What’s more vicious: Me saying true things about a religious institution and the ostensibly educated people who agree with what it says and does? Or: A religious institution incentivizing rapists to rape children, then whisking them off to a literal golden palace in a “magical” kingdom where they’ll get to live out the rest of their lives in wealth and comfort. Or failing that whisked off to some other place where people aren’t so well informed of their transgressions where they can rape more children?
Not incorrect. But lazy and casually ugly in your (plural “you”, I’ve forgotten exactly what you personally said, given the pile on this evening) arguments. It’s possible to make strong and accurate arguments against what Loyola said without stagy sneering for the crowd about everything religious. Or everything Catholic. That is not what was happening here this evening, however.
Loyola apparently made a threat that deserved to be countered. However, the refined beings among us have been pushing the idea that Loyola was out of line for even noting and complaining about the inherently transgressive messages in this artwork. Fuck that domineering bullshit. He may not have any right to stop it, but he had every right to speak in defense of his ideas.
And that – that temerity on his part – is what seemed to really be at issue here in the minds of the elite, refined BoingBoing commentariat. Not his threat – they rather enjoyed that – but, when Loyola complained, it was as if a pig had spoken… in defense of mud.
In fact I even agree with you on about 2/3rds of this.
The problem I have here with Loyola’s statement is that as a government official, in his state capacity, he’s decided to condemn someone’s speech regarding religion. And, I’m not above saying that if I accept money from the government for art, it should be neutral. But it’s not the government’s job to protect anyone’s feelings with regard to religion, and doing so seems like a violation of the establishment clause.
But if the governement wants to pay for art, then it should have clear guidelines about what is and isn’t off limits. If we have a fund for “general art” then the government shouldn’t be picking and choosing what’s acceptable under religious consideration until and unless it takes everyone’s religious consideration into account. And it never does, as a general rule.
A friend of mine got arrested there for some drunk & disorderly thing where he showed a knife to a kid. The jail had a TV that was showing Predator, and all the inmates were loudly cheering for the Predator instead of Arnold & Co.
I have no idea what to infer from that, but it was a funny story.
Last I checked, Catholics “sneer at” a whole bunch of people on a regular basis. Like atheism is the root of all the problems of this century, or the gay agenda or…
It is called freedom of speech, not freedom from others speaking about you.
This isn’t my cup of tea, er, blood, but public art isn’t about putting up a bunch of Thomas Kinkade paintings with Andrew Lloyd Webber music quietly playing in the background and Subway finger sandwiches provided so that everyone feels comfortable with what they’re looking at.
You’re not wrong! There’s a reason I left that place at age 18, and never plan to live there again. Salon ranks Virginia Beach as the third most conservative city in America:
That said, it is a safe (if boring) place to grow up in.
It should be noted that the Arts & Humanities Commission of which this douche is commissioner is funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts and is a defacto extension of the local and federal governance. I seem to remember reading something about how government and religion are to be kept separate. But hey, that’s none of my business.
But that’s kind of an inherent problem with “public” art. If everyone pays, shouldn’t everyone enjoy? The only way to do that is by blanding everything down. One reason I’m not on the public funding for art bandwagon.
“If Jesse don’t like it, it don’t stay;
get it out of the museum, get it out of there today
Jesse’s fav’rite painting is the one of the clown
with the daisy in his hand and a tear rollin’ down”
The thing I don’t get is that there is an element of surrealism to this work, which means however it’s interpreted is pretty much up to whatever you bring to it. I’m sure I could come up with an interpretation in which this painting honors the christian religion and expounds on Jesus’ teachings without breaking too much of a sweat.
For somebody that doesn’t think an elected official saying “Not on my watch” when referring to taxpayer money funding an exhibit is not related to censorship, you take an odd view of intellectual laziness.
My Benedictine background says “get a bottle of beer and shut the fuck the up. You’re embarrassing the real Catholics.”
