1/19/2004: Swedish art provokes Israeli ambassador

[quzah]

Originally posted by mlandman
And what if the exhibit was a wax figurine of a palestinian walking into a cafe filled with kids, and he had dynamite strapped around his waist? Is someone who plans to deface that exhibit a fucking idiot? If your answer is yes, then I don't know what to say to you.

You don't have the right to destroy someone's property just because you don't like what it looks like. If you painted your house teal, and I hated teal, it wouldn't give me the right to burn your house down. Nor would it give me the right to repaint it.

Your house would be on public display, but that still doesn't give me the right to do anything to it. Now if you lived in a housing complex that expressly forbid teal houses, there would be some viable course of action against your teal house. However, it still wouldn't give me the right to burn it down.

The fact remains: Just because you find it offensive, doesn't give you the right to do as you please to it. That makes you a fucking idiot.

The point in question isn't if the artist is an idiot, that's a whole different topic. The subject at hand is: It is not your right to destroy that which you don't like.

Well shit, that sums up the entire middle east doesn't it? You could say, metophoricly, that this art piece, and the guy's reaction is the perfect example of the middle east itself.

Originally posted by mlandman
But to say that the content of the exhibit has no bearing on whether or not it might be rational to deface it doesn't seem right to me.

It is not your right to destroy my creation because you do not like it. This is half of the problem in the world today, easily. People deciding that they don't like what someone else is doing, so they decide to "take care of it". Governments do this. (Iraq anyone?) People do this.

People should just leave eachother the fuck alone, and the world would be a way way better place.

Originally posted by mlandman
What if the exhibit was a car running over your family? Would you be A FUCKING IDIOT to do something about it? Yes, clearly it's not the same thing, but now you must admit we're talking about shades of grey. So tell me, why is it SO OBVIOUS that what he did makes him a FUCKING IDIOT, and you WOULDN'T be a FUCKING IDIOT to deface an exhibit of someone killing your parents and kids? The next time you see a exhibit in a museum of someone raping your 3 year old child, remember, you're a FUCKING IDIOT if you tear it down.

Well you've got a few problems here. One, someone raping a three year old child, even the image of such, is child pornography. As such, there are usually laws against such things. To follow this further, it wouldn't be in the museum in the first place.

Next, there was only one person actually displayed in the exibit. This is the person that blew themselves up. Now then, if anyone has right to be offended by the exibit, I'd think it was the family of the person involved, or perhaps the families of the people blown up in the bombing.

Again, that doesn't give them the right to destroy the item in question. This is a matter of personal property rights. People can be offended and what not by your property, but again, they can't come and destroy it. If they do, they have to pay the penalty for doing so.

Unless of course they have diplomatic imunity. Then you're fucked.

Originally posted by mlandman
Personally, if I saw you tear something like that down, I'd sympathize with you. I certainly wouldn't default to thinking you're a FUCKING IDIOT.

So which is it? Are all exhibits off limits? Or, if some exhibits are fair game, please tell me precisely why he's a FUCKING IDIOT for choosing that one.

Personailzed again. You can sympathize, you can think they're an idiot. Both of you are right. It's subjective. That's what art is. Subjective. One person sees something one way, another a completely different way. It still doesn't give you legal right to destroy it. Sure, maybe morally you're in the right.

But that's what laws are for. To distinguish the difference between what is morally right and what the masses say is legally right. If you don't like the laws, you either try and change them, or you go elsewhere, where laws are more to your liking.

Or you have diplomatic imunity.

Quzah.

[edit]Ah, someone beat me to the reply.[/edit]