David, (and others that I seem to have riled) > >"Jane, I agree that offending a majority is not "equivalent" to offending a >minority. There is no question that offending, insulting, provoking, >hurting, or attacking a minority group constitutes bullying--in addition to the offense per se. ... And what do numbers have to do with anything, >anyway?" I think you have answered your own question there. In my experience being a member of a minority group is a qualitatively different experience to being part of a majority group, so in that respect the numbers do count. (in fact there was an interesting documentary on tv last night which argued that being a black man in the UK (i.e. a member of a minority which is discriminated against both passively and activiely) is a sufficiently harming experience in intself to cause psychotic episodes and mental instability. - Being a black man in the uk can drive you mad. literally. >"Why is it necessary, desirable, or justifable to offend anyone?" Where a majority's cultural identity and pattern of behaviour rests on unquestioned beliefs as to the relative importance of their own group in relation to other groups, as here where people still unconsiously act as though all black men are criminals, then I think that an artist, or whoever is perfectly justified in challenging those beliefs, even if they do risk offending some people's sensibilities. I wouldn't argue that it is automaticaaly a good thing to offend people. BUT I would support the challenging of entrenched beliefs. Obviously I wouldn't set out to personally upset individual members of a group, but where the dominant culture offends, hurts, damages, restricts, infringes, constrains, pathologises members of minorities for their religious, cultural, political beliefs or for manifesting different cultural traditions or ways of life, with no consideration for the impact that has on the individual in a minority, I'm not going to precious about the offender getting upset in return. This was a general point I was making, I was not saying that it would be a good thing if some lone god-fearing christian went to see the exhibition and was offended. - But then I am regularly offended by the portrayal of women in art and nobody seems to bothered about that. Curators could post a warning outside this exhibition to warn christians that they might find it blasphemous, but perhaps they should also consider advance warning on all the other offensive things being exhibited? >"No one deserves to have personal >beliefs or religous symbols attacked, parodied, or assaulted just because they are shared by a large group." I would have to say that it would depend on what they believed. We live in a so-called democracy where people believe they have a right to free speech. I'm not some sort of crazed individual who wants to go round offending people just for the sake of it, but where a challenge is made with good ground and in a fair way - aimed at the belief and not the individual, I do not think that is unreasonable. Just as we have the right to believe whatever we like, others sureley also have the right to >challenge us if they do not agree with us -as you have to me. > >"As far as the size of the group is concerned, moreover, this is relative to your point of reference." Most things are. >" Western culture may indeed be "Christian-dominated" >insofar as heritage, tradition, and customs are concerned, but even true >Christians, and more specifically practicing Catholics, themselves constitute minority groups within this very secularized culture." Indeed, and I would not want to see practicing Catholics having their rights constrained any more than I would want to see them constraining the rights of others. >" Nor does any claim that an artist is actually a member of the group that he is provoking justify an offense or make it any easier to swallow." As far as I am aware, there is a long tradition in art of pushing the boundaries, of looking at things in new ways, of examining and questionning and challenging, and thus also sometimes offending the position of the group to which they belong. That is what questionning minds do - they examine that which is important. If art is not allowed >to have offended, perhaps we should also withdraw Monet and Picasso... > >"All that having been said, I'll still defend any artist's right to >self-expression. I may question his motives, but I won''t condemn them. I >question Giuliani's motives, but I also question the Brooklyn Museum's >motives. Perhaps all art is political, but this whole episode seems to be much more about politics than art, and it smells bad." Out of curiosity, did the exhibition "smell bad" (if you'll excuse the pun) before Giuliani became involved, or has it just become distasteful >now that politicians have pulled culture into the political realm? > >"But, to return to my original point, I think the notion that only minorities should be immune from offense and insult stinks." I don't think I ever said anyone should be immune, and if a minority was actively setting out to offend others (fascists are the easy example) then I have no problem with them being offended to - or silenced where they would wish to silence others. I was simply scommenting that in my experience offending majority beliefs was not equivalent to offending minority beliefs, a point which you agreed with at the beginning. Not being in New York , or knowing any of the people or organisations involved, I wouldn't like to try and draw too much analysis, as all I know about it is what people have said on the list, and much of that has been very partial indeed. consequently, I am only making observations on that basis. >Jane > >David Haberstich > > ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).