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- I did not read your (Bricker’s) OP as claiming that the only possible reason that people would say that making babies cry is okay is anti-Bush fervor.
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Nor did I, but I changed my mind upon him listing pretty much everyone who disagreed with him as evidence that he was right as to the “giving of a pass” and the implied motive for said giving. See Post 91
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- Instead, I read your OP as saying that the reason (or alternatively, a reason) that posters would support making babies cry in this instance is their strong anti-Bush beliefs.
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Or said yet another way, I suggest that you and everyone here who is not a sociopath would agree that there are some things that are so important and socially useful, that short-term and minor PBM is worthwhile.
So you never believed, nor did you say, that the only reason that people here would be okay with PBM was if it resulted in scoring anti-Bush points.
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I consider this point a False Dilemma. In this mistake I think you are entangled unfairly because there was no way to re-state Bricker’s position without using the False Dilemma because it was the core of the entire line of arguement. Either denounce the actions of the photographer, or admit overwhelming bias against the target of her statement.
Let’s presume a hypothetical person real quick. This person believes the best judge and advocate for the health, safety, and happiness of a baby is the child’s parents. Upon reading the article in the OP, this person says “their parents were involved, informed, and consented. That’s good enough for me.” Would said person be a sociopath? A rabid Bush-basher? Something else?
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3) On the other hand, only a sociopath (one who was also an idiot)[sup]6[/sup] would torment a child for no reason, or a trivial reason. I suspect that you would agree with this, as well.
(Most people might agree that a $20 million film is enough of a reason. Some might even say that creating a series of meaningful, artistic photos is enough. I suspect few would claim that Mom’s backyard snapshots qualify. So reasonable minds might differ. Good reason, okay. Stupid or no reason, not okay.)
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As noted by Gorsnak, the word “torment” has a very strong connotation and while the literal meaning encompasses the actions, it may be bad usage here. If we get into reasons for PBM, aside from the one so nicely gift-wrapped in the thread title, then we’re at another False Dilemma. Let’s take another hypothetical person. This person believes in the freedom of artists to explore their creativity is very important. They aren’t willing to use qualifiers like “meaningful” or “artistic” because all art is subjective and what looks like trite crap to one person(canned fecal matter anyone?) is high art to others. So they are unwilling to judge the photographer because of this deeply held belief in artistic freedom. Are they a sociopath? Bush-basher?
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4) So for everyone but Blanche, we have to believe that there’s some significant, pretty important good that will be achieved before we’re okay with PBM.
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Well, unless you fall into one of the two classes of hypothetical people I enumerated above, or any of tens of thousands of other unenumerated, yet not sociopathic, positions which would make the artist’s procedure unobjectionable.
Here’s another category of people who felt the technique was no big deal. “Few photographers or art experts, when questioned, seemed to take umbrage with Greenberg’s technique.” Bush-haters? Sociopaths? Other?
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5) You assumed, probably correctly, that no significant number of people would be okay with PBM if all that resulted was a trite, lame and stupid set of photos that attempted to make no point at all. Who would? See points ## 3-4.
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Meh. “trite, lame and stupid” are in the eye of the beholder. I would personally agree with the assessment, but it isn’t for me to say my artistic views are solid enough to be a “true” premise in a chain of logical reasoning.
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6) But these photos attempted to make an anti-Bush point. A stupid point, but the attempt was being made.
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Lots of art makes anti-Bush points. Listened to any Green Day, or Dixie Chicks recently? Art as a political statement has a history dating back hundreds of years. Political cartoons can be found in pretty much every newspaper on the planet. Many of them are making anti-Politician-du-jour statements, often stupid, lame, and trite(in someone’s opinion at least).
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7) You believed that the unthinking anti-Bush mania that’s so prevalent here would blind the True Believers from seeing that (poorly) making a political point was not a sufficient reason for PBM and that, accordingly, people would support PBM in this case.
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Who are these “True Believers”? All the people who had posted any non-negative reactions to the photo spread? All the people Bricker quoted statements from when pressed to reveal who he thought was blinded by partisanship? I’d hazard a guess that a fair number of them were confused by a poorly constructed OP(see Jackmannii’s excellent analysis in Post 372 of this thread). Some of the others probably fell into one or more of the categories of respondents I identified earlier, or some other non-sociopath, non-rabid-anti-Bush, category.
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8) These photos were trite, lame and stupid, and failed to make any meaningful political point.
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Again, meh. Personal judgement on an aesthetic topic is not a sound premise for a chain of logic.
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9) Yet, people here supported the photographer’s actions.
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I think you’re conflating a few different reactions here. Supporting the freedom for artists to follow their muse, even to places which make us uncomfortable, is one. Deference to first-hand parental judgement, another. No one has thus far said “I’m going to send her a big fat check!” or “I want to be her assistant so I can be part of such noble work!” or anything of the sort. Supporting freedom is not the same as supporting every individual act made possible by that freedom. If it were then everyone who believes the second amendment creates an indivdiual right to bear arms should be prosecuted as accessories to murder.
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10) Indeed, people reacted with outrage to your suggestion that the photographer did anything worthy of condemnation. Pages and pages of outrage. Not only didn’t people agree with you, they didn’t just say “meh” and move on. They didn’t have a passing thought that “this Bricker seems be a bit more concerned about mild PBM than the situation warrants” and pass to the next post. No. A sizeable group went batshit insane and commenced to burn the heretic.
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I think most of the outrage was due to the implicit accusation in the OP, and more explicit accusations later on, of being partisan shills or dominated by such base motives as antipathy to Bush. Another sizeable chunk was confused about exactly what the OP meant and, because it is a hot-button topic(anything involving mistreatment of children always is) were firing off posts trying to get clarification. Others, like SkipMagic, or tomndebb were doing their own thing, joking and factoiding as they felt appropriate.
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11) In general, people don’t wish to admit, either to themselves or the outside world, that they are fanatics who form beliefs for irrational reasons. Instead, they fashion logical-sounding reasons for their irrational behavior. So even if people claim that they are okay with what the photographer did for independant reasons, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this actually the case.
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Whoa there! Hang on a second. What evidence do you have that people who said they were ok with what the PBM in question for non-partisan reasons actually had other, irrational, reasons they didn’t want to state? This statement is nothing less than an accusation of lying and it should be substantiated or withdrawn if your goal is honest debate. I would agree with the statement on general principles, but without evidence that it happened here, in this thread, with these participants, then it is a Irrelevant Conclusion.
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12) I believe that the conclusion that best fits thes facts is that people gave the photographer “a pass” because the subject was anti-Bush, even though they claim (or even believe) that their support/acceptance of the photographs derives from Bush-neutral reasons.
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Crap, we’re getting deep into mind-reading now. Now we are distinguishing between what a person “believes” is motivating them and what is truly motivating them? I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with this conclusion. I have pointed out many issues I have with the premises it is based on, and taking it to the level of determining the “real” motives of a person posting on a message board is highly dubious.
In short, I remain unconvinced that Bricker A) has a valid view of how a moral and reasonable person “should” react to this artist’s actions B) correctly identified and comprehended the actual reactions of his fellow SDMB posters C) was interested in an honest discussion to begin with.
Thank you for the discussion though. It has been refreshing.
Enjoy,
Steven
How did you get his controllers to set you up like that?