Trouble in Milton Keynes
Local reactions to the resurrected JS:TO tour have begun, with Milton Keynes councillors being the first to stick their heads above the parapet with public displays of aggrieved piety. According to MK Today, liberal democrat councillor Isabella Fraser says,
As a committed Christian I would not be in favour of it. I think we have laws to protect religions from being slandered and they should apply to all religions.
Not very well informed then…
Conservative councillor Andrew Geary agrees:
I always found the whole think reproachable and thoroughly offensive and I am disappointed it is coming to Milton Keynes Theatre. I would love to see it banned, but we live in a secular society and there’s very little I can do about it.
Stewart Lee comments:
Jerry Springer the Opera was developed on public money in public spaces and belongs to the nation, whether the nation wants it or not.
Is Andrew Geary proclaiming UDI? Has MK seceded from the Union? If not, then he has it arse-about-face if he thinks we live in a secular society… (a consummation devoutly to be wished).
‘We’re here whether you like it or not’ is
(a) an aggressive (might-is-right) attitude;
(b) a pre-rational attitude, such as a child might take: Whether you like it or not, Im doing what I want. I dont need to justify it – just try to stop me.
“You may not perform or watch this show whether you want to or not” is
a) an aggressive (might-is-right) attitude;
(b) a pre-rational attitude, such as a child might take: Whether you like it or not, Im doing what I want. I dont need to justify it – just try to stop me.
So when parents take that attitude with their children, are they acting petulantly, or out of love, with the child’s long-term interests at heart? (Given that there are children and adolescents of all ages.)
And what is it that you imagine gives you the right to act as an authoritarian parent to adult theatre-goers again?
Christopher Shell is an avowed atheist mischief maker who is posting comments to this blog to help the rest of us to hone our arguments against those he apes so convincingly. You can come out of the closet now, Dr Shell.
Why does Andrew Geary want to ban something that he himself is under no obligation to see.. Secular society ? Ah yes. He thinks that such things should be censored because of his religion I guess. Well, religion is NO justification to censor ANYTHING. Except perhaps religious rantings which have caused more trouble in the world than enough, and is still doing so.
Jerry Springer is completely innocuous by comparison.
What was that ? Judge not, lest ye be judged?
Well I am judging, and there’s a stronger case to censor religious works, than Jerry Springer, the opera, or any adult pornography.
Sometimes ‘adults’ act like children (or adolescents). When they do so, it’s no surprise that they are treated as children (or adolescents). No-one subscribes to the view that one’s physical age is an infallible indicator of maturity-level, or even the most accurate indicator.
‘Adult’ means nothing if it does not mean mature. Failure to be mature automatically forfeits one’s right to be referred to as an ‘adult’.
Once again:
What is it that you imagine gives you the right to act as an authoritarian parent to adult theatre-goers?
Well Mr. Shell, you should know.
You seem to think being “adult” gives you the authoririty to be a control freak, and to be able to tell everyone else what they may and may not do, in private space.
How misguided you are.
“liberal democrat councillor Isabella Fraser says,”
Er, shouldn’t that be “illiberal democrat councillor Isabella fraser” ?
My religion is adult porn watching. I demand that it be respected NOW!!
I think the reason we’re not ‘getting’ each other has something to do with the word ‘adult’. You are apparently speaking as though someone’s physical age is somehow correlated to their maturity. This obviously untrue belief baffles me, and consequently we can’t get any further.
You obviously see some significance in the fact that someone is physically an ‘adult’, so the only way we can get further, I guess, is if you explain what that is, given that it can’t be any non-existent correlation with maturity.
No, we are not getting anywhere because you are persistently avoiding the question:
What do you imagine gives you the right to act as an authoritarian parent to over-18 theatre goers?
Or, put another way:
What do you imagine qualifies you to decide whether or not someone is an adult? And, having made that decision, what gives you the right to act as an authoritarian parent to that person?
I have to admit to having the occasional suspicion myself along these lines. For a little while I even thought he was an invention of Monitor. But then, if you put forward a fictional character with the characteristics of Dr Shell, it’d be rejected on the grounds that it was unrealistic.
Isn’t it already the case that ‘adults’ who act in a non-adult way are legislated against in various ways? Acting in a non-adult way includes various selfish,violent, harmful and otherwise negative actions.
Answer the question.
Andrew Geary is right we do live in a secular society. So if he would love to see JS The Opera banned I suggest I he tries to lobby for a Chrisitan fundamentalist society where everything that he find offensive is outlawed.
“Isn’t it already the case that ‘adults’ who act in a non-adult way are legislated against in various ways? Acting in a non-adult way includes various selfish,violent, harmful and otherwise negative actions. ”
Haven’t you already answered your own point here ?
This is fine, provided their action impingies enough on people, to justify the action taken against them. However adult porn watching and making cannot be shown to be harmful enough to justify the restrictions some people want to impose on it. They want it censored because it OFFENDS their narrow minded notion of propriety, and for NO other reason whatsoever. I’m sorry, but that isn’t a good enough reason to restrict anyone’s right to freedom of expression.
Jerry Springer is offensive to some. There’s no doubt about it. That does not mean that it should be censored. There’s NO justification for it being censored. Anyone people likely to be offended were warned. They do not have to see it, just as they did not have to see the broadcasts. There are enough television channels for everyone.
Or should I be offended at the lies and rhetoric crap which is broadcast on all the GOD channels etc. on Sky Digital ?
Hmmm. Let’s have the lot of ’em “off OUR television screens!” LETS HAVE SOME REAL CENSORSHIP!
That would be a taste of the god botherer’s own medicine wouldn’t it ?
Except that if I really wanted that I suppose I would be a hypocrite.
So if you don’t like it, don’t watch it! If you open a sewer and don’t like what you see, just put the lid back, and go look at something else.
The reason I “don’t get you” Shell, is simply because YOU ARE WRONG. VERY wrong.
I thought we got rid of censorship when the Lord Chancellor’s veto on plays was rescinded … or do some peole want to go backwards?
That’s the trouble. Some do want to go backwards…… Some even want to put innocenet people in jail for simple possession of things they don’t like and for NO other reason at all.
Christopher – surely believing in a god that created the universe is a rather childish attitude. You are keen to see those who behave in what you deem to be a non-adult manner controlled, but what if we lived in an extreme rationalist anti-theocracy and your childish beliefs were to be censored and you were to be punished for going to church or selling christian material? I suspect that you would complain that this was a gross infringement of your civil liberties and your rights to be an irrationalist nonsense peddler (although, i concede, you may not use quite those words).
You can’t attack one group of people you disapprove of when you’re just as vulnerable to the same charge
Gulp! Suspecting that in a universe this ginormous there are more powerful beings than us is childish? & there was me thinking it was common sense.
I doubt I would ever appeal to civil liberties. They are merely conventional, and can change at any time.
The main question alluded to by Monitor is, I guess: ‘What makes you think you have the right to act as an authoritarian parent to adult theatre-goers?’.
I think this could be a version of the old chestnut: ‘What gives you the right to tell us (adults that we are) what to do?’.
Points arising from the aforesaid old chestnut:
(1) ‘You’:
This is not (a) a situation where one person is telling multiple people what to do.
It is (b) a situation where there are differing views, and multiple people on either side (always assuming there are only 2 ‘sides’…).
So why do people present it as (a), when they know it is (b)?
(2) ‘Tell’:
(a) A dictatorial situation, where what Person A says goes, is one thing.
(b) A situation where preexisting facts, correlations etc are drawn attention to by Person A is another. (b) happens in life all the time.
The question is: What is the motivation behind presenting an instance of (b) as though it were an instance of (a)?
(3) ‘Adults’:
This point has already been addressed. Adult is as adult does. We all agree that many children will sometimes act more maturely than many adults.
‘I am an adult’, we’d all agree, wouldn’t be much of a defence in court. The obvious response is ‘OK, act like one, then.’
(4) Hidden Presupposition A:
One hidden presupposition behind the charge is that [consenting] adults should be able to do what they want.
Our presuppositions are so basic to us that we rarely question them. Does that make them right? On the contrary, it makes them the parts of our thinking most vulnerable to error, since we have never examined them: merely taken them for granted.
I’m well aware that in a lot of western society people hold this presupposition. It’s a classic example of what people *want* to be true – because then they will be able to do exactly what they want.
It beats me what the connection is between what people ‘want’ and what is good or allowable.
I do know, though, as we all know, which age-group customarily appeals to ‘I want’ as an ultimate argument. And it is not the oft-mentioned ‘adults’. (Well, not when they are behaving like adults, anyway.)
(5) Hidden Presupposition B:
A further hidden presupposition is that people should be able to do as they ‘choose’. Why, I wonder, is it ignored that half the things these people supposedly ‘choose’ are actually chosen knowingly against their better judgment. Come off it:
we know that our bodily wishes/urges and our rational choices often conflict. We also know that our short-term and long-term preferences often conflict. So why are all these things lumped together into the single unhelpful category of ‘choices’?
Hi G.Tingey:
I was intrigued by your #19. Do you believe that history is the story of ever-increasing progress?
I wish it was sometimes. But (to take just 2 examples) not a lot of art of the last 100 years will financially justify a major exhibition; and not a lot of music of the last 100 years will financially justify a classical concert. In both crafts there has been decline. And history is bound to have both advances and declines.
Do you think we have been on a relentless moral advance in the last 40 years?
Yes, it is incredibly childish, just like believing in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.
Common sense? Far from it.
Answer the question:
What do you imagine qualifies you to decide whether or not someone is an adult? And, having made that decision, what gives you the right to act as an authoritarian parent to that person?
Answer. The. Question.
Hi Andrew-
What proportion of this universe do you have sufficient knowledge of to say (a) whether or not there is intelligent life there, and (b) whether or not that life is more intelligent than us?
Hi Monitor-
Qualifies ‘me’, you say? Not just me: I should guess that many people would be qualified to do so.
For we all agree that different age-groups have different typical characteristics – and we broadly agree on what those characteristics are. For example, the youngest age-group knows nothing except the satisfaction of its own needs and pleasures. Whereas altruism, if it ever develops, develops only as people get more mature (as opposed to older).
About the same as you Christopher. However, we are not talking about intelligent life on other planets here are we?
I was under the assumption that you were talking about some sort of god, ie. a being that lives beyond this plane of existence. The very idea is of course ludicrous, and to suggest the existence of such a being is the height of irrationality.
Oh, and I’d like to see you answer Monitor’s question too.
And this is based on what, exactly? The Shell International Objective Artistic Worthwhileness Scale, developed over decades of experimental observation and objective measurement? Or have we got to the bit where you start dismissing stuff up based on crushing ignorance again? I mean, just off the top of my head, “classical music of the last century” would include Ralph Vaughan Williams, Paul Ruders, John Adams, Aulis Sallinen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew, Steve Reich, Conlon Nancarrow, Gustav Holst, Terry Riley, Sir John Tavener, Henryk Górecki, Philip Glass, Robert Ashley… Are you seriously asserting that an accident of chonology automatically makes them inferior to titans like Gilbert and Sullivan?
I live in Milton Keynes, I intend to go to JS:TO when it’s on at the local theatre and I’ll be happy to send a report on any “vigils” that occur.
Thanks, DaveB. Would appreciate that.
Joe-
You’re missing the point. Even if they are equally great at their craft, they are not equally great at holding the public interest – the only exceptions on your list being (unsurprisingly) the older ones, VW and Holst. Either way, there is a decline of sorts.
Sorry, Andrew, I thought I had answered the main question.
Im approximately equally qualified to the rest of us (no more, no less) to assess whether someone is acting maturely. Based on widely-agreed criteria, e.g. degree of self-centredness.
Everyone agrees that crime and self-centred behaviour are closely linked. Therefore it follows that there is always going to be a big overlap between the category ‘illegal’ and the category ‘self-centred’ – not conceptually, but in practice.
It follows that people of any age who act self-centredly without concern for the impact on wider society are more likely than those who don’t to overlap with the category ‘criminals’.
This is not something I or anyone else dictates. It is something that follows logically.
Now maybe you’ll answer part two of the question…..
Does this include people who show violent movies to children?
Yes, sometimes. Particularly when the violence is gratuitous and/or without historical warrant.
Ah your get out clause. You justify child abuse by saying that the violent material you show them has “historical warrant”
Now if you just see your way to answering part 2 of Monitor’s question…..
Well, if it’s really ‘child abuse’ (and that term describes one of the most hideous things in existence) I wonder why they enjoy it so much.
The answer is contained in #23, as far as I can see. You’ll certainly be able to see from #23 what my answer is.
Allow me to remind you of the second part of Monitor’s question.
Please answer it.
The amount of times child abusers defend their abuse with something along the lines of “they didn’t complain”.
Why do you think films have an 18 certificate Christopher?
18 certificate: I have often wondered about this. After all, most things that are harmful to children (who may be permitted to be comparatively irresponsible) are liable to be even more inappropriate for adults (who are -by definition- supposed to be mature). Money is probably the reason that various things that could do no-one any good are shown. It is all the more worth their while these days, since with the advent of dvds and videos even minors will in practice be watching, thus increasing revenue. The other point is that children are less likely than adults to be fully able to distinguish fact from fiction.
‘The Passion of the Christ’ did not have a straight international 18-type certificate. Its certification varied more than that of any other film I have known. In America, for example, it had a fairly tame certificate.
It does make me laugh, actually, because Ive an extensive video/dvd collection, and me & my wife have learned from experience that we can rarely trust 12 films (let alone 15 or 18) these days not to contain something dodgy/warped/cynical. Yet ‘The Passion of the Christ’ which was none of these things was passed 18 in UK. Film certificates are, incidentally, a good barometer of a particular nation’s worldview.
And do you intend to answer part two of Monitor’s question?
Good god you’re a mendacious bastard at time christopher. Either that or you really are as thick as pigshit:
you’re citing harm to one and inapproprriateness to another. Do you think you’d’ve been allowed to get away with such intellectual laziness/mendacity (I’m really not sure) in your thesis? Of course you don’t, so don’t try it here.
The harm that can be casued to children by viewing age-inappropriate material is that they might gain a warped view of the world and think that certain extreme actions (eg being incredibly violent or sexual) are normal everyday actions and ones that should be copied.
Adults have experience and thus are aware that violence is rarely the answer (unlike children, who lack this experience). Also, adults are, by our nature, sexual beings so sexual images are not inapproprioate or harmful for us to view, however we are also experienced and aware that it is inappropriate to be sexual all the time and that others are not always gagging for it. Again, this is thanks to experience that children lack.
That, in short, is why it is not harmful for adults to watch violent or sexual images, but it is potentially harmful for children to watch them.
That is why you are a despicable cretin for showing children an extremely violent film with an 18 rating, yet also a hypocrite for justifying it on grounds that it’s historically warranted.
I note also that in the middle of the last paragraph in #41 you include cynical as an example of badness that should be censored and (implicit in what you were saying) not permitted to be in 12 or 15 films. What the hell is wrong with you man? Have you lost all reason?
Yes, we’ve been over this one before. I mentioned the point about children being less able to distinguish fact and fiction, which is some of the nub/burden of your point. It says somewhere in the Bible (Philippians 4) about taking care to focus our minds on what is pure, lovely, noble, of good report etc.. I guess it’s not wholly unwarranted to judge a given person’s maturity by how far they do just that.
‘Cynical’ I was using in a specific sense – though it’s not a pleasant thing to be which ever sense it is used in. I was meaning an ingrained, deep-lying cynicism whihc came out in most of a person’s words and actions.
It’s good to be sceptical about all sorts of things. Sceptical: yes. Cynical: no.
Historical warrant is one criterion; gratuitousness (or the lack of it) another; likelihood of children identifying with the situation a third; and there are no doubt others. Children are not likely to identify with a 2000-year-old situation: they know it’s not part of ‘their’ world.
Surely sexual images are all the less appropriate for adults to view, given that the potential for infidelity is all the more there, and that images are the main way in which this potential is aroused?
Regarding cynicism, that was how I took you to mean it. I can’t believe that you think such a viewpoint (presumably from some characters in a film) is not appropriate in a 12 film. Especially when all movies (hollywood especially) are inherently cynical money-making exercises.
For the children you show the passion of christ to, it’s not a 2,000 year-old situation, it’s a modern movie & they’re likely to identify with it.
For the defence I present one C. Shell, an adult, no less, a man who can’t distinguish between a dream sequence and blasphemy in a comic opera. If someone of his age and education is unable to understand scenes in a comic opera, what hope do kids have of properly understanding a movie and its message?
Regarding sexual images, I have to first pick you up on one your constant overriding assumptions – that of marriage. You always assume that adults are married and take the argument from there, usually invoking infidelity as the prie sin and reason why anything sexual shouldn’t be allowed. If you want to persuade people of the justness of your cause, you shouldn’t create a straw marriage and then attack the forces that would seek to destry it. Nobody’s saying that infidelity is good, but your argument fails to show why indiviuals who are single or are sharing the experience with a partner should not be allowed to view such images. Intramarital mistrust and dishonesty is no reason to prevent the rest of the population from doing something that they enjoy.
Regarding the remainder of your antiporn argument, I wholeheartedly disagree. Children shown sexual images or otherwise sexualised, will exhibit overtly sexual behaviour. This is a classic sign of an abused or groomed child. This sexualised behaviour is inappropriate for children, even in private. For adults sexualised behaviour in private is perfectly normal, proper and thoroughly enjoyable. Pornography does not inherently lead to infidelity but does generally lead to sexual arousal. the two are not one and the same.
Oh, and I’d say that infidelity is not normally aroused by images so much as situations, opportunity and a fundamental dishonesty within a marriage anyway.
Christopher – re comment 22, I said that “believeing in a god that created the universe” was childish, not “Suspecting that in a universe this ginormous there are more powerful beings than us” is childish.
Bears are more poweful than us. I not only suspect they exist, I know so for I have seen them with mine own eyes. Hallejulah, praise the ours, I am born again etc
in #43 I erred in calling you a hypocrite for your reasons for justifying showing potc to children. I should have called you an idiot for such a ludicrous excuse, nad a hypocrite for arguing for censorship of other films (of equal or lesser violence) aimed towards adults.
I apologise.
That makes me feel a lot better!!
Infidelity and arousal: clearly not one and the same. They are connected: the less possiblility of extrinsic arousal,the less possibility of infidelity.
Surely the sort of image-viewing practice you are describing involves people making a soul-link (based on sexual attraction) with images of people not even known to them, let alone the fact that they thus automatically kill the exzclusivity of their own relationship. Hence the instability of (particularly) non-marital relationships, which,far from being a universal phenomenon, occurs only in the sopcieties which unwisely sanction such relationships in the first place, when they know that the stats could not be more against them. It always puzzles me that ppl don’t realise that dating is less than 100 years old, and the concept of teenager only about 50 years old.The argument for a period of irresponsibility between being a minor and being married has never been presented.It si just assumed by those who have never known any different – and assumptions are always dangerous.
Re the comic opera: I understand the scenes only too well,including (an dthis is the fundamental point) their source. Which is the unexamined urge to juxtapose the holy and the scandalous,also examples in ‘The News of the World’ etc.. That is the sort of thing we should encourage? Or label as art?
“It says somewhere in the Bible (Philippians 4) about taking care to focus our minds on what is pure, lovely, noble, of good report etc”
So bloody what ?
It says gays should be put to death…
Do you beleive that as well ?
The bible is no justifcation for ANYTHING.
It’s funny how the bible bashers are so selective in what they take from it…..
They usually use the bit from Leviticus (sp?) about “man shall not lie with another man”.
But they’ll gladly have a bacon sarnie for breakfast, even though Deuteronmy (sp?) expressly forbids this.
Hypocrites.
“It says somewhere in the Bible (Philippians 4) about taking care to focus our minds on what is pure, lovely, noble, of good report etc—
PS:
You shouldn’t ever read the bible then. Because it is full of hate, condemnation, and gory horror…