Aquila89 wrote:ghijkmnop wrote:Personally I think Grandma Moses' paintings are both crappy AND a reminder of a horrible period of American history, but if somebody decided that they need to be burned, I would be quite against that as well. I'm really not a fan of mob rule.
Hungary in the 1950s was a communist dictatorship. The only option for changing things was through revolution, or mob rule, if you want to call it that. The Stalin was not only artistically worthless, but was put on a public place against the will of the public. Tearing it down brought more joy to people than its existence ever could have. And it certainly wasn't an erasure of history. That destroyed statue is known by more people than many statues that are still out there, because tearing it down was such an iconic moment of the revolution.
I'm not saying that destroying the Stone Mountan relief is in the same category, since the US is not a dictatorship. Also, a lot of people probably like the relief, while pretty much no one actually liked the Stalin statue. But I don't think you can categorically say that destroying art is always wrong.
I actually think it is in the same category. The US is not a dictatorship, but the Jim Crow regime in the South was not installed democratically through consent of the governed; it was established through force and systematic intimidation of black Southerners. A black man in 1950s Alabama and a Hungarian in 1950s Hungary could both expect to be met with brutal, state-sanctioned violence if they tried to challenge the ruling authority. This relief was not placed there with the free consent of the people of Georgia--it was placed there with the acquiescence of a regime whose power to grant such permission was, in essence, stolen by force.
Hence why I bring up the graffiti example, Noel. If I steal your car and I've paid off the cops to let me have it, your car is mine for all practical purposes and I can do what I want with it. I acquired it through unfair means, obviously, but with the cops on my side that observation and four bucks will get you a cup of coffee. If I decide to let some guy paint a graphic mural of a man fucking a goat on the side of it, there ain't nothing you can do to stop me.
But once you get the car
back later on, once the crooked cops have been booted out and the theft has been reversed, what do you do? The mural isn't precisely graffiti, since the car was "mine" when I had it painted, but it was only "mine" because I stole it so it's pretty close. Do you leave the mural on the car because destroying art is never acceptable, or do you get rid of it?
Incidentally, I say all this not because I disagree with the general principle you're outlining that destroying art is bad. I agree with that. However, you've conceded that there are some circumstances where destroying art is acceptable, while maintaining that this case doesn't meet the criteria for such an exception. I disagree; I think it is a valid exception, for many of the same reasons that destroying graffiti is a valid exception. That's all I'm arguing for. I didn't mean to attack you personally or insult you; I apologize if it came across that way.
"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn