Aesthetics Of Art Form

[David M]

I haven’t been tempted by the Dark Net and I think I’ll stay that way.
Some of what I write is in the nature of exploration. It would be tedious to preface everything with “It might be possible to consider…” or sone other get-out clause.
You see from a different viewpoint, and hence we get a more rounded view. As we’ve discovered and (I hope) agreed we can’t agree on everything, but we can be tolerant. We can learn. It takes all sorts and not all of the sorts are as nice as we’d like.

 

[David M]

Oh dear, again. You will be missed if you remain firm.

 

[thronobulax]

Wow ...
At this point I'd like the administrators to delete my profile. I really don't want to be part of a forum where these attitudes are presented. I can detect the flying spittle of the right wing deranged so I wish no further part in it.

I'd be curious to know what precisely you found to be so. I thought we were having a civil-, if impassioned discussion about the intersection of art/culture/politics and my earlier claim that art is best divorced from these things.

I, for one, would much rather you stay. I find your contributions valuable.

 

[Joanna Carter]

Once again - this is my last post here - I've found my time here fascinating, but I'm happy to keep politics out of chat about photography, but others here do not seem to have that restraint.
Enjoy your photography and the up and coming better weather. See you around
Ash

This particular thread, in the Lounge section, started off, meandered, returned, then went off again. The Lounge section is not there for specifically photography related discussion so, if you don't want to join in, you don't have to.

There are 24 other sections, which are focused on photography full of all sorts of helpful advice and chat. Surely, you can find something in all those?

There is a much simpler answer to quitting the whole forum - just ignore the Lounge section in general or specific threads in particular. Nobody is forcing you to participate in everything.

 

[thronobulax]

If the problem is folks not approving of the expunging of slavery, then don't forget that, if future generations don't see it because those who supported it are no longer visible, they can be more likely to not realise the effects that it had (and still has)

There are times when infamy can be a stronger deterrent and, let's face it, it is still happening today, it's just that, on the whole, it not practised on such a large scale.

What does seem odd is that, unlike the fairly immediate removal of Naziism, it has taken so many years for a generation to, all of a sudden, decide that the rest of humanity should not be reminded of other things, now deemed unacceptable and learn to avoid them.

This is spot on.

I lived in Germany in the 1960s. Both the horrors of the Nazis and the threat of the Soviets were palpable everywhere. Today, our young Generation Z folk often cannot meaningfully describe exactly what those two threats were even about. They glibly throw terms like "Nazi" around with almost no understanding of how these horrors ever came to be.

Hiding art, retroactively redefining art, and destroying art from this era exactly dumbs down the culture and removes important reminders people need to hear and see. As I've said, I personally prefer that art be independent of politics and culture to the degree possible because I am an arts purist. But when it does wander into those precincts, we shouldn't shy away from its presentation because we find the underlying cause it espouses evil. We should engage with that art and those artists and debate them to force public confrontation of their very bad ideas.

 

[Ian Grant]

While doing my MA we had Roger Taylor as a visiting lecturer, he discussed his co-authoring of Princeton University's "Lewis Carroll Photographer". Roger is the foremost protohistorian in the UK, he joined the department the following year and is now a Professor.

Princeton own the Rev Charles Dodgson's archives, which includes photographs, diaries, letters etc. Now the Victorians hounded Dodgson out of polite society for his images of naked young girls some years after he'd made them.

Roger found that Dodgson kept coded references to all his images, so every known image could be matched to a diary entry. Around the time Dodgson made the nude images of Alice Liddell there was a crazy for printed cards of drawings, paintings, etc, of young children sometimes naked, they were widely sold openly/ Roger found that all the child nudes were made around the time of this craze, and that more importantly the children were always accompanied by their mothers, which he noted in his diaries. None were taken outside this period.

The early part of Queen Victoria's reign was liberal in its morals, but that changed completely to a stricter morality amongst the educated, and that turned then tide against Dodgson.

We are back in a similar situation, in the so called liberated 1960’s the UK band Blind Faith's album cover had to be changed for the US market as it had a photo of a topless young girl holding a metallic aeroplane model, a very innocent image. It's been a slow repression of innocence.

Ian

 

[Sean Mac]

I believe in freedom of expression.

Censorship is not really a good thing as a general principle, I think.

Our intellectual space is restricted already, imposing more barriers does not seem helpful.

The right/left view of society is a stone axe in the era of laser surgery.

The moral high ground of either side seems to be built on blood and death.

I hope we can find better answers to the questions.