I'm sure
>there are others) what makes something "art" is the act of choice is
>selecting it to go on display. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Or as Frank Zappa put it, "The important thing about art is the frame.
This tells you where the art ends and the real world begins. Suppose
<some avant-garde composer> clips on a throat mic and drinks a glass
of carrot juice, and then says 'I now will this to be music'. That's
his composition, that's his art. Without the frame as declared it's
just a guy swallowing carrot juice."
Whether it's Good or Important art is quite something else, of course.
<< Adrian Ogden -- "Sic Biscuitus Disintegrat" -- A.N....@reading.ac.uk >>
"There is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact,
everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing."
David Chapman
news:pjvtat0d3d825kn8s...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2001 22:42:52 +0000 wearing only a powdered wig and
> cummerbund, Miq <m...@lspace.org> experienced a borborygamus, looked
> suspiciously at the cat and said :
> >But what if there's a whole class - a huge majority, perhaps - of
> >paedophiles who *don't* harm children? Who repress, just as
Christ-
> >alone-knows how many gays, for *centuries*, lived their whole lives
in
> >"the closet"? Paedophiles who never lay a finger on a child, who
have
> >no interest in any but the most mundane pictures - pictures that
could
> >be taken on any street or park? Should they all be gassed for this
> >thought-crime, just in case they lose control one day?
>
> Now that's just silly. How on earth is anyone going to prove
they're
> a pedophile so that they can be gassed if all they do is think about
> it? (Unless you have some kind of mind-reading machine, of course.)
By checking out their child pornography collection, perhaps.
> I'm sure there are *many* of them out there who manage to restrain
> themselves from following through with their fantasies. I'm not
sure
> if that actually classifies them as pedophiles, or if they actually
> have to act them out to be one.
Yes, they're paedophiles. What they aren't is pederasts, a
distinction which is insufficiently made.
>
> IMO, a person's thoughts and fantasies are their own and no one
ought
> to be able to take them away from you or punish you for them. As
long
> as a pedophile doesn't actually involve a child and act out those
> fantasies, there is no crime. Heck, I'm a potential LOT of nasty
> things...but unless I actually DO those things, I plead not guilty,
> yer 'onor.
By that argument, you can own as many kiddie porn movies as you want -
you're not actually DOING those things, or acting out those fantasies
and involving a child. So there's no crime.
--
These things are not the beliefs of madmen
but the beliefs of sane men and women trying
desperately, not to preserve the status quo,
but just to find the fucking thing.
David Chapman
news:Y5Er6.503$vv3...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
> Eric Jarvis <er...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1518f2ad...@news.dircon.co.uk...
>
> > anyone read much about the Kincora Boys Home affair?...that was
> > serious...that was barely taken up by the press because it
involved
> > some powerful people and needed serious and careful research
before
> > anything could be printed at all...it just slipped by barely
noticed
> > as a result
> >
> > but a couple of photos in the Saatchi gallery get treated as a
> > serious crime.
>
> I agree with nearly all of Eric's posting, *except* the bit quoted
above.
> He obviously follows different news media to me.
Eric apparently follows the tabloids, because that's all he's talking
about. Those of us who read newspapers which actually have
researchers tend to be better informed; I, too, had heard of the
Kincora affair, as well as what *really* went on on Orkney way back
when and the full details of the Nazareth House affair. I don't read
papers with 3-inch headlines, though.
Richard Bos
> "Mike Stevens" <mike...@which.net> writes:
>
> >According to some artists (I think Picasso was one of them, but I'm sure
> >there are others) what makes something "art" is the act of choice is
> >selecting it to go on display. That makes a lot of sense to me.
>
> Or as Frank Zappa put it, "The important thing about art is the frame.
> This tells you where the art ends and the real world begins. Suppose
> <some avant-garde composer> clips on a throat mic and drinks a glass
> of carrot juice, and then says 'I now will this to be music'. That's
> his composition, that's his art. Without the frame as declared it's
> just a guy swallowing carrot juice."
Myeah. And when I, member of the public and not a composer at all, do
the same thing, it's Not Art. Not because I cannot drink carrot juice,
or because I forgot to declare it music, but because, even if I do
declare it music, I'm not a composer, so I've no right to Declare things
to be Art. Sorry, I don't buy into that.
Richard
Mary Messall
> ssso...@reading.ac.uk (Adrian Ogden) wrote:
> > Or as Frank Zappa put it, "The important thing about art is the frame.
> > This tells you where the art ends and the real world begins. Suppose
> > <some avant-garde composer> clips on a throat mic and drinks a glass
> > of carrot juice, and then says 'I now will this to be music'. That's
> > his composition, that's his art. Without the frame as declared it's
> > just a guy swallowing carrot juice."
> Myeah. And when I, member of the public and not a composer at all, do
> the same thing, it's Not Art. Not because I cannot drink carrot juice,
> or because I forgot to declare it music, but because, even if I do
> declare it music, I'm not a composer, so I've no right to Declare things
> to be Art. Sorry, I don't buy into that.
My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it has to
have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy *something* by it.
When I apply it to a few examples, I get the results I want. (Bear with
me, I'm a physicist, I have to test my theories.)
Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
meaning there yourself.
Fractals - not art. Ditto
Paintings of sunsets - art. Now the artist is showing us what that
sunset means to him, drawing out attention to it, trying to make us see
it the same way he did. It may not be a very successful attempt, but
that's the difference between good art and bad art.
Modified fractals - art. Again, the forms of those graphs made the
artist feel something, and she's trying to make us feel the same thing
by selecting a region- "taking a picture" and bringing out the qualities
that struck her by playing with the colors and parameters.
A wagon wheel on a wagon - not art. Though definitely craft.
A photo of a wagon wheel - art. We'd normally look right by something
like that. But the photographer noticed it, as photographers are wont to
do, and is trying to show us what they noticed- the play of shadows? The
rustic suffering it evoked in him?
A wagon wheel mounted in a museum - art. I think if the photograph is,
this pretty much has to be. Again, by taking something that we normally
filter out and drawing our attention to it, the artist is saying
something. Perhaps something about how much more human the older
industries looked, or the ravages of time and gravity- I don't know, I
haven't seen the wheel.
So, by my criteria, the photos described, and even family snap shots,
qualify as art. Whether or not they're *good* art is a matter of taste.
But I bet the doodles you throw away and the whittling you give you your
kid nephew would get archeologists a twenty thousand years or so from
now *really* excited if they could see.
-Mary
--
http://www.bombadilmag.com
The green, green webzine.
New and improved, even.
Spuddie
"David Chapman" <anti...@evildeath.madasafish.com> traipsed into the
Ladies and happily said:
>> IMO, a person's thoughts and fantasies are their own and no one
>>ought to be able to take them away from you or punish you for them. As
>>long as a pedophile doesn't actually involve a child and act out those
>> fantasies, there is no crime. Heck, I'm a potential LOT of nasty
>> things...but unless I actually DO those things, I plead not guilty,
>> yer 'onor.
>
>By that argument, you can own as many kiddie porn movies as you want -
>you're not actually DOING those things, or acting out those fantasies
>and involving a child. So there's no crime.
Um, not quite right. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I said
*thoughts* didn't I? Pictures/movies of kiddie porn obviously *does*
involve a child...someone took the pictures/shot the movie. And I'm
relatively certain that it is indeed against the law in most places to
either be taking such picturs or to be in possession of them.
However, *thinking* about the content of such pictures/movies is not a
crime.
Cheryl
~~~If you don't think every day is a good day, try missing a few.~~~
(Bob Ross)
Sylvain Chambon
>My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it
>has to have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy
>*something* by it.
If I were to define art, I would use a slightly different
definition. I would say art is something that, through perception,
brings out meaning (or emotion). A piece of art does not necessarily
have much meaning by itself; but if it is so that an onlooker finds
meaning (either in the piece of art or in themselves), then it
qualifies as art.
In other words, art does not exist by itself, but is, at least
partly, in the eye of the spectator[1].
>Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
>meaning there yourself.
>
>Fractals - not art. Ditto
Nobody put anything in a sunset of a fractals picture. Art is,
obviously, something that is created.
>Paintings of sunsets - art. Now the artist is showing us what that
>sunset means to him, drawing out attention to it, trying to make us
>see it the same way he did. It may not be a very successful
>attempt, but that's the difference between good art and bad art.
Now, is a photo of a sunset a work of art? It might be that I saw a
pretty sunset and I want to have something to remember it by. No
special significance attached.
On the other hand, maybe I kissed my first love at sunset, and
sunsets have had a deep emotional significance for me since. Taking
a picture of a sunset is therefore a meaningful act for me.
How do you tell the difference? If I'm a very good photograph,
technically speaking, I can take very good pictures of sunsets
without much meaning -- as an exercise of my photographic skills,
for instance. If I'm a lousy photograph, I can take a very important
picture very badly. The picture itself does not tell you if there is
attached meaning.
Now if you see a picture of a sunset, maybe you'll just see a pretty
sunset and nothing else. But you might see it as an reminder of
mankind's short lifespan, as an omen of dark things to come. You
might also be reminded of when you kissed your first love at sunset.
To take another example, at the risk of going cross-thread, consider
_The Lord of the Rings_. IIRC, Tolkien has repeatedly denied that
TLOTR was an allegory of anything. He claimed there was no "higher
meaning", except telling a nice story set in a consistent world. You
can very well view it as an exercise of style. Is that not art?
Look at, say, the latest Hollywood action-packed blockbuster. Not
much meaning, except maybe "hand out the dollars". Art or not art?
FWIW, I consider TLOTR to be art, and money-driven Hollywood
action-packed blockbusters to, in general, not be. I won't challenge
anyone to prove me wrong, though-- if you think _Lethal Weapon_ is
art, that's proof enough for me.
It's one of those stupid definitions -- like the definition of a
nation: ultimately, you're part of a nation if you _think_ you
do. That's also, unfortunately, the best I can give you.
>Modified fractals - art. Again, the forms of those graphs made the
>artist feel something, and she's trying to make us feel the same
>thing by selecting a region- "taking a picture" and bringing out
>the qualities that struck her by playing with the colors and
>parameters.
OTOH, some people play with colours and parameters just to create
pretty pictures. No particular feelings, just the intention of
printing a cool-looking T-Shirt. Art or not art?
Now the next question is: what's an artist?
Sylvain.
[1] Yeah, yeah, I know how it sounds. But that's what I think
anyway.
--
Sylvain Chambon - gou...@lepcf.org
http://lepcf.org
Mary Messall
> In article <3AAFA521...@ups.edu>, Mary Messall wrote:
> >My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it
> >has to have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy
> >*something* by it.
> If I were to define art, I would use a slightly different
> definition. I would say art is something that, through perception,
> brings out meaning (or emotion). A piece of art does not necessarily
> have much meaning by itself; but if it is so that an onlooker finds
> meaning (either in the piece of art or in themselves), then it
> qualifies as art.
Ah, but that makes the sunset qualify...
> In other words, art does not exist by itself, but is, at least
> partly, in the eye of the spectator[1].
I agree, but I think this is consistent with my use of "meaning" or
"signifigance". To switch to an example- words.
Say the words "flapping flag". Okay, those are pretty context free, so
the associations and reactions they call up in you are almost unlimited.
Maybe a military memorial, maybe the big ol' banner over the local
pancake house, maybe a scene from a movie. Those are my first reactions,
anyway. Does that constitute a "message"? Not much of one, since
everyone who reads them is going to come up with a different response.
But does it have meaning? You bet your bippy. Now "farglgot hatmanach"
doesn't have meaning. But "flapping flag" definitely does. That's the
kind of meaning I'm talking about to qualify as art. Not some "moral of
the story" and not a "message", just meaning, as opposed to
meaninglessness.
> >Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
> >meaning there yourself.
> >Fractals - not art. Ditto
> Nobody put anything in a sunset of a fractals picture. Art is,
> obviously, something that is created.
Okay, why? By your definition, I don't see why it should have to be. I
do see why in mine. <g>
> >Paintings of sunsets - art. Now the artist is showing us what that
> >sunset means to him, drawing out attention to it, trying to make us
> >see it the same way he did. It may not be a very successful
> >attempt, but that's the difference between good art and bad art.
> Now, is a photo of a sunset a work of art? It might be that I saw a
Yep, just like a photo of a wagon wheel.
> pretty sunset and I want to have something to remember it by. No
> special significance attached.
Yes there is. You wanted to remember that sunset, you thought it was
pretty, therefor it meant something to you, it caused a reaction in you.
And the picture stands for the sunset and the emotions it evoked. The
sunset doesn't doesn't stand for anything. The picture has a meaning
(not a message!) and the sunset doesn't.
> Look at, say, the latest Hollywood action-packed blockbuster. Not
> much meaning, except maybe "hand out the dollars". Art or not art?
Art. Bad art, very likely. But who says art can't be bad?
> FWIW, I consider TLOTR to be art, and money-driven Hollywood
> action-packed blockbusters to, in general, not be. I won't challenge
<teasing> What about the money-driven, action packed Hollywood
blockbuster version of LoTR coming out this Christmas?
> anyone to prove me wrong, though-- if you think _Lethal Weapon_ is
> art, that's proof enough for me.
Sure it is. It's comedy, and it's stupid, so it's a funny, stupid kind
of art. Who says art can't be funny and stupid?
> >Modified fractals - art. Again, the forms of those graphs made the
> >artist feel something, and she's trying to make us feel the same
> >thing by selecting a region- "taking a picture" and bringing out
> >the qualities that struck her by playing with the colors and
> >parameters.
> OTOH, some people play with colours and parameters just to create
> pretty pictures. No particular feelings, just the intention of
> printing a cool-looking T-Shirt. Art or not art?
Art. If you want to put it on a T-Shirt, it clearly means something to
you. It evokes reactions in you, and you're trying to evoke the same
reactions in other people. Even if the reaction is just "Whoa, cool!"
It's pretty shallow, but who said art has to be deep?
(Actually, the feeling of wonder fractals often cause in me *is* pretty
deep, but we'll say other people are less obsessed with that kind of
thing.)
> Now the next question is: what's an artist?
Someone who makes art. Wow, that was easy. <g>
-Mary (nation: n. A group of people from a certain geographic area ruled
by a common government. -It may be tricky to tell which government, if
any, is ruling which people, but that's a political problem, not a
semantic one. This is fun, give me another! <vbg>)
MP
wrote, on Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:41:53 -0600, that:
<snip>
>Now that's just silly. How on earth is anyone going to prove they're
>a pedophile so that they can be gassed if all they do is think about
>it? (Unless you have some kind of mind-reading machine, of course.)
>I'm sure there are *many* of them out there who manage to restrain
>themselves from following through with their fantasies. I'm not sure
>if that actually classifies them as pedophiles, or if they actually
>have to act them out to be one.
>
>IMO, a person's thoughts and fantasies are their own and no one ought
>to be able to take them away from you or punish you for them. As long
>as a pedophile doesn't actually involve a child and act out those
>fantasies, there is no crime. Heck, I'm a potential LOT of nasty
>things...but unless I actually DO those things, I plead not guilty,
>yer 'onor.
>
<snip>
Please note that in this thread I have never used the word paedophile
to refer to anything relating to those photos (or anything else for
that matter), because AFAIC, paedophiles are the people who actually
commit sexual crimes against children. In this case, there is no
question of that.
I am sure there are many closet "potential paedophiles" who have good
self control and manage to avoid acting out their fantasies (at least
with actual children - what they get up to with consenting adults in
school uniform is up to them). Ditto, there are probably lots of
"potential murderers" who fantasise about going round killing people.
Most of them manage to control this urge. There is a genetic
dispostion towards that too, IIRC. No reason to punish them for it -
if they commit a crime, then genetic test them to see if they would be
likely to reoffend in order to decide on the best punishment and
rehabilitation scheme for them.
Returning to the photos, my objection would be to other photographers
trying to go one step further, and get highly posed photos of children
and pass them off as art, trying to push the boundaries back too far.
This is unlikely to end in paedophilia, but could well result in child
abuse - which _does not_ need to be of a sexual nature.
MP
Mike Stevens
news:3AAFA521...@ups.edu...
> Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
> meaning there yourself.
How about this sequence of events?
1. I see a sunset.
2. I say to someone "hey, just look at that sunset".
3. I take a photogrpah of the sunset
4. I hand that photograph on the wall.
At some stage something has become art. But when? To my mind it's at stage
2, when I communicate to someone else that the sunset is worth looking at.
> A wagon wheel mounted in a museum - art. I think if the photograph is,
> this pretty much has to be. Again, by taking something that we normally
> filter out and drawing our attention to it, the artist is saying
> something.
See what I mean?
>Perhaps something about how much more human the older
> industries looked, or the ravages of time and gravity- I don't know, I
> haven't seen the wheel.
Or perhaps just "hey, just look at that wheel" - the recognition that it's
worth looking at.
Mike Stevens
news:slrn9avb0v.1...@localhost.localdomain...
> Now the next question is: what's an artist?
In my understanding an artist is somebody who makes a selection of what to
show/tell somebody else.
Mary Messall
> Mary Messall <mmes...@ups.edu> wrote in message
> news:3AAFA521...@ups.edu...
> > Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
> > meaning there yourself.
> How about this sequence of events?
> 1. I see a sunset.
> 2. I say to someone "hey, just look at that sunset".
> 3. I take a photogrpah of the sunset
> 4. I hand that photograph on the wall.
> At some stage something has become art. But when? To my mind it's at stage
> 2, when I communicate to someone else that the sunset is worth looking at.
Hmm. I see what you mean. It's analogous to hanging the sunset on the
museum wall, if you could, which I did say would qualify as art, and
nearly the same as taking a photograph. But I'm a little troubled
because it's difficult for me to say what the "art" is in this scenario.
Your words, in pointing out the sunset? The sunset itself, which still
involves no human intention? At least with the museum wall and and the
photograph, there's still the frame, to show you where the difference
between the art (which has been given meaning by being put in this
context by a human being) and the world.
No, I think it's at stage three, when you do change the context, put a
frame around it, and give it meaning thereby. Unless you want to say
that by using the words "look at that" you *are* changing the context...
But I don't think so. Not really.
> > A wagon wheel mounted in a museum - art. I think if the photograph is,
> > this pretty much has to be. Again, by taking something that we normally
> > filter out and drawing our attention to it, the artist is saying
> > something.
> See what I mean?
Completely. Let me turn it around on you. Do you think the wheel would
be art if it were still on the wagon, if all I did was point to it and
say "look at that"? In that case, what *isn't* art?
> >Perhaps something about how much more human the older
> > industries looked, or the ravages of time and gravity- I don't know, I
> > haven't seen the wheel.
> Or perhaps just "hey, just look at that wheel" - the recognition that it's
> worth looking at.
Well, but it's worth looking at for a reason, eh?
Jenny Radcliffe
Um, is this a case of serious philosophy? Not "does a tree falling in a
forest make a noise when there is no one to hear it" but "is a sunset
art when there is no one to appreciate it?"
Well, I don't know the answer to the former question, but perhaps art is
only where someone sees it - that is, if you see and appreciate, or
loathe, or otherwise react to, some aesthetic thing, then it is art.
Otherwise, it just is.
Then art will be different for different people - Mary and I react to a
fractal, maybe other people don't. But, like beauty, perhaps art is in
the eye of the beholder.
If I look at a profoundly unflattering picture of someone I'm fond of,
and react to it because of the memories it induces, it's art. If you
look at it and just think it's a picture, and not a very interesting
one, it's not art.
It's worth saying at this point that I rarely if ever see a painting
which is "art" by this definition - but I'm quite prepared to admit that
I'm a visual philistine.
--
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him about Usenet and
he won't bother you for weeks.
Sylvain Chambon
[repression of closet paedophiles]
>There is a genetic dispostion towards that too, IIRC. No reason to
>punish them for it - if they commit a crime, then genetic test them
>to see if they would be likely to reoffend in order to decide on
>the best punishment and rehabilitation scheme for them.
<cough>
Why am I reminded of "Gattacca"?
Sylvain.
Sylvain Chambon
[reformatted for the sake of argument]
>Sylvain Chambon wrote:
>> In article <3AAFA521...@ups.edu>, Mary Messall wrote:
[defining art]
>> If I were to define art, I would use a slightly different
>> definition. I would say art is something that, through perception,
>> brings out meaning (or emotion). A piece of art does not necessarily
>> have much meaning by itself; but if it is so that an onlooker finds
>> meaning (either in the piece of art or in themselves), then it
>> qualifies as art.
>
>Ah, but that makes the sunset qualify...
[later on...]
>> >Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
>> >meaning there yourself.
>> >Fractals - not art. Ditto
>> Nobody put anything in a sunset of a fractals picture. Art is,
>> obviously, something that is created.
>
>Okay, why? By your definition, I don't see why it should have to be. I
>do see why in mine. <g>
Okay, let's put it in the definition then. Art is something created
that brings out meaning or emotion in the receiver.
>I agree, but I think this is consistent with my use of "meaning" or
>"signifigance". To switch to an example- words.
>
>Say the words "flapping flag".
<snip>
>But does it have meaning? You bet your bippy. Now "farglgot hatmanach"
>doesn't have meaning. But "flapping flag" definitely does. That's the
>kind of meaning I'm talking about to qualify as art. Not some "moral of
>the story" and not a "message", just meaning, as opposed to
>meaninglessness.
That's what I understood as well... I'm only saying the artist does
not necessarily "put" significance in a work of art, but simply puts
something which might evoke something of significance in the
receiver of this work of art.
Which is a very bad definition, of course. Too many "something"s.
Anyway: "Farglgot hatmanach" can very well have some meaning. Just
listen... "Far-gl-got". The rapid "glg" succession obviously (<g>)
evokes a strangling-gurgling sound. The "open" vowel ("a") and the
harsh consonant before that ("r") give it a sense of
aggressivity. We therefore have a violent act of
strangulation... The "got" sound at the end of the word implies a
past tense.
"Hatmanach" can be interpreted in two ways. Either you say it
"Hatmanack", in which case it's a cross between "almanach" and "hat"
-- a temporally-aware hat maybe? Obviously, something or somebody
rather wise (the hat covers the head, the center of conscious
thought, don't forget that). Now our hatmanach has been farglgot,
not something I would wish to anyone else. This seems to mean that
wisdom is dangerous, since crowds will mob against you at the drop
of a hat. Or in this case, a hatmanach.
Alternatively, you can say "hatmanach" with a... well, I can't
express it otherwise than "German '-ach'". That automatically gives
a rather darker coloration to your "hatmanach", doesn't it? So I
would more think of the whole "farglgot hatmanach" as a cunning and
plotting evil being, which has suffered a thourough farglging during
its childhood, and now has a compulsion to farglg innocent
people. Not anyone I'd like to meet.
(Now what does that tell you about me?)
>> FWIW, I consider TLOTR to be art, and money-driven Hollywood
>> action-packed blockbusters to, in general, not be. I won't
>> challenge
>
><teasing> What about the money-driven, action packed Hollywood
>blockbuster version of LoTR coming out this Christmas?
Oh, you mean the one I very carefully didn't mention? <g>.
>> anyone to prove me wrong, though-- if you think _Lethal Weapon_
>> is art, that's proof enough for me.
>
>Sure it is. It's comedy, and it's stupid, so it's a funny, stupid
>kind of art. Who says art can't be funny and stupid?
Not me. Like I said, if someone believes something to be art, then
it makes it art.
>> Now the next question is: what's an artist?
>
>Someone who makes art. Wow, that was easy. <g>
Er, yes. I mean, if you consider that art exists mostly in the eye
of the onlooker, how do you consensually decide if someone is an
artist or someone posing as such?
>nation: n. A group of people from a certain geographic area ruled
>by a common government. -It may be tricky to tell which government,
>if any, is ruling which people, but that's a political problem, not
>a semantic one.
Nope, that's a State. Of course you mostly have nation-States
nowadays (well, in occidental countries anyway) but that wasn't
always the case.
I live in Sweden and, by all accounts, am ruled by the Swedish
government. Am I Swedish? Not that I know of.
People in pre-1989 Germany lived under two governments. Were there
two German nations then?
The classical definition of nation includes, at some length,
language, history and culture. Ultimately, it's really "if I speak
French, feel that French history is my history and that I have
French culture, then I am French".
[1] That's the North-Western part of France, "sticking out" into the
Atlantic, for those who don't know.
Miq
>ssso...@reading.ac.uk (Adrian Ogden) wrote:
>> Or as Frank Zappa put it, "The important thing about art is the frame.
>> This tells you where the art ends and the real world begins. Suppose
>> <some avant-garde composer> clips on a throat mic and drinks a glass
>> of carrot juice, and then says 'I now will this to be music'. That's
>> his composition, that's his art. Without the frame as declared it's
>> just a guy swallowing carrot juice."
>
>Myeah. And when I, member of the public and not a composer at all, do
>the same thing, it's Not Art. Not because I cannot drink carrot juice,
>or because I forgot to declare it music, but because, even if I do
>declare it music, I'm not a composer, so I've no right to Declare things
>to be Art. Sorry, I don't buy into that.
You're making a false assumption. If you do that, and declare the
result to be music, then it *is* art, just as much as if the recognised
composer did it.
The difference is that the composer is recognised as someone who knows
what she's talking about. So when *she* makes the claim, people will
take her seriously - they'll assume that she's trying to make a point,
or that she genuinely thinks there's something musical about it - and
this claim deserves to be taken seriously *because* she's the one who's
making it. In much the same way as I can rant to my heart's content
about the stupidity of my country's government and no-one will turn a
hair - but if Tony Blair said exactly the same words, it'd be news.
--
Miq
Miq
>My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it has to
>have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy *something* by it.
So... how about this post? Is this art?
A 'No Smoking' sign?
A webcam in someone's bedroom?
>When I apply it to a few examples, I get the results I want. (Bear with
>me, I'm a physicist, I have to test my theories.)
>
>Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
>meaning there yourself.
>
>Fractals - not art. Ditto
I'm not so sure about this one. Even though the fractal itself may be
generated by mechanistic rules, someone somewhere had to set those
rules, to dictate the form of the output, and then display the result.
That might well qualify it as art.
Apart from these minor quibbles, I think you've got the most convincing
argument yet.
--
Miq
Mary Messall
<reformatted again for the sake of argument>
<snippity>
[Sylvain]
> Okay, let's put it in the definition then. Art is something created
> that brings out meaning or emotion in the receiver.
> Not me. Like I said, if someone believes something to be art, then
> it makes it art.
What if I say that I believe this thing which does not bring out any
emotion or meaning in the receiver... is art. Is it, or isn't it?
Haha!
[Mary]
> >But does it have meaning? You bet your bippy. Now "farglgot hatmanach"
> >doesn't have meaning. But "flapping flag" definitely does. That's the
> >kind of meaning I'm talking about to qualify as art. Not some "moral of
> >the story" and not a "message", just meaning, as opposed to
> >meaninglessness.
[Sylvain]
> That's what I understood as well... I'm only saying the artist does
> not necessarily "put" significance in a work of art, but simply
> puts something which might evoke something of significance in the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> receiver of this work of art.
But he puts *something* in, and if it's going to evoke anything in the
beholder, it must have some kind of meaning. As the two of us might
think of completely different flags with completely different emotional
reactions when we see the words "flapping flag" but neither of us thinks
of anything when we see alphabet soup. Geddit?
<snip>
[Sylvain]
> Er, yes. I mean, if you consider that art exists mostly in the eye
> of the onlooker, how do you consensually decide if someone is an
> artist or someone posing as such?
You consensually decide if the thing they've produced is art, duh.
Silliness follows:
[Mary]
> > Say the words "flapping flag".
Oh go on, say them. Two short a's, two fl's, a -pping and a -g. More fun
to pronounce than that, words don't get.
[Sylvain]
> Anyway: "Farglgot hatmanach" can very well have some meaning. Just
> listen... "Far-gl-got". The rapid "glg" succession obviously (<g>)
> evokes a strangling-gurgling sound. The "open" vowel ("a") and the
> harsh consonant before that ("r") give it a sense of
> aggressivity. We therefore have a violent act of
> strangulation... The "got" sound at the end of the word implies a
> past tense.
<sputter, giggle> It does rather look like a perfective passive
participle- used as an adjective. Funny how I can't even come up with
ungrammatical nonsense...
[Sylvain]
> "Hatmanach" can be interpreted in two ways. Either you say it
> "Hatmanack", ... Now our hatmanach has been farglgot,
> not something I would wish to anyone else. This seems to mean that
> wisdom is dangerous, since crowds will mob against you at the drop
> of a hat. Or in this case, a hatmanach.
Poor, poor old hatmanach...
[Sylvain]
> Alternatively, you can say "hatmanach" with a... well, I can't
> express it otherwise than "German '-ach'". That automatically gives
> a rather darker coloration to your "hatmanach", doesn't it? So I
Not at all. Now it sounds like hat (has) man (one, like the pronoun)
nach (after), which sounds like a doctor (has one after an accident) or
something.
[Sylvain]
> would more think of the whole "farglgot hatmanach" as a cunning and
> plotting evil being, which has suffered a thourough farglging during
> its childhood, and now has a compulsion to farglg innocent
> people. Not anyone I'd like to meet.
> (Now what does that tell you about me?)
That you've been reading too much AFP. <g> And that you're not a Merkin,
'cause you didn't come up with the pronunciation I'd probably go to
first, which is "hat-man-atch" with the ch as in "church". That sounds
vaguely yiddish to me, like "He's a schlmiel, but he's a such a
hatmanach!"
More semantics wrangling, but on a different question, follows:
[Mary]
> >nation: n. A group of people from a bounded geographic area ruled
> >by a common government. -It may be tricky to tell which government,
> >if any, is ruling which people, but that's a political problem, not
> >a semantic one.
[Sylvain]
> Nope, that's a State. Of course you mostly have nation-States
> nowadays (well, in occidental countries anyway) but that wasn't
> always the case.
> I live in Sweden and, by all accounts, am ruled by the Swedish
> government. Am I Swedish? Not that I know of.
Aha, but you notice I carefully said "from" rather than "in". You're not
from Sweden. Mind you, there are cases where it's tricky to determine
where someone is from, if they've moved around a lot, and in that case I
would say they get to pick where they feel like they're from.
[Sylvain]
> People in pre-1989 Germany lived under two governments. Were there
> two German nations then?
Not even one. There was a Prussian nation and an Austro-Hungarian (is
that right?) There may have been a German nation before than and
definitely after, but at that time, I'd say nope.
[Sylvain]
> The classical definition of nation includes, at some length,
> language, history and culture. Ultimately, it's really "if I speak
> French, feel that French history is my history and that I have
> French culture, then I am French".
Tricky for a Merkin since 1) we ain't got much history. Go back three
generations or so, and most of out ancestors were someplace else, and
most of our land belonged to some other nation 2) we borrowed out
languages from someplace else. Mostly English, but in SoCal and Texas
and New Mexico, there's a Spanish speaking majority, there are still
China towns, Pennsalvania Dutch, and let us not forget Ebonics. <g> 3)
What culture?
-Mary
Mary Messall
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2001, Mary Messall <mmes...@ups.edu> wrote
> >My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it has to
> >have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy *something* by it.
> So... how about this post? Is this art?
Sure, just like an essay is. Mind, it's not very *impressive* art... <g>
> A 'No Smoking' sign?
Well, no, not in its natural context. It's like the wagon wheel on the
wagon, designed to perform a function, not to create a reaction. It's
not anyone's going to go "No - a negation. Smoking - an action,
associated with fire. Whoa, man, that's so true." A no smoking sign is a
machine to make people put their cigarettes away. <g>
In a similar way, my compact discs, my toothpaste tube, and the warnings
on my glue bottle aren't art, but art could be printed on them.
> A webcam in someone's bedroom?
Yes, although almost certainly bad art.
> >When I apply it to a few examples, I get the results I want. (Bear with
> >me, I'm a physicist, I have to test my theories.)
> >Sunsets - not art. They may mean something to you, but you put that
> >meaning there yourself.
> >Fractals - not art. Ditto
> I'm not so sure about this one. Even though the fractal itself may be
> generated by mechanistic rules, someone somewhere had to set those
> rules, to dictate the form of the output, and then display the result.
> That might well qualify it as art.
I'm counting those as modifications. The fractal itself is an
abstraction. I can zoom in on it infinitely, pan accross it, give it
whatever false colors I want, alter it with parameters. While I am doing
this, I am just exploring something naturally occuring, just climbing
trees. As soon as I select one set of parameters, one set of colors, and
one region from it to view as a picture, like composing a photograph of
a branch, I've made art.
> Apart from these minor quibbles, I think you've got the most convincing
> argument yet.
--
Sylvain Chambon
>Attributions moved to relevant text.
><reformatted again for the sake of argument>
><snippity>
>[Sylvain]
>> Okay, let's put it in the definition then. Art is something created
>> that brings out meaning or emotion in the receiver.
>...
>> Not me. Like I said, if someone believes something to be art, then
>> it makes it art.
>
>What if I say that I believe this thing which does not bring out
>any emotion or meaning in the receiver... is art. Is it, or isn't
>it?
That's exactly the problem I wanted to point out (with the "nation"
example). It's pretty difficult to agree on what is art and not; if
anything it's a personal feeling. I can consider something to be art
and something else not to be, and you can consider things the other
way round...
At best, art is decided by consensus.
>[Sylvain]
>> That's what I understood as well... I'm only saying the artist
>> does not necessarily "put" significance in a work of art, but
>> simply puts something which might evoke something of significance
>> in the receiver of this work of art.
>
>But he puts *something* in, and if it's going to evoke anything in
>the beholder, it must have some kind of meaning.
Yes, I guess something can be meaningful in the same way that thing
can be an omen, but not of something particular.
Still, I feel uneasy about artists who set out to paint / write /
photograph / sculpt /... something that _they_ don't know is
about. An aunt of mine does it for a living, and although I find her
paintings very beautiful I have no idea what she meant by it.
>As the two of us might think of completely different flags with
>completely different emotional reactions when we see the words
>"flapping flag" but neither of us thinks of anything when we see
>alphabet soup. Geddit?
On the contrary! Alphabet soup can very well be considered
art. Letters, phonemes, sounds have emotional colouring. Therefore
any association of letters will provoke a reaction. That reaction
might be thinking to yourself "what a pillock", but this doesn't
really matter.
I can't say that I think of much when I see Picasso's sculpture of a
bull which he made from a bike. I don't really think of much in
front of his "distorted portraits", either. I won't deny it's art,
though.
>More semantics wrangling, but on a different question, follows:
>[Sylvain]
>> People in pre-1989 Germany lived under two governments. Were
>> there two German nations then?
>
>Not even one. There was a Prussian nation and an Austro-Hungarian
>(is that right?) There may have been a German nation before than
>and definitely after, but at that time, I'd say nope.
I'd say that around the third and fourth decades of last century,
there definitely was a German nation. After the war, with the wall,
there was still one nation, split into two states.
A similar example is Italy. There was, definitely, a national
feeling in Italy before the creation of the Italian
state. Similarly, there was in the 1910's a lot of Southern-Slavic
nationalistic feeling, leading to the creation of Yugoslavia in
1918. The "one location, one government" definition doesn't sound
too satisfying to me.
>[Sylvain]
>> The classical definition of nation includes, at some length,
>> language, history and culture. Ultimately, it's really "if I
>> speak French, feel that French history is my history and that I
>> have French culture, then I am French".
>
>Tricky for a Merkin since
>1) we ain't got much history. Go back three generations or so, and
>most of out ancestors were someplace else, and most of our land
>belonged to some other nation
... you do have some history. All these westerns, all these films
about the Civil War, don't they commemorate it? Not that long a
history, maybe, but I can't really say I have that much history
either. If anything, my father's ancestors have been at war with
half of my mother's, which were also at war with (or colonising) the
other half.
Nothing to be really proud of, isn't it?
>2) we borrowed out languages from someplace else. Mostly English, but
>in SoCal and Texas and New Mexico, there's a Spanish speaking
>majority, there are still China towns, Pennsalvania Dutch, and let
>us not forget Ebonics. <g>
All languages are, ultimately, borrowed. French is the bastard son
of legionary latin and some Celtic language. Does that mean all
French people are actually Italian?
>3) What culture?
Huh... the one which tells you to say "hatmanach" with the same "ch"
as in "church"? <g>.
I did say (or imply, at least) that it was a sketchy definition,
which I don't really like. I prefer the "I belong to whatever nation
I believe I belong to" one. The only problem is that it's
impractical.
Sylvain.
Mike Stevens
> No, I think it's at stage three, when you do change the context, put a
> frame around it, and give it meaning thereby. Unless you want to say
> that by using the words "look at that" you *are* changing the context...
You begin to see what I mean.....
> But I don't think so. Not really.
.... or not.
> Completely. Let me turn it around on you. Do you think the wheel would
> be art if it were still on the wagon, if all I did was point to it and
> say "look at that"?
Hm. My first reaction is "yes it would". My second reaction is that it's
the pointing and the comment that's the art. My third reaction is to try to
find an amalgam of the two............
> In that case, what *isn't* art?
Something that nobody notices.
> Well, but it's worth looking at for a reason, eh?
To me, what makes it art is that somebody thinks it's worth looking at,
rather than *why* they think it's worth looking at.
Jonathan Ellis
Mary Messall wrote in message <3AAFD359...@ups.edu>...
>Attributions moved to relevant text.
><reformatted again for the sake of argument>
><snippity>
>[Sylvain]
>> Okay, let's put it in the definition then. Art is something created
>> that brings out meaning or emotion in the receiver.
>...
>> Not me. Like I said, if someone believes something to be art, then
>> it makes it art.
>
>What if I say that I believe this thing which does not bring out any
>emotion or meaning in the receiver... is art. Is it, or isn't it?
explain Beethoven's Fourth Symphony? Not the 3rd, 5th, 6th or 9th, which
have been analyzed in terms of meanings here and there until all the
analysts disappear up their own orifices, but the 4th - one which is purely
musical for the sake of music.
Jonathan.
Mike Stevens
> Not even one. There was a Prussian nation and an Austro-Hungarian (is
> that right?)
Nope. What was originally Prussia was (IIRC) partly in East Germany and
partly in West Germany (as they were 1945-89), along with lots of what had
been separate nations pre about 1870. Austria & Hungary were post 1945 once
again separate outside Germany.
> Tricky for a Merkin since 1) we ain't got much history.
Really? Was no-one living in the New World before Columbus arrived?
>Go back three
> generations or so, and most of out ancestors were someplace else, and
> most of our land belonged to some other nation 2) we borrowed out
> languages from someplace else.
That sounds just like the British, Londoners especially.
Mike Stevens
> I can't say that I think of much when I see Picasso's sculpture of a
> bull which he made from a bike.
My reaction was quite the opposite, when that particular piece was on
display in an exhibition in London many years ago. I felt it was clever and
really brilliant piece of artisitc vision : to see that these two separate
pieces of a bike, put in juxtaposition in just such a way *really would*
look likme a bull's head. That, to me, is art of a high order.
David Chapman
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 10:44:22 -0000 sunburned and smelling of rum,
> "David Chapman" <anti...@evildeath.madasafish.com> traipsed into
the
> Ladies and happily said:
>
> >> IMO, a person's thoughts and fantasies are their own and no one
> >>ought to be able to take them away from you or punish you for
them. As
> >>long as a pedophile doesn't actually involve a child and act out
those
> >> fantasies, there is no crime. Heck, I'm a potential LOT of nasty
> >> things...but unless I actually DO those things, I plead not
guilty,
> >> yer 'onor.
> >
> >By that argument, you can own as many kiddie porn movies as you
want -
> >you're not actually DOING those things, or acting out those
fantasies
> >and involving a child. So there's no crime.
>
> Um, not quite right. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I said
> *thoughts* didn't I?
Fact: Porn is used to reinforce fantasies.
Pictures/movies of kiddie porn obviously *does*
> involve a child...someone took the pictures/shot the movie. And I'm
> relatively certain that it is indeed against the law in most places
to
> either be taking such picturs or to be in possession of them.
I'm not ignoring that, Spuddie. What I'm saying is that you seemed to
be saying that only the people who make the movies are committing the
crime because, once made, owning the movies isn't causing any further
harm.
Andy Davison
message <Pey05hAA...@kew1.demon.co.uk>:
>So... how about this post? Is this art?
>
>A 'No Smoking' sign?
This reminds me of a Charles & Fiona sketch on Round the Horne where
Charles is a painter and Fiona says she doesn't understand his latest
piece and asks exactly what it means. The answer was <paraphrase> It
means what it says. Gents wash and brush up 5 shillings </paraphrase>
I think that was Took and Feldman's send up of pop art like the
Campbells soup can and a painting (can't remember who by) which was
just random words stencilled onto the canvas
--
Andy Davison
andy.d...@btinternet.com
Mary Messall
> In article <3AAFD359...@ups.edu>, Mary Messall wrote:
> >Attributions moved to relevant text.
> ><reformatted again for the sake of argument>
> ><snippity>
> >[Sylvain]
> >> Okay, let's put it in the definition then. Art is something created
> >> that brings out meaning or emotion in the receiver.
> >...
> >> Not me. Like I said, if someone believes something to be art, then
> >> it makes it art.
> >What if I say that I believe this thing which does not bring out
> >any emotion or meaning in the receiver... is art. Is it, or isn't
> >it?
> That's exactly the problem I wanted to point out (with the "nation"
But that's a problem with your definition, not mine. Mine simply says
"Nope, it's not."
<snip>
> On the contrary! Alphabet soup can very well be considered
> art. Letters, phonemes, sounds have emotional colouring. Therefore
Look, the whole point of bother to define art is so you can exclude
things like alphabet soup...
> any association of letters will provoke a reaction. That reaction
> might be thinking to yourself "what a pillock", but this doesn't
> really matter.
That's why my definition says someone must have meant something, not
just that it must cause a reaction in someone.
> >More semantics wrangling, but on a different question, follows:
> >[Sylvain]
> >> People in pre-1989 Germany lived under two governments. Were
> >> there two German nations then?
> >Not even one. There was a Prussian nation and an Austro-Hungarian
> >(is that right?) There may have been a German nation before than
> >and definitely after, but at that time, I'd say nope.
> I'd say that around the third and fourth decades of last century,
> there definitely was a German nation. After the war, with the wall,
> there was still one nation, split into two states.
I mis-read that, I though it said 1889. I wasn't sure I knew my 19th
century German history that well. <g> But I would still say that, yes,
for that period there were two German nations. Now, you may want to ask
what made them both German, and that would get into questions of
language and culture and history...
> A similar example is Italy. There was, definitely, a national
> feeling in Italy before the creation of the Italian
> state. Similarly, there was in the 1910's a lot of Southern-Slavic
> nationalistic feeling, leading to the creation of Yugoslavia in
> 1918. The "one location, one government" definition doesn't sound
> too satisfying to me.
And would you say that there is still such a thing a Yugoslavia today? I
sure wouldn't. (n.b. I am aware that Serbia and Montenegro are still
united and call themselves "Yugoslavia", but it's definitely not the
same Yugoslavia as before.)
> >[Sylvain]
> >> The classical definition of nation includes, at some length,
> >> language, history and culture. Ultimately, it's really "if I
> >> speak French, feel that French history is my history and that I
> >> have French culture, then I am French".
> >Tricky for a Merkin since
> >1) we ain't got much history. Go back three generations or so, and
> >most of out ancestors were someplace else, and most of our land
> >belonged to some other nation
> ... you do have some history. All these westerns, all these films
> about the Civil War, don't they commemorate it? Not that long a
Oh, sure. It's just that almost all of us have ancestors that weren't
here at that time, which is why you get all of these hyphenated things
like "African-American", "Italian-American", "Asian-American", etc.
Look, if a word is used then it *has* a definition, unless it's used for
*everything* (Would you smurf that smurfy smurf?) The problem is just
trying to articulate that definition in other words. I look at this as a
challenge, and am unlikely to be satisfied with re-cursive (art is what
someone thinks is art) or meaningless (nationality is whatever you think
it is) solutions, as I consider them to be cheating on the puzzle. I
apologize if other people don't have the boundless patience for this
game that I do. <g>
-Mary (Aside to Mike: whatever you think a nation is, the Native
Americans did not live in this one prior to 1776.)
Aquarion
alt.fan.pratchett
>Aquarion <use...@aquarionics.com> wrote
>> Jenny Radcliffe took 18 tacks to pin this to the wall of
>> alt.fan.pratchett
>> >Spuddie <the...@spuddie.net> wrote
>> >> On Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:06:28 -0000 sunburned and smelling of rum,
>> >> "Jenny Radcliffe" <jenny.r...@physics.org> traipsed into the
>> >> Ladies and happily said:
>> >> >[1] Not as bad as some of the other debates, about the placing of
>> >commas
>> >> >and things, and then there was the "what is a biscuit" debate ...
>> >> We *don't* wanna go there, do we?
>> >No. You don't. And then there were the vodka debates ...
>> Oh yes, we have had those. They go like this:
>> Shall we have another Vodka?
>> Yes, I think we should.
>> Seconded, and carried.
>
>I wish I wish I wish that's how they went.
Join The Soap Bubble!
Yours in total sincerity,
Aquarion, Webmaster of the Suds[1] website, AKA, The Soap
Bubble.
Bub: From the planescapian term for alcohol,
All: The amount Suds will drink at the cast parties
[1] Sunderland University Drama Soc. Who perform a play on 28th/29th
March this year. Scary. I *need* to learn my lines
Mary Messall
> IMO, something is art if it was made to express, in one form or
> another, beauty. It may express other things as well; but its final
> form must be influenced by a sense of beauty, and it is art in as much
> as it is thus influenced by this beauty.
> It tells me that Paul is Art <g>.
Well then, so long Frank Lloyd Wright...
<runs away very very fast>
MP
on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 20:59:26 +0000, that:
>On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>>Hmm, he may be wrong, but MP thinks that Miq <m...@lspace.org> wrote,
>>on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:00:23 +0000, that:
>>
>>>On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>>>>Please note that I don't advocate
>>>>genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
>>>>guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
>>>>the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
>>>>therefore not theft, fraud and so on).
>>>
>>>Whoa - I hope you're not arguing that theft and fraud aren't harmful?
>>
>>No. Just not _directly_ harmful - as it says.
>
>Why that distinction?
>
>*If*, and I'll come back to this in a moment, there is some sort of
>genetic basis for 'serious crimes', then isn't it at least *possible*
>that people who have no qualms about 'indirect harm' - which is, when
>you get right down to it, all about causing misery to someone else for
>their own gratification - have the same genes as those of someone likely
>to torture or rape someone for the same reason?
The distinction is that those people that commit violent crime have
been found to have a higher than average tendency to have certain
genes. It may be that "people who have no qualms about indirect harm"
share these genes. I don't know. The scientists who have carried out
this research presumably think that it is more important to catch
those violent criminals who are likely to re-offend than people who
are going to go and steal stuff again. Would you agree with that, or
would you prefer them to ignore the work they have done so far and
start again on non-violent criminals, while those violent criminals
that could have been detected go out and murder more people, or commit
rape or GBH?
>If, on the other hand, there is no genetic connection, then what is the
>point of testing anyone?
>
>You see, what I'm getting at here is *why* you want to genetically
>profile people. Is it a part of the punishment for committing a crime,
>or is it some sort of public-safety measure?
Public safety - as I have said many times. The aim is not to catch
people before they commit crimes, since this is a violation of basic
human rights. The idea is to keep those people who have already
offended from re-offending. If we can find out those who are _most
likely_ to re-offend then we can tailor their punishment to this.
>>>How about a man who stands by and watches while a child drowns in a
>>>pond?
>>
>>Slightly suspect example - it could be construed as child abuse, or
>>negligence, or very poor judgement. However, I doubt you would be
>>committing a crime
>
>There's probably no actual crime that you could convict this person of.
>But that's not the question I'm asking. The question is, do you think
>his genes should be tested on the basis of this behaviour? If not, why
>not?
Depends on his reasoning. If he pushed the child into the pond and
then just sits and watches whilst they drown, he is guilty of child
abuse. If he sees the child fall into a pond, but thinks that they
jumped and are playing - didn't realise they were drowning - then it
is a tragic accident. If he sees the child fall into a pond and
doesn't react to that because he is doing full CPR on a person who has
had a heart attack, then he is doing what he is obliged to (assuming
that he is a member of a first aid organisation like St John, where we
are not allowed to stop full CPR until a doctor has declared the
person as dead or we physically cannot continue). It could be that he
cannot swim, so could not help even if he tried - he should be trying
to attract the attention of other people.
You see that whether he should be tested depends on the logic behind
his actions. I never approve of genetic testing for anything but the
strongest of reasons, so would never advocate random testing. You seem
to be making out that I would.
MP
MP
Chambon) wrote, on 16 Mar 2001 09:37:45 GMT, that:
>In article <slrn9b3hce....@geekling.jester.nu>, flabbergast
>wrote:
<snip>
>>[1]To be honest, I haven't really read it, ust skimmed it and
>>observed the letters swim infront of my eyes... Tired, very
>>tired... want to go back to sleep... not go to work... sleep...
>
>I really didn't want to go back to work today. Especially when I saw
>it was snowing again, when all the week had been very, well,
>springy. Waaant spring!
Boing! Is nice here, but I don't want to be here. I want home! Now!
Sleep would be nice too. And food. And to be able to get rid of this
flipping cold. And a new computer desk. And more Lemsip.
I don't want much from life... <g>
MP
MP
wrote, on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 19:44:28 -0600, that:
>Or perhaps someone will go and spraypaint clothing on all the nude
>paintings and sculptures in museums throughout the world... can't have
>depictions of the nude human form anywhere where anybody might see it,
>can we?
>
I think they've already started on town sculptures. Either that or
some of the statues in York are supposed to have some rather strange
fungal diseases... <g>
MP
Yannick Larvor
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>> Hmm, he may be wrong, but MP thinks that Miq <m...@lspace.org> wrote,
[...]
>>> How about a man who stands by and watches while a child drowns in a
>>> pond?
>>
>> Slightly suspect example - it could be construed as child abuse, or
>> negligence, or very poor judgement. However, I doubt you would be
>> committing a crime
> There's probably no actual crime that you could convict this person
> of.
Well, it depends on where it happens. In France, it is a crime. "Non
assistance à personne en danger". If someone's in need of assistance,
you have to help, and if you cannot provide direct help, you have to
make sure that someone who can is informed.
Watching a child or anybody drowning, passing by a car accident without
making sure people are cared for, not calling the fire department in
case of fire, etc... All these fall under the law.
--
Yannick
Charles A Lieberman
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=<98i55f$a29$1...@library.lspace.org>
>If someone gets off on those photos, it isn't harming the kids. They
>could be doing a lot worse.
Well...I agree, but I don't have any kids. I don't know if I'd want
someone to get off looking at pictures of them if I did.
>But someone drooling over innocently-taken
>pictures of kids (when they could be going out and finding photos that
>*weren't* taken innocently) is fairly harmless. IMHO. It's what it could
>lead to that's the problem, of course.
Frankly, if I were a pedophile I'd sit in my car across the street from
the playground. What *could* it lead to? Is it easier to do bad things
to children on the other side of the world than down the street?
Not to defend abuse, of course.
--
Charles A. Lieberman Brooklyn, NY, USA
AFP Code 2.0 AGo/Li-US d(--) s: a-- U++>+ R F++ h- P! OS--:- C++ M-
!pp L(+) Ia W- c B Cn CC? PT--->++ Pu78 !5 !X MT++ e+>++ r y+* end
http://calieber.tripod.com/home.html
Jennifer en Reinier Sjouw
news:3ab1f854...@news.york.ac.uk...
> share these genes. I don't know. The scientists who have carried out
> this research presumably think that it is more important to catch
> those violent criminals who are likely to re-offend than people who
> are going to go and steal stuff again. Would you agree with that, or
> would you prefer them to ignore the work they have done so far and
> start again on non-violent criminals, while those violent criminals
> that could have been detected go out and murder more people, or commit
> rape or GBH?
I think there is no such thing as non-violent crime.
Tax-fraud, maybe. I go to bed every night in the knowledge
there are fraudsters out there without losing sleep over it.
I may still get annoyed by it, but that's another kettle of fish.
But think of a couple of over 60-year-olds, whose house
has been burgled. Maybe it happened while they were in,
maybe while they were out. They won't feel safe in their own
home anymore. They feel _violated_!
It is _always_ different when it is up close and personal.
A couple of years ago collegue of mine had his car burgled
near work on average once a month. My complete attitude
changed when my car got burgled once during that year.
We discussed - and we weren't _fully_ joking - to alternate
guard duty between us near the car park,
carrying baseball bats.
There is a _huge_ difference between what you should
want as a society and how you may feel as an individual.
I know I'm not always proud of how I felt in certain instances.
I just feel lucky I haven't actually acted upon those feelings.
The only alternative is to exchange afp for the SUN and
become an induhvidual. WHich is where I'm lucky,
as the Sun isn't exactly easy to obtain overhere :-)
Reinier.
Jennifer en Reinier Sjouw
news:yrc8zm5...@mail.dotcom.fr...
>
<snip bit about not helping someone in mortal danger which
was written by others than Yannick>
>
> Well, it depends on where it happens. In France, it is a crime. "Non
> assistance à personne en danger". If someone's in need of assistance,
> you have to help, and if you cannot provide direct help, you have to
> make sure that someone who can is informed.
>
> Watching a child or anybody drowning, passing by a car accident without
> making sure people are cared for, not calling the fire department in
> case of fire, etc... All these fall under the law.
>
In the Netherlands (where we have Napoleonic law, as this country was once
occupied by the French[1]) there is the famous article 450 in the penal
code,
which states that anyone not helping someone who is in mortal danger
can be arrested and sentenced to a serve a jail sentenceof at most 3 months
if the victim actually dies (and the person who did not help could have
helped without getting into mortal danger herself[2]).
I cannot remember of there actually having been any convictions based
on this law. Because, at the end of the day, it is going to be jolly well
difficult to prove that people could have helped without getting into
mortal danger themselves. Especially as the same lack of helpfulness
would apply to any witnesses of that lack of helpfulness.
[1] Indeed it was once part of France. Napoleon B thought his brother,
Louis-Napoleon, whom he had made King of the Netherlands[3], was
generally too soft on the cloggies and ended the Kindom of the Netherlands
to have that bit of land become part of the French Empire - and to be
able to conscript the Dutch.
[2] herself as in avoiding, in a politically correct manner, to use
"himself"
[3] Which was quite appalling as the country was the first Republic of
the world before that (or at least, that is what I seem to remember from
my National History[4] lessons)
[4] Or indeed "Fatherlands History" as the very literal translation goes.
Reinier.
Karen
<m...@unseenuniversity.org> writes
>
>Don't know. Never heard of it. Please note that I don't advocate
>genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
>guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
>the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
>certain human rights by choosing to commit such an offense, including
>the one not to be genetically profiled. Then it's their choice -
>commit the crime and risk it, or don't and don't.
There is no such thing as victimless crime. Try telling the Maxwell
pensioners left in permanent poverty and stress to the extent of major
illness that fraud is a victimless crime.
Ask them to compare maybe a street mugging with bruising and a lost bag
with the effect of the stress and poverty and shock caused by suddenly
finding yourself without the income your had worked for decades.
General comments:
There is a lot of irrational rubbish being talking in these threads
about crime and punishment. I can see a lot of superficially easily
identifiable targets being held up because 'hey if you defend their
rights to justice you must sympathise with them'.
Argue the case for specific punishment for specific crimes but please
people, think through the arguments and consider the real impact of what
you are saying. How you would implement it, where you would draw the
line, how you would deal with miscarriage of justice and how you define
*precisely* what is acceptable and what is not, how you would account
for circumstance, and how in the real world these things would be
implemented? Justice requires pragmatism too, if it is to have any hope
of being implemented.
It's easy to sound good/tough/righteous on issues which most of us find
unpleasant. Getting down past the big self righteous statements to
actually implementing and effecting real change is a lot less eye
catching and a lot more like hard graft, often with little apparent
reward.
Incidentally there have been some major miscarriages of justice based on
'genetic fingerprinting' which is a lot less cut and dried that much of
the mass media would have us believe. And that is entirely our fault, if
we are too lazy to really think through extreme measures when we ask for
them in our hunt for easy answers, then how can we blame the media for
pandering to it?
--
Karen/hypatia Ka...@lspace.org
** AFP will be 10 years old in 2002 **
Want to come to a world wide party?
http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/afparty/
Eric Jarvis
> In article <MPG.151b6082b...@news.dircon.co.uk>, Eric Jarvis
> <er...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Jenny Radcliffe wrote:
> > > Sylvain Chambon <sgpch...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > > > At best, art is decided by consensus.
> > >
> > > word consensus[1]. Doesn't it mean that *everyone* has to agree?
> > >
> >
> > nope
> >
> > enough people have to agree for the people who disagree to be
> > ridiculed and ignored
>
> can I have that as a quote? Please?
>
yep...no problem
except, I keep coming up with sigs for other people...but when I sit
down and try to build myself a new crop of them I can't remember any
:(
I need to find myself some writing time
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"money can't buy you love, but sometimes dinner
is much more important"
Eric Jarvis
> Richard Bos <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote
> > Ok, now my criterion. I've stated it here before. People didn't agree
> > with me then, and I don't expect them to agree with me now, but here
> it
> > is:
> > IMO, something is art if it was made to express, in one form or
> > another, beauty. It may express other things as well; but its final
> > form must be influenced by a sense of beauty, and it is art in as
> much
> > as it is thus influenced by this beauty.
> > things allow too much: they allow anything from a baby's howl to a
> > mathematician's equation to be art. Art is something more specific, it
> > is meant to express something special, not just any emotion; and I
> think
> > that something special is a sense of beauty.
>
> Sorry, I love the argument, I agree almost exclusively. However, an
> equation can well be beautiful, and so can the thing it describes. IMHO.
> But I still wouldn't call it art.
>
I also think there is a danger of stretching the word "beauty"
beyond all recognition or seriously limiting ones artistic horizons
art has never been entirely about beauty...and often beauty has not
been a consideration at all...that isn't a modern
development...unless you choose to define art so as not to include
literature or theatre
my question is...why do people feel a need to put a boundary around
the idea of art?...what is actually wrong with the idea that if
anyone calls it art, then it automatically is?
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Eric Jarvis
>
> Public safety - as I have said many times. The aim is not to catch
> people before they commit crimes, since this is a violation of basic
> human rights. The idea is to keep those people who have already
> offended from re-offending. If we can find out those who are _most
> likely_ to re-offend then we can tailor their punishment to this.
>
please think this stuff through before you post it
if it's a genetic predisposition, what the hell do you think a
punishment is going to do?...at least try to stay consistent
the only way it might make sense to use such data, that actually is
consistent with any sort of justice, is to take it into account when
arranging parole/release conditions
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
Eric Jarvis
> Eric Jarvis <er...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > [1] the argument goes thus...since photography now exists, for a
> > painting to have artistic value it must go beyond pure
> > representation...simply glorying in ones ability to recreate a scene
> > using paint is now merely a craft
>
> Erm... Eric... if you think representational art does not go beyond pure
> representation, you need to take a walk through the National Gallery
> with me. I can't think of a single painting that did not involve some,
> usually quite a bit, of personal interpretation from the artist. Even
> portraits often portray more of what the artist saw than what the person
> literally speaking looked like.
>
you should try the Whitechapel Open
it's art...I know it's art...but I find most "illustration" to be
clumsy, over literal or deliberately intellectual, or just plain
obvious
there are painters I love...Picasso, Rubens, Cezanne, Turner...even
David and Canaletto...the painters that put their soul into the
work...but an awful lot of painting strikes me as purely the
exercise of craft and intellect...it's not what I get off on...I
need inspiration, surprise and preferably a little bit of the
artist's blood [1]
the reason I always use painting of an example is that most people
have a clear idea of the basics of what conceptual art consists
of...I could make a similar argument to explain why I feel ballet is
intrinsically boring and contemporary dance is an inherently more
exciting art form...but I doubt if 1% of afp have actually seen any
decent contemporary dance [2]
my main point being that placing boundaries around what is and isn't
art is an entirely arbitrary process
[1] yes I do rather love Helen Chadwick's stuff, she will be sorely
missed
[2] a friend of mine spent a year studying dance audiences for the
Arts Council...she discovered that the average number of
contemporary dance shows seen per person over their lifetime is
slightly less than one...which, when you account for the fact that
I'm fairly dilettante about dance and see an average of four or five
shows a year, means most of you ain't going to see any...let alone
the good stuff :(
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"all characters portrayed in this post are entirely
fictitious and should not be confused"
Eric Jarvis
>
> I don't think a bowl of alphabet soup in my kitchen is art, because its
> purpose is to feed me, but the act of placing such an object in a
> gallery situation is an artificial (constructed, created) situation.
> This is the whole point to 'readymades' - that you are being prompted to
> think about an object out of its normal context.
>
I've spent a fair amount of the last seven years working with a
science art project...one of the things that has been a consistent
theme when artists have been working with scientists in their
labs/offices/whatehaveyous is that the scientists have often been
amazed at how beautiful the things they work with every day actually
are when you take time out to just look
that's one of the functions of art...to give us a sense of who and
where we are, and what we are doing
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
Mary Messall
> There is no such thing as victimless crime.
Posession of marijuana? Making an illegal U-turn on an empty road?
"Attempted" anything and various forms of recklessness, for that matter,
although those have potential victims.
-Mary (just playing devil's advocate.)
Mary Messall
> my question is...why do people feel a need to put a boundary around
> the idea of art?...what is actually wrong with the idea that if
> anyone calls it art, then it automatically is?
Because how do we know what to call art?
It has to have a definition, or you can't use it successfully in a
sentence. It doesn't communicate a thing, and you might as well have a
nonsense word.
"De-fine" means to limit, to put conditions on when the word can used.
If you don't have a definition, you can say "Boy, my underarms are
smelly, I'd better go put on some roll-on art."
And I'm sure nobody wants that. <g>
-Mary
Mike Stevens
> The difference between visual and verbal communication - visual symbols
> often have multiple associations,
You mean verbal communications don't? Try reading some of the metaphysical
poets. Such as this one "Love" by George Herbert (1593-1633)
----------------------------------------
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
----------------------------------------
> I don't think a bowl of alphabet soup in my kitchen is art, because its
> purpose is to feed me,
You think food can't be a work of art? I'd certainly disagree with that.
> Although I think pouring the soup into a bowl and giving it to someone
> to eat may constitute performance art...
Here, and at a few other points in your posting, you're getting fairly close
to something I suggested earlier in this thread : that the basic artistic
act is the act of *selection*.
Eric Jarvis
> Eric Jarvis wrote:
> > my question is...why do people feel a need to put a boundary around
> > the idea of art?...what is actually wrong with the idea that if
> > anyone calls it art, then it automatically is?
>
> Because how do we know what to call art?
the same way we do now...either by setting our own definition...or
by borrowing others
> It has to have a definition, or you can't use it successfully in a
> sentence. It doesn't communicate a thing, and you might as well have a
> nonsense word.
>
> "De-fine" means to limit, to put conditions on when the word can used.
> If you don't have a definition, you can say "Boy, my underarms are
> smelly, I'd better go put on some roll-on art."
>
> And I'm sure nobody wants that. <g>
>
actually a lot of words work very well with "fuzzy"
definitions...some concepts simply don't fit into any defined
limit...others that come immediately to mind are "love", "home",
"God", "justice"
important words that describe things we can't live without...but
which we can never accurately and exactly describe to somebody else
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
Miq
>there are painters I love...Picasso, Rubens, Cezanne, Turner...even
>David and Canaletto...the painters that put their soul into the
>work...but an awful lot of painting strikes me as purely the
>exercise of craft and intellect...it's not what I get off on...I
>need inspiration, surprise and preferably a little bit of the
>artist's blood [1]
I'd suggest that all artists do that to some extent. Some are more
successful at it than others, but I think those who are good enough to
get into the National Gallery are *all* pretty damn' impressive at
showing us their souls.
If I had to pick my favourites, I'd name Rembrandt, Michelangelo and El
Greco. Although the first two painted what you might consider
objectionably 'lifelike' figures, there's still an amazing passion in
their pictures, something that stands viewing time and again.
--
Miq
Deadlines looming? Teachers to impress? No time to read? Never fear!
The Discworld Homework Files: http://www.kew1.demon.co.uk/homework.html
MP
(Richard Bos) wrote, on Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:26:11 GMT, that:
>Mary Messall <mmes...@ups.edu> wrote:
<snip>
>> Oh yes, and no poetry textbook should ever under any circumstances be
>> called "Binary Thought".
>
>No textbook at all should be called "Binary Thought". Binary thought is
>one of the greatest flaws in modern society, and we would be well of
>without it. But I've done that rant; let me restrain myself.
>
What about one of Artificial Intelligence? Sound's reasonable to me,
but then I'm just a computer :-}
MP
MP
<ylsp...@free.fr> wrote, on Fri, 16 Mar 2001 18:50:13 GMT, that:
<snip>
>Watching a child or anybody drowning, passing by a car accident without
>making sure people are cared for, not calling the fire department in
>case of fire, etc... All these fall under the law.
Good idea. Why isn't that the law here? I can't see any major
downsides to that. Ideally combine it with compulsary first aid
training, so you _can_ help, but that would be an accessory.
MP
MP
<herod...@hotmail.com> wrote, on Sat, 17 Mar 2001 00:15:35 +1300,
that:
>MP wrote:
>
><snip>
>> The fact that they are out there, IMO, gives a dangerous
>> precident - what next? Think about it...
>
><sinister laugh>
> Your passport and driver's license photos.
></>
>
<snip>
You haven't see my passport, drivers licence or NUS cards...
MP
MP
>In article <3aafb392...@news.york.ac.uk>, MP wrote:
>
>[repression of closet paedophiles]
>
>>There is a genetic dispostion towards that too, IIRC. No reason to
>>punish them for it - if they commit a crime, then genetic test them
>>to see if they would be likely to reoffend in order to decide on
>>the best punishment and rehabilitation scheme for them.
>
><cough>
>
>Why am I reminded of "Gattacca"?
>
Don't know. Never heard of it. Please note that I don't advocate
genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
therefore not theft, fraud and so on). AFAIAC, they have given up
certain human rights by choosing to commit such an offense, including
the one not to be genetically profiled. Then it's their choice -
commit the crime and risk it, or don't and don't.
MP
MP
>In article <3AAFD359...@ups.edu>, Mary Messall wrote:
>>Attributions moved to relevant text.
<snip>
>
>>2) we borrowed out languages from someplace else. Mostly English, but
>>in SoCal and Texas and New Mexico, there's a Spanish speaking
>>majority, there are still China towns, Pennsalvania Dutch, and let
>>us not forget Ebonics. <g>
>
>All languages are, ultimately, borrowed. French is the bastard son
>of legionary latin and some Celtic language. Does that mean all
>French people are actually Italian?
>
<snip>
By the same argument, all British people would actually be
German-French-Norse-Spanish-Italian-Roman-Chinese-Japanese-Celtic-North_American_Indian-Indian-plus_a_few_others_that_I_can't_think_of_examples_for.
Proof:
German: kindergarten, hinterland
French: buffet, voila!
Norse: leg, trust
Spanish: fiesta
Italian: al fresco
Roman (ie. Latin): discus (+derivatives), quiet (from quietus)
Chinese: Gung ho, ketchup
Japanese: tamagotchi, pokemon
Celtic: oooh, loads
NAI: racoon, Missississippippippi
Indian: shampoo, korma
others: slogon, potato, sofa, boondooks
Most of these were culled from Bryson. I think I shall stick with
being just English, thank you very muchos (although I could probably
make a case for being French, Scottish, Welsh, Scandinavian and
probably a few others too...)
MP
Miq
>genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
>guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
>the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
>therefore not theft, fraud and so on).
Whoa - I hope you're not arguing that theft and fraud aren't harmful?
How about a man who stands by and watches while a child drowns in a
pond? How about a child who screams constantly just for attention? How
about a woman who leaves her cat locked up in a small room all day? All
of them are arguably harming *something*.
--
Miq
Jenny Radcliffe
> At best, art is decided by consensus.
In a Union meeting earlier this week, we had a huge debate about the
word consensus[1]. Doesn't it mean that *everyone* has to agree?
[1] Not as bad as some of the other debates, about the placing of commas
and things, and then there was the "what is a biscuit" debate ...
--
"Shout, wave your arms in the air, do something like that, and I'll give
you one" - Tom Calver, Nov 2000
Miq
>>any emotion or meaning in the receiver... is art. Is it, or isn't
>>it?
>
>That's exactly the problem I wanted to point out (with the "nation"
>example). It's pretty difficult to agree on what is art and not; if
>anything it's a personal feeling. I can consider something to be art
>and something else not to be, and you can consider things the other
>way round...
>
>At best, art is decided by consensus.
Whoa! Where did *that* come from?
What does "agreement" on art have to do with anything? By your
definition, art is something that produces an emotional response; should
something that produces such a response in you also automatically work
on me? I think not.
"Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator,
and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a
work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When
critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself." - Oscar Wilde
>Still, I feel uneasy about artists who set out to paint / write /
>photograph / sculpt /... something that _they_ don't know is
>about. An aunt of mine does it for a living, and although I find her
>paintings very beautiful I have no idea what she meant by it.
Perhaps the whole point of art is to convey ideas that *cannot* easily
be put into words. A poem or a painting convey something that could not
be easily expressed by a plain, prosaic verbal description. If the
artist could explain exactly what she meant by a particular work,
there'd be no need to create it.
>On the contrary! Alphabet soup can very well be considered
>art.
No. Absolutely, definitely, positively not. Art is something that is
*created*, deliberately. The very word means that. (Think of
'artifice', 'artefact')
>Letters, phonemes, sounds have emotional colouring. Therefore
>any association of letters will provoke a reaction. That reaction
>might be thinking to yourself "what a pillock", but this doesn't
>really matter.
Oh, if someone goes out of their way to arrange alphabet soup in a
particular way and present it to you for contemplation, then yes, it
becomes art - but the work of art is the presentation, not the soup.
But not if they pour it into a bowl and give it to you to eat.
I'd agree with you about the 'nation' example: I think Mary's definition
fails to draw a distinction between 'nation' and 'state', which are two
*very* different things. In the world today, for instance, there is a
Welsh nation, a Basque nation, a Kurdish nation, none of which have any
associated state or government. There is arguably a Jewish *nation*,
which has only the slightest of connections with the *state* that is
called Israel.
>>Tricky for a Merkin since
>>1) we ain't got much history. Go back three generations or so, and
>>most of out ancestors were someplace else, and most of our land
>>belonged to some other nation
Merkia has *buckets* of history. Even if you restrict it to written,
European-American history, you've got a full 500 years of the stuff.
The fact that some of your ancestors were then living 5000 miles away is
a complete red herring. If I were to go back, say, one century, I'm
prepared to bet you everything I own that less than half of my ancestors
were in the British Isles at that time - but I'm still as English as
anyone, and English history is my history. Because this is where I was
brought up, this is the culture I've absorbed. Ancestry is completely,
and I don't want any ambiguity about this so excuse me for shouting,
COMPLETELY irrelevant.
> If anything, my father's ancestors have been at war with
>half of my mother's, which were also at war with (or colonising) the
>other half.
Exactly so.
>>3) What culture?
Oh, come *on*. Your country has given the world - just to take a few
examples - a great majority of its best films and television and several
of its finest authors. It's given us new cultural icons (Santa Claus,
for instance - an American invention, although perversely you like to
pretend that he "really" came from the Old Country). Whole artistic
*forms* (the stage musical, the TV commercial) would have died stillborn
but for American artists.
--
Miq
MP
on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:00:23 +0000, that:
>On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>>Please note that I don't advocate
>>genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
>>guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
>>the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
>>therefore not theft, fraud and so on).
>
>Whoa - I hope you're not arguing that theft and fraud aren't harmful?
No. Just not _directly_ harmful - as it says. If someone steals your
computer, you are not harmed in any physical way - yes, you may get
trauma, you will suffer financial loss and so on, but you will
recover, in general. Obviously, if you are murdered, you won't. If you
are raped, there are many direct complications. If you are attacked by
someone with a knife, you will be scarred. If you are abused as a
child you may face irreconsilable trauma, and both physical and mental
scars.
>How about a man who stands by and watches while a child drowns in a
>pond?
Slightly suspect example - it could be construed as child abuse, or
negligence, or very poor judgement. However, I doubt you would be
committing a crime - what if he couldn't swim? Then he would be
putting another person at risk (himself). If he didn't then try to
attrack attention of other people, I would call it extreme negligence
and moral corruption. He would certainly have some explaining to do.
>How about a child who screams constantly just for attention?
What are you on about here? Screaming is not an offence, and it is not
harming anybody. Irritating, yes, but not harming anyone. The child
probably needs some form of tutoring to combat the attention seeking
habit. They may also be suffering from one of the diseases that
manifest in attention seeking and can only be cured with long term
counselling.
>How about a woman who leaves her cat locked up in a small room all day?
This _is_ illegal, although the wording of the sentence I used makes
it quite clear that I am refering to people. Even so, people who do
this will tend to be banned from keeping pets for a number of years
and will also face a fine. The animal will also, if possible, be
rehoused with a new owner who will take proper care of it. IIRC, there
are also crossreferences made with child abuse registers now, since
the same profiles occur in child and animal abusers.
>All of them are arguably harming *something*.
The first and last are - I fail to see how the screaming child is
harming anything but themself. Also, theft and fraud tend to be
entirely concious crimes, while murder and rape and so on often have
semi-genetic or sub-concious aspects.
MP
Jen Birren
> If you say that all art has to have a "meaning", then how do you
> explain Beethoven's Fourth Symphony? Not the 3rd, 5th, 6th or 9th, > which have been analyzed in terms of meanings here and there until all > the analysts disappear up their own orifices, but the 4th - one which > is purely musical for the sake of music.
> Jonathan.
So, it has a meaning, which is "this is pure music. I can make it sound
AMAZING. Didja see those chords?".
Bring on the next unsolvable conundrum, I feel strong this morning!
Jen
Sylvain Chambon
>On Wed, 14 Mar 2001, Sylvain Chambon <sgpch...@yahoo.com> wrote
>>At best, art is decided by consensus.
>
>Whoa! Where did *that* come from?
Bad wording on my part :-)
>What does "agreement" on art have to do with anything? By your
>definition, art is something that produces an emotional response;
>should something that produces such a response in you also
>automatically work on me? I think not.
That's exactly my point. If we (i.e., you and me) want to talk about
art, we have to agree on a general idea of what is art and what
isn't art. I should have said "socially speaking, art is decided by
consensus", because I may find something artistic, which you
don't. Unless we discuss on whether that particular piece is art or
not, how can we talk about it?
In order to discuss Dali's melting clocks, we have to agree that
it's art first. I mean, we have to agree there is something to
discuss here.
>>On the contrary! Alphabet soup can very well be considered art.
>No. Absolutely, definitely, positively not. Art is something that
>is *created*, deliberately. The very word means that. (Think of
>'artifice', 'artefact')
Carefully arranged alphabet soup is art. Random alphabet soup isn't.
When Pterry creates a name like "Mustrum Ridcully", I say that word
is an expression of art. Even if it doesn't have immediate
meaning[1].
Sylvain.
[1] If it does have a meaning by itself -- by which I mean that the
word "Mustrum" and the word "Ridcully" are valid English words --
then I don't know about it.
--
Sylvain Chambon - gou...@lepcf.org
http://lepcf.org
Jen Birren
> <snip>
> > On the contrary! Alphabet soup can very well be considered
Mary riposted:
> Look, the whole point of bother to define art is so you can exclude
> things like alphabet soup...
Sylvain went on to explain:
> > any association of letters will provoke a reaction. That reaction
> > might be thinking to yourself "what a pillock", but this doesn't
> > really matter.
Mary made herself clear:
> That's why my definition says someone must have meant something, not
> just that it must cause a reaction in someone.
Last summer, in (I think) an art gallery in LA, I saw a collection of
works by an artist, which were basically nonsense words and diagrams.
Looking a bit like patent specifications or a botany texrbook, except
beautifully handwritten in lots of different colours. It was funny, and
while *I* don't know if it was art, the gallery was evidently sure
enough that it was to spend money on it. I don't know how the artist had
come up with the text, probably by thinking up nonsense but
plausible-sounding words and not through a random-letter generator which
would have given genuine alphabet soup.
Anyway, just thought that would be very unhelpful.
Jen
Suzi
news:3AAD22A2...@castrule.garfield.com...
[Snip]
> And here you hit the nail on the head. If innocently-taken pictures of
> kiddies are readily available like this and there is no social stigma
> against them, you are giving out *totally* the wrong message to any
> potential paedophiles out there.
[Snip]
So the 99% of people who are perfectly "normal" and don't go around
abusing kids should moderate their behaviour based on the fact that
there are some sad and warped people out there? I don't think so! Next
everyone will be expecting "the state" to wipe everyone's bottoms for
them and then to think for them and then "1984, here we come".
I still fail to see how photographs taken by a parent of children doing
the things children do could possibly be construed as pornography - and
even if some poor misguided person does get a kick out of seeing them,
what does that matter provided they don't then try and do anything which
involves an innocent party (or is "thought-crime" high up the list of
things we need to be protecting people from these days?).
Suzi
Suzi
news:3aaf573...@news.york.ac.uk...
[Snip]
> Those pictures, IMO, were family snapshots. Not art. They hold
> memories for the family, but were not, again IMO, really suited to
> being waved in the face of the public, either in a gallery, or in
> papers. The fact that they are out there, IMO, gives a dangerous
> precident - what next? Think about it...
Gosh! Let's see... the possibilities are endless... maybe other people
will stop trying to read sexual stuff into innocent depictions of the
human body "eu natural"... or maybe places like the Tate will take piles
of bricks or dead cows under their roof and call it "art"? So, which
particular "dangerous precedent" were you thinking of?
Suzi
Mary Messall
> In article <98r42n$cd1$1...@library.lspace.org>, Peter Ellis wrote:
> MP wrote:
> > Also, theft and fraud tend to be entirely concious crimes, while
> > murder and rape and so on often have semi-genetic or sub-concious
> > aspects.
> >The best evidence so far indicates some links between violence,
> >criminality and genetic factors;
> <snip>
> Am I the only one to find these... "links between genetics and
> crime", this "genetic predisposition to crime" deeply disturbing?
No, I'm with you completely on that.
> In general I feel very uneasy with the idea of predetermination --
> that my life, who I am, that kind of thing, are determined at birth
> without me having much of a say in it.
> I'm not saying this is a field that Man Should Not Touch. I'm just
> saying that, well, _I_ wouldn't do any research there, and I would
> rather not hear the results of that research, either.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that real scientific study will show that that
these arguments putting everything from homosexuality to mathematical
ability down to genetics are almost completely spurious. It's a new
science, it explains a lot of thing we didn't understand before, but
people seem to want to think it explains *everything*.
Because I'm really confident that biology *isn't* destiny, I do want to
hear the results of this kind of research. I think it will confirm what
I believe: that complex behavior is *complex*.
NB, because I know someone will say something if I don't put this in,
just because I don't think sexual preference is genetic doesn't mean I
think people necessarily can or should try to change it.
-Mary (hormones are over-rated.)
egrasett
"Jenny Radcliffe" <jenny.r...@physics.org> wrote in message
news:98q4a4$dnd$1...@library.lspace.org...
> Sylvain Chambon <sgpch...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > At best, art is decided by consensus.
>
> In a Union meeting earlier this week, we had a huge debate about the
> word consensus[1]. Doesn't it mean that *everyone* has to agree?
>
I have been in groups where we proceeded by "consensus", with "voting"
being only a last resort if "consensus" could not be achieved. Mind you,
we construed "consensus" pretty broadly, along the lines of:
"Well, it aint perfect, but I can live with it."
Elliott
Sylvain Chambon
MP wrote:
> Also, theft and fraud tend to be entirely concious crimes, while
> murder and rape and so on often have semi-genetic or sub-concious
> aspects.
Peter replied:
>The best evidence so far indicates some links between violence,
>criminality and genetic factors;
<snip>
Am I the only one to find these... "links between genetics and
crime", this "genetic predisposition to crime" deeply disturbing?
In general I feel very uneasy with the idea of predetermination --
that my life, who I am, that kind of thing, are determined at birth
without me having much of a say in it.
I'm not saying this is a field that Man Should Not Touch. I'm just
saying that, well, _I_ wouldn't do any research there, and I would
rather not hear the results of that research, either.
Because if it came to be proved that people's behaviour is, indeed,
largely influenced by their genetic makeup, we might end up
screening people and locking away, or worse, executing, people with
a "tendency to crime". Or for that matter, people with a tendency
towards a weaker heart, or people with a genetic predisposition not
to help little old ladies cross the street.
Someday we might "select" people to be all tall blond athletes with
blue eyes. The fact that we might succeed in eradicating all
diseases and all crime by genetic selection makes the idea even more
scary.
Look at cows. A couple of centuries ago, there were dozens of races
of cows in France. Nowadays, just two. They produce ten times as
much milk, they are bigger, stronger and, no doubt, a lot tamer, and
they're all alike.
This is a subject I have at heart since, well, there are a number of
genetic diseases in my family (or diseases there seems to be a
genetic predisposition for in my family). Should I have children? If
I do and they get one of the diseases, they might -- justifiably --
feel resentment towards me. If I don't, it means I'm a Nazi
bastard. Either way I lose.
Of course, another idea would be to carefully select the mother of
my children to minimise the risk of them getting these diseases. But
that's an idea I simply can't bear thinking about.
Anyway, back to the point... I am very disturbed by these notions of
"predisposition". The fact that they might be true has no relevance
to it.
Sylvain.
Livia Mitson
Suzi <Su...@lspace.org> wrote:
[Snip]
>So the 99% of people who are perfectly "normal" and don't go around
>abusing kids should moderate their behaviour based on the fact that
>there are some sad and warped people out there? I don't think so! Next
>everyone will be expecting "the state" to wipe everyone's bottoms for
>them and then to think for them and then "1984, here we come".
Actually, I'd quite appreciate it if "the state" wiped my sprogs' bottoms
for them. Should be a new service - along with the health visitor,
vaccinations etc, you also get someone coming round to wipe your baby's
bum for you.
Livia
having a shitty day, as the dog also did it's business on the carpet
today.
--
Livia Mitson E36D 5841 3C18 0E16 1143 00B7 F688 6083
livia at wheelwright dot net http://www.wheelwright.net/livia/
MP
wrote, on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 13:41:09 -0000, that:
<snip>
>I still fail to see how photographs taken by a parent of children doing
>the things children do could possibly be construed as pornography - and
>even if some poor misguided person does get a kick out of seeing them,
>what does that matter provided they don't then try and do anything which
>involves an innocent party (or is "thought-crime" high up the list of
>things we need to be protecting people from these days?).
>
The objection is not of taking the pictures, but displaying them in a
public forum. The problem is that there are always people who will
"then try and do something with an innocent person". They are the
problem.
MP
MP
<jenny.r...@physics.org> wrote, on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:06:28
-0000, that:
>[1] Not as bad as some of the other debates, about the placing of commas
>and things, and then there was the "what is a biscuit" debate ...
>
biscuit: 1. flat thin unleavened cake, usu. crisp and sweet
2. fired unglazed pottery
3. light brown colour
(ODOCE)
Therefore, crackers are not biscuits, because they are lumpy. Ditto
garibaldi. Bourbons are, because cakes can have fillings.
Unfortunately, there appears no way to include nice things but also
exclude those horrid pink wafer things... :-}
MP
Jenny Radcliffe
> NB, because I know someone will say something if I don't put this in,
> just because I don't think sexual preference is genetic doesn't mean I
> think people necessarily can or should try to change it.
<grins>
Just because something isn't genetic, after all, doesn't mean it isn't
fixed. By anything - or, more probably, a combination of *everything*
you can think of and most things you can't.
--
"What's the difference between daylight and total darkness?" - A
Radiotubby.
Yannick Larvor
> Hmm, he may be wrong, but MP thinks that "Suzi" <Su...@lspace.org>
> wrote, on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 13:41:09 -0000, that:
> <snip>
> >I still fail to see how photographs taken by a parent of children
> >doing the things children do could possibly be construed as
> >pornography -
[...]
> The objection is not of taking the pictures, but displaying them in a
> public forum.
And I've seen mothers displaying their kids in public streets too. I've
seen naked little kids on public beaches [1]. Doing sand castles, even.
Really shocking. I think we should ban access to any public area to all
children. Or maybe we should ban children altogether. I mean, you can't
be too careful.
> The problem is that there are always people who will "then try and do
> something with an innocent person". They are the problem.
Nonono. Will you keep with us, please? Photographs are the problem.
[1] And I have photos, too. I'm probably some kind of pervert. Though I
usually don't get a kick while looking at them. I mean, all I can
think is "Now, it must be me 'cause it's taken in 78". In fact, I
rarely look :-)
--
Yannick
Peter Ellis
>
> The first and last are - I fail to see how the screaming child is
> harming anything but themself.
>
Never been close to one, then? Trust me, the *kid* is fine. The
parent's (and all other listener's) nerves are shot to pieces, and
they're ready to drive iron spikes into their ears...
> Also, theft and fraud tend to be
> entirely concious crimes, while murder and rape and so on often have
> semi-genetic or sub-concious aspects.
What do you intend to imply by inventing the meaningless word
"semi-genetic"?
Also, what evidence do you have either for the assertion that property
crime has no genetic basis, or the assertion that sexual crime *is*
genetically based?
The best evidence so far indicates some links between violence,
criminality and genetic factors; mainly due to the genetic
predispositions to major mental illness such as bipolar disorder,
depression and schizophrenia. These, it is true, are
genetically-influenced diseases, but these psychoses lead to many forms
of crime, not only violent crime. Thus, the links to theft, burglary,
arson, vandalism et al will be at least as strong as the links to (for
instance) GBH.
As far as I can find through searches of the biomedical journals (via
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed ), there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever
of a link between genetic background and sexual crime in any study yet.
Peter Ellis
Jenny Radcliffe
> In article <98r42n$cd1$1...@library.lspace.org>, Peter Ellis wrote:
> MP wrote:
> > Also, theft and fraud tend to be entirely concious crimes, while
> > murder and rape and so on often have semi-genetic or sub-concious
> > aspects.
> Peter replied:
> >The best evidence so far indicates some links between violence,
> >criminality and genetic factors;
> <snip>
> Am I the only one to find these... "links between genetics and
> crime", this "genetic predisposition to crime" deeply disturbing?
No, you aren't.
> Anyway, back to the point... I am very disturbed by these notions of
> "predisposition". The fact that they might be true has no relevance
> to it.
My different view is, I take your point, but since there are other
factors as well, you have to minimise risk.
I know I have a genetic pre-disposition to a certain form of sight-loss
at an early age. I also know there are other things which affect this
form of sight loss - like vitamin A deficiency, for example. So I'm
careful to take plenty of vitamin A. I also do my best to develop skills
which I will still be able to use if and when I lose my sight and which
will help me to cope in such a situation. Your kids would do the same -
just because they suffered from X, Y or Z wouldn't stop them having a
good life.
And as far as criminal predispositions go, well, since I've had a
nervous breakdown and been treated for long-term depression, chances are
I've a "predisposition" to certain forms of mental illness which can
result in criminal behaviour. I don't intend to, however. And I'd have
the same resolve if I were predisposed to paedophilia, or whatever.
A genetic predisposition isn't final - there are always dozens of other
factors which we don't understand which affect the ultimate outcome as
well.
--
"We have sex here" - Tim Packer - addressed to me in my office!
ingenious paradox
>In a Union meeting earlier this week, we had a huge debate about the
>word consensus[1]. Doesn't it mean that *everyone* has to agree?
No.
HTH
(Oh all right, just "general or widespread")
Logical bonds
Julie
--
A good scientific approach is to say 'This is what I think happened. I dare
you to find a better explanation' and then hope that no-one does.
(Kevin on afp)
ingenious paradox
> If I were to go back, say, one century, I'm
>prepared to bet you everything I own that less than half of my ancestors
>were in the British Isles at that time
gracious Miq, what an interesting family tree you must have! *I'm*
prepared to bet that every one of my ancestors then living was in
*England*.... [1]
whoops, nothing else to add. Oh well, this wanted to be a footnote,
so it's going to be.
[1] with the possible exception of the mysterious Irish woman, if she
were still alive 50 years on, and conveniently ignoring the boring
insistence of my sister that she seems to have been my
great-great-half-uncle's mother, not my great-grandfather's....
Eric Jarvis
>
> Whether it's Good or Important art is quite something else, of course.
>
and is entirely up to the viewer/listener/reader
I hate painting by and large...most of it I find extremely dull...I
love a lot of conceptual art, I find it interesting and often moving
I don't go around yelling that representational painting should be
banned, that it isn't art and public money shouldn't be spent on
representational painting...
...well, come to think of it I might have done now and again...[1]
...but I'm not serious about it...it's dull, it mostly bores
me...but it is sometimes art
[1] the argument goes thus...since photography now exists, for a
painting to have artistic value it must go beyond pure
representation...simply glorying in ones ability to recreate a scene
using paint is now merely a craft
:)
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"all characters portrayed in this post are entirely
fictitious and should not be confused"
Miq
>Hmm, he may be wrong, but MP thinks that Miq <m...@lspace.org> wrote,
>on Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:00:23 +0000, that:
>
>>On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, MP <m...@unseenuniversity.org> wrote
>>>Please note that I don't advocate
>>>genetic testing for everybody - just criminals who have been found
>>>guilty of serious crimes (eg. murder, rape, GBH, child abuse - you get
>>>the picture. Basically, anything that directly harms someone else,
>>>therefore not theft, fraud and so on).
>>
>>Whoa - I hope you're not arguing that theft and fraud aren't harmful?
>
>No. Just not _directly_ harmful - as it says.
Why that distinction?
*If*, and I'll come back to this in a moment, there is some sort of
genetic basis for 'serious crimes', then isn't it at least *possible*
that people who have no qualms about 'indirect harm' - which is, when
you get right down to it, all about causing misery to someone else for
their own gratification - have the same genes as those of someone likely
to torture or rape someone for the same reason?
If, on the other hand, there is no genetic connection, then what is the
point of testing anyone?
You see, what I'm getting at here is *why* you want to genetically
profile people. Is it a part of the punishment for committing a crime,
or is it some sort of public-safety measure?
>>How about a man who stands by and watches while a child drowns in a
>>pond?
>
>Slightly suspect example - it could be construed as child abuse, or
>negligence, or very poor judgement. However, I doubt you would be
>committing a crime
There's probably no actual crime that you could convict this person of.
But that's not the question I'm asking. The question is, do you think
his genes should be tested on the basis of this behaviour? If not, why
not?
--
Miq
Eric Jarvis
> "Mike Stevens" <mike...@which.net> wrote in message
> news:Y5Er6.503$vv3...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
> > Eric Jarvis <er...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:MPG.1518f2ad...@news.dircon.co.uk...
> >
> > > anyone read much about the Kincora Boys Home affair?...that was
> > > serious...that was barely taken up by the press because it
> involved
> > > some powerful people and needed serious and careful research
> before
> > > anything could be printed at all...it just slipped by barely
> noticed
> > > as a result
> > >
> > > but a couple of photos in the Saatchi gallery get treated as a
> > > serious crime.
> >
> > I agree with nearly all of Eric's posting, *except* the bit quoted
> above.
> > He obviously follows different news media to me.
>
> Eric apparently follows the tabloids, because that's all he's talking
> about. Those of us who read newspapers which actually have
> researchers tend to be better informed; I, too, had heard of the
> Kincora affair, as well as what *really* went on on Orkney way back
> when and the full details of the Nazareth House affair. I don't read
> papers with 3-inch headlines, though.
>
maybe it's worth a look at the actual readership figures for the
Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and Times and compare them to the
figures for the tabloids...add in the fact that the TV and radio
news take their agenda as much from the tabloids as from the serious
papers...note that politicians are more concerned about what is
written in the tabloids than what actually happens in the real
world...
it's afp...I can give examples of things that were only briefly
reported in the serious newspapers and be fairly sure that a
majority of people reading it will have read the articles and will
remember them...try that trick down your local pub...I have, I've
sometimes had to spend half an hour explaining the factual
background to an argument
we are called the chattering classes because it matters not a jot
what we discuss, because unless we can mobilise a mass opinion
behind us or blackmail a cabinet minister or newspaper editor,
nobody will take a blind bit of notice...articles in the Guardian or
questions being asked on Newsnight do not affect the way the country
is run [1]
for most of the population of the UK, if it doesn't make the
tabloids or the ITN news, or maybe the 10 o'clock BBC bulletin, then
it didn't happen
the exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery did...Kincora didn't
[1] I'm sure there are equivalents in other countries, though for
the other countries I'm actually familiar with the situation is very
different...the press largely deal with the real world for a start
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"money can't buy you love, but sometimes dinner
is much more important"
Eric Jarvis
> ssso...@reading.ac.uk (Adrian Ogden) wrote:
>
> > Or as Frank Zappa put it, "The important thing about art is the frame.
> > This tells you where the art ends and the real world begins. Suppose
> > <some avant-garde composer> clips on a throat mic and drinks a glass
> > of carrot juice, and then says 'I now will this to be music'. That's
> > his composition, that's his art. Without the frame as declared it's
> > just a guy swallowing carrot juice."
>
> Myeah. And when I, member of the public and not a composer at all, do
> the same thing, it's Not Art. Not because I cannot drink carrot juice,
> or because I forgot to declare it music, but because, even if I do
> declare it music, I'm not a composer, so I've no right to Declare things
> to be Art. Sorry, I don't buy into that.
>
sell it to a gallery and it's art...set up an exhibition on your own
and it's art...nothing is stopping you except your own expectations
and that is one of the jobs of the artist...to make us look at
ourselves
the first time I encountered this argument was punk music...so
what's to stop any old Tom, Dick and Siouxsie calling themselves a
band...absolutely nothing...the trick is to get people to come back
for more
everyone is an artist...if they want to be...but not all art is to
any particular person's taste
if you really think you can do better go off and do it...it is then
just down to how many people agree with you [1]
[1] and how many of them are critics and academics...but that is an
entirely different argument
Suzi
(m...@unseenuniversity.org) wibbled...
[Snip]
> The objection is not of taking the pictures, but displaying them in a
> public forum. The problem is that there are always people who will
> "then try and do something with an innocent person". They are the
> problem.
It may be *your* objection, but my objection is to people telling
someone else they cannot display *innocent* pictures of children doing
*normal* things for children. It isn't the pictures that are wrong here,
or the mother - it's the way some sections of society are choosing to
view them.
Suzi
--
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Thomas Zahr
... Stevie D <stev...@castrule.garfield.com> wrote in message
... news:3AAD22A2...@castrule.garfield.com...
... [Snip]
... > And here you hit the nail on the head. If innocently-taken pictures of
... > kiddies are readily available like this and there is no social stigma
<snip: other pertinent stuff>
... involves an innocent party (or is "thought-crime" high up the list of
... things we need to be protecting people from these days?).
...
... Suzi
...
What I find disturbing about this whole thread is the naive, or maybe
immature, definition of a "enemy" group, which it is thought ethically
alowable to exterminate. I would have thought that the last century
should have demonstrated the fallacy of such thinking, and shown that
to allow the death sentence for anything is an opening which some
people will just love to use for what effectively is mass murder. (
witness the care with which for example Stalin, but Hitler too, tried
to cloak their deads in legality)
<getting of soapbox>[*]
[*] I *am* serious though
--
Cheers, Thomas =:-)
thomas=:-}@zahr.de
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Eric Jarvis
>
> My definition of art, which I am quite happy with: to be art, it has to
> have a meaning. Somebody must be trying to signfiy *something* by it.
>
>
my copy of Stand On Zanzibar is pretty much buried under the book
pile...but the Hipcrime Vocabulary says something like
Art: a friend of mine from high school, I wish I was in contact with
him, there are a hell of a lot of people taking his name in vain
flabbergast
>
>Sorry, I didn't phrase that one very well. What I meant was a
>potentially active pćdophile; ie., one who currently and hitherto has
>not had sexual involvement with children but who is likely to be
>inclined to do so.
>
I have absolutely nothing to say in this subject right now. But to
ask if it's just me.
Or is Stevie not using 'ae' but the squished up 'ae' in one letter
letter.
It's very early in the morning and I don't fully trust my eyes... But
for me, right now, that letter looks like a little tiny swastika.
I must point out that this have no reflection in my mind of what
Stevie is saying[1]. It just looks funny.
okbye
[1]To be honest, I haven't really read it, ust skimmed it and
observed the letters swim infront of my eyes... Tired, very tired...
want to go back to sleep... not go to work... sleep...
Eric Jarvis
> Sylvain Chambon <sgpch...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > At best, art is decided by consensus.
>
> word consensus[1]. Doesn't it mean that *everyone* has to agree?
>
nope
enough people have to agree for the people who disagree to be
ridiculed and ignored
Spuddie
Or perhaps someone will go and spraypaint clothing on all the nude
paintings and sculptures in museums throughout the world... can't have
depictions of the nude human form anywhere where anybody might see it,
can we?
Cheryl
~~~I've had enough of the inner child. Let's see some of the
outer adult for a change~~~
Eric Jarvis
>
> Look, the whole point of bother to define art is so you can exclude
> things like alphabet soup...
>
unless you are an artist
in which case the whole point is to exclude alphabet soup as a
whole, but include the bowl of it you are submitting to the
Whitechapel Gallery's Open Exhibition
:)
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"in some places the digital revolution is still
a case of giving the President the finger"
Mary Messall
> Miq wrote:
> > Perhaps the whole point of art is to convey ideas that *cannot* easily
> > be put into words. A poem or a painting convey something that could not
> > be easily expressed by a plain, prosaic verbal description. If the
> > artist could explain exactly what she meant by a particular work,
> > there'd be no need to create it.
> as an artist friend once explained to me [1]
> "I can't tell you about it, if I could put it in words I would be a
> writer instead"
And even then...
Standard rant from English class:
Literature is *not* a code, you can't say "white=innocence, water=life"
and turn an entire novel into a single metaphor or thesis statement. If
the author could say it in a single sentence, he would have. Therefore
any and simplistic "translation" you give of Hamlet or The Lovesong of
J. Alfred Prufrock or The Odyssey is going to be insufficient, if not
plain wrong. It's not a matter of *the* theme, *the* message, *the*
answer. Literature is not reductionist, there are no formulas, and
graphs have no place in an English class.
<breaths>
Oh yes, and no poetry textbook should ever under any circumstances be
called "Binary Thought".
-Mary (sorry, I have unresolved issues from AP English. Now you know why
I'm a physics major.)