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Pastimes : Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (1355)	7/28/2008 2:18:06 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3816

A lot of the debates about whether something is an art or not miss the point. A lot of things are art, and I'd say even regular striping, let alone stripping with some attempt at or pretense of being artistic is "art". But something be "art" doesn't mean as much as people seem to think or imply it does (well in this case in the context of the local law it does, but I'm talking more generally). Art doesn't have to be some form of "high culture". Bad singing is art, a six year olds attempt at finger painting is art, and things that we would want to be illegal, like child porn with a plot or other minimally creative expression, would be art. In general terms "art" doesn't and shouldn't equal "you should be allowed to do it, and "not art" doesn't and shouldn't equal you shouldn't be allowed to do it. Making the key determinant whether something is "art", isn't in my opinion a good one. Possible determinants? Well one, from a very libertarian perspective would be does the act cause direct harm, or perhaps very clear and serve indirect harm, to anyone? Does it use force or fraud against someone? Does it involve people without their consent (or who are reasonably deemed unable to give their proper consent to the type of activity, like the 12 year old mention in the story), does it cause a general harm (like pollution)? If all these answers are no, than it probably should be allowed according to this view. Another view is that for questionable or borderline activities, that if they have great merit of some type (often from a specific list that usually contains "artistic merit" as one of the categories), then it should be allowed but that otherwise maybe it should not be. The distinction here is not "is it art", but "is it really good art". The benefit here over the current Des Moines set up, is that it protects what they really want to protect. The downside is that its highly subjective. If you do have a law that allows for stripping/naked dancing if its presented as art, than unless the law is changed, I think such activity should be allowed, the government should follow its own laws, and even if it not "high art", or "of great artistic merit" it is art. Which doesn't mean that they can't get in trouble for the hypothetical 12 year old stripping in their club/"performing arts center", or even the real 17 year old. The only defense here was that the 17 year old acted against their policy (was sneaked in), and a 17 year old, once inside, isn't as obviously under age as the county attorney's hypothetical much younger girl. How much responsibility they should have could be debated. I'm not going to comment on that particular issue in this post.