Why are "ideas" so threatening to some?

[Lisabob]

Yes OGE, you are absolutely within your right to protest. Write letters, stage alternate exhibits elsewhere, boycott the exhibit or the museum itself, hold rallies or press conferences to make your point and so on, within legal means of course. Be thankful that the 1st amendment guarantees this right, just as it guarantees others the right to freedom of expression even when it irritates or offends you.

 

What I find abhorrent is the idea that the government should determine which things get to go in an art gallery and which ones do not. This is, after all, the same gov't that people routinely (and perhaps rightly) ridicule for bungling everything from trash collection to national defense policy. You really want those folks deciding what constitutes art? Not me. Don't forget, just a few years ago then-Attorney General John Ashcroft required the statues in some federal buildings in DC to be "clothed" because they offended his sensibilities, for goodness sakes! Imagine what a hissy fit he'd have had if he set foot in practically any art museum in the country.

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

What I find abhorrent is the idea that the government should determine which things get to go in an art gallery and which ones do not. This is, after all, the same gov't that people routinely (and perhaps rightly) ridicule for bungling everything from trash collection to national defense policy.

 

So, to bring it back 'round...

 

The government didn't pay for the "God Rock" in the planetary walk. The government didn't even pay to host an exhibition. It simply allowed that expression.

 

Seems like in one case it's bad to have the government refrain from paying for an exhibition of works that are designed to deliberately provoke large segments of the population by defaming their symbols.

 

And in the second case, it's bad to have the government not pay but simply allow the display of a symbol or phrase it finds poetic, without defaming another group.

 

What an odd standard, eh?

 

Beavah

[packsaddle]

In my sarcastic, insomniac-beaver accent, "Lisabob, did you just say 'hissy fit'?"

Heh, heh, Warhol's soup cans just made me salivate like a cow. I'm with those others of you who have unsophisticated, troglodyte artistic senses. I still enjoy art in the Hudson River School genre, the Thomas Moran types and others. And I like the Italian and other old European masters. I know...I'm boring but that's what I like. Sometimes I still sprawl out on the hillside and watch the clouds too. Sad confession, I know, but it had to be said.

But if people can make a living by selling stuff I don't understand, then it's OK by me if it's OK bayou.

Scribbling, splashing, and defiling icons of all sorts doesn't offend me. I don't 'get' it but I'm not offended.

[acco40]

All - I put in the post about "Piss Christ" because in the earlier posts there were many who seemed to think "symbols" were something that shouldn't make others get upset. While I agree that our litigious society has unfortunately gotten very thin skinned, a symbol that may generate a blas response to some may evoke a heated passion in others.

 

Here is my own personal story. I was raised, somewhat informally, as a Presbyterian. Yeah, I went to church a few times but not very often. In my teenage years I moved to St. Louis which has a large Catholic community. I remember going to a Catholic hospital to visit a friend. Above each bed was a crucifix about foot tall. To a 16 year old, hospitals were uncomfortable enough without seeing some dead guy nailed to a cross, with blood dripping on his forehead from a crown of thorns and a nasty gash on his rib cage in each room. It gave me the willies. To my girlfriend at the time (an Italian Catholic) that symbol was very comforting and reminded her of God's love for mankind.

 

Symbols are very powerful and we should not make light of it when they are used. I'm a big Mizzou Tiger fan. The Tiger/Jayhawk rivalry to some is just that - a spirited collegiate rivalry similar to Michigan/Ohio State, Alabama/Auburn, USC/UCLA, etc. That is what it means to me. But to others it is something more. Lawrence Kansas was burned to the ground. Missouri residents were murdered and raped. John Brown, William Quantrill, etc. It goes back to the 1850s and 1860s - way before college football existed. The events were too traumatic for the people living in both states not to have some of that residue left over. I don't think there was any place in the country like this. There was no moral code, and in some cases, no forgiveness to this day. A year or so ago, a Missouri man whose great, great grandfather had been murdered on his farm, apparently by a Kansan was relating his story and stated 'and we think we know who did it' noting that the suspected descendants lived just miles away. A Jayhawk to this individual is not just a University symbol. As Grandpa Simpson said in response to his daughter-in-law Marge's statement that "There are only 49 stars on that flag." "I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missoura!"

 

(This message has been edited by acco40)

[scoutmomma]

The government didn't pay for the "God Rock" in the planetary walk. The government didn't even pay to host an exhibition. It simply allowed that expression.

 

Well...to go back to the story that sparked the original thread whence this one came, the government denies having allowed that expression in the first place:

 

...city officials said the proposal they were given does not mention the "God stone."

 

And that's still where we stand, when it comes to what we know. It's still just "he said, they said" as long as we don't know whether that rock was included in the original proposal or not. Am I the only one bothered by the implication that either the Scout or the government officials aren't telling the truth?

 

 

[packsaddle]

Acco40, I do recognize the truth of what you write but at the same time, we choose to react the way we do with regard to such symbols. The crucifix is, objectively, just some plastic or wood or something, sculpted and with paint on it. Flags are just cloth. Historic events are not memories if we didn't personally experience them.

WE choose to engage in emotional reactions to these things. WHY we do this is another question, though, and I don't have an answer. But we are not forced to feel or react the way we do.

If the God Rock was allowed and someone then defiled it in some way to make his own statement, or worse - ridiculed it, would anyone mind? I suspect yes.

Regardless of the legal issues, the God Rock wouldn't offend me as long as it didn't cause me to trip and fall during a walk. And it wouldn't offend me if someone used it as an opportunity to plant a Satan Rock next in line...or something like that. Actually, THAT would be interesting.

[evmori]

And in the article the Scoutmaster (I think) claims it was part of the original project.

[FScouter]

The only "facts" we know are what has been filtered down by a TV news reporter. That always means you got only part of the story, with a slant one way or another, and who knows which way. Once one accepts that most "news" has been distorted, it's hard to get too bothered by whatever has been implicated.

[Beavah]

Yah, and it's irrelevant anyway, eh?

 

The issue isn't whether or not the park approved the rock and then reneged.

 

The issue is whether a citizen putting up an interpretive display at his own expense on public land should have a part of it censored, or should be prohibited from putting it up solely because one item in it reflects a particular viewpoint, expressed in a generic and nonthreatening way.

 

Or, on da other side, the issue is not whether the government-funded museum did fund an exhibit (it did). It's whether it should have funded an exhibit where the sole "aesthetic" point of the art was to depict one religion's cherished symbols in deliberately disgusting and provocative ways.

 

I don't mind in the least a display of the Pieta or the Torah in a public place, though I ain't Catholic or Jewish. I don't mind in the least a publicly funded lecture on Gods as myths. Plenty of those happen on public university campuses, eh?

 

I would object to folks throwing manure on the Pieta, or covering a Torah with pig's blood. I think any decent person should. And I do object that the public university can lecture on Gods as myth, but isn't permitted to bring in a Christian, and a Muslim, and a Rabbi to lecture on God as Truth.

 

To me, these things seem like ordinary courtesy and fairness. I'm glad we can teach such ordinary courtesy and fairness in Scouting.

 

Beavah

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah, if everyone can put up their own displays in a public park, the god-rock is fine. However, I don't know of any public parks that allow this. But that would certainly be fairness all around, wouldn't it?

 

And I doubt you have anything to support your contention that any of the art exhibits were done solely to denegrate religious symbols. For one, the "controversial" pieces were not the only artworks in the exhibits. Of course, you can contend this even without evidence, but I'm not buying it.

 

Plus, if you want to find university lectures about gods being myths, I'm sure I can find similar lectures about gods as actually existing. But you first -- if you only handwave, I'll wave back. If you find a lecturer brought in by a student group, I'll find one brought in by a student group.

[Beavah]

Yah, here's one just from Google:

 

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/ap_051122_id_myth.html

 

Not a student invited lecture, a university faculty designed course, eh?

 

As to the "controversial artworks not being the only ones in the exhibit," the same was true for the lad's planet walk, eh? Only one piece was "controversial."

 

Come on Merlyn. You're a rational fellow. Yeh have to admit that the double standard strains credulity.

 

Beavah

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah, you have yet to point out what, if anything, you object to if everyone can put their own monuments up in a public park. You keep pointing to one example where one person was granted permission to put up a display, as if that gives him a blank check to erect anything he likes in a public park. But do you have any objections to everyone having the same opportunity to put up their own objects?

 

As for the course "Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies," it was cancelled in December 2005 before it was scheduled to begin.

[scoutmomma]

And in the article the Scoutmaster (I think) claims it was part of the original project

 

Granted, which is why I said "It's still just 'he said, they said' as long as we don't know whether that rock was included in the original proposal or not."

[scoutmomma]

Once one accepts that most "news" has been distorted, it's hard to get too bothered by whatever has been implicated.

 

Well, other than FoxNews , I don't accept that most news is distorted. Broadly stereotyping reporters is an easy dodge, the same as labeling all lawyers as rapacious ambulance-chasers, and I don't accept either stereotype.

[packsaddle]

While I can only guess about whatever slant, if any, other faculty give to their courses, I do know that among the various campuses in this area the ratio of 'pro-creationist' to 'pro-evolution' invited speakers and similar forums is about 3:1. Not that I mind, of course, and I have only attended a few of them.

I note that the NAS just released its new book on the topic entitled, "Science, Evolution, and Creationism":

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11876

This site allows anyone to read it online for free. The summary begins: "The discovery and understanding of the processes of evolution represent one of the most powerful achievements in the history of science. Evolution successfully explains the diversity of life on Earth and has been confirmed repeatedly through observation and experiment in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines."

Cool.