Friday, May 28, 2004
Censorship, Apples and Oranges
The California Supreme Court is currently considering the case of a poem that landed its 15 year-old author in juvenile hall for more than three months. It's a very important First Amendment question. The state is arguing that the poem is not protected speech because it makes criminal threats.
And there's a very slippery slope down which to slide, courtesy of asshat administrators who have lost all common sense and reason, and automatically deal with anything unusual that a student does as if it were a first degree felony. Unfortunately, the decision here will have an impact on grown-ups who are trying to create. Want to write a novel about a terrorist from the terrorist's point of view? Sorry, that would be criminal. Want to write a play about school shootings which shows the causes and the damages? Go directly to jail.
Equus: illegal, shows intent to blind horses.
A Modest Proposal: illegal, shows intent to eat Irish children.
The Catcher in the Rye: illegal, the author is clearly a sick and twisted person.
Of course, I can't comment on the poem directly because it's not reprinted in the article (thank you, media, for doin' your frickin' jobs), but they do offer this snippet:
Let me repeat that: he was charged as a criminal for artistic expression. If that doesn't scare you, you're not paying attention.
It gets worse. In a true case of just not getting it, one of the justices comes up with this total apples and oranges argument that does nothing but demonstrate why she should be impeached:
And someone please explain to me here the concept of "art with unlawful intentions." Art has no intentions. It's an inanimate expression of the artist's heart and mind. Yes, artists can have criminal intentions. But so can accountants, mechanics... and Supreme Court Justices. No work of art should ever be censored, no matter how much anyone disagrees with its message, no matter how tasteless some may deem it, no matter how inflamatory its rhetoric.
"Art with unlawful intentions." That brings up images of paintings leaping off the walls of the Louvre to attack visitors; statues mugging people in sculpture gardens; plays turning on actors in rehearsal and giving them nasty paper cuts. Yeah, right. It brings up images of what a complete and total moron the dishonorable judge Janice Rogers Brown is.
When you remove action as a criteria for judging intent, you remove Free Speech protection from everyone and thereby codify the concept of "Thought Crime." Sure, if you find the kid's "List of People to Kill", or he or she tries to bring a gun to school, then you take preventative legal action. But if the kid is just expressing themself artistically, back the fuck off.
The big problem here is that Zero Tolerance bullshit is creeping out of the schools and starting to affect what adults in the real world can or cannot do. Administrators have conveniently abrogated any responsibility they have to use common sense and compassion, so that any odd behavior by a student is treated as if it were a first degree felony. The message we're sending to our children is, "Don't say anything, don't do anything, don't think, don't create; just shut up, follow the draconian rules and no matter how good your grades are, you can still be screwed in a heartbeat for a simple mistake."
The end result: we're going to turn out (or may already have) a generation that does not create, that has no artistic impulse, no initiative, no ability to think for themselves. Or, worse -- we may turn out a generation that, once free of the shackles of Zero Tolerance, may act out against society and themselves in the most violent and nihilistic ways possible because they never had the opportunity to explore their darker impulses and exorcise them via a creative outlet.
By the way, Jean Genet started out as a criminal and wound up sentenced to life in prison. It was because of his writing that other noted French artists lobbied for, and finally won, his release. Nowadays, looks like he would be in danger of having his writing put him in prison instead.
And there's a very slippery slope down which to slide, courtesy of asshat administrators who have lost all common sense and reason, and automatically deal with anything unusual that a student does as if it were a first degree felony. Unfortunately, the decision here will have an impact on grown-ups who are trying to create. Want to write a novel about a terrorist from the terrorist's point of view? Sorry, that would be criminal. Want to write a play about school shootings which shows the causes and the damages? Go directly to jail.
Equus: illegal, shows intent to blind horses.
A Modest Proposal: illegal, shows intent to eat Irish children.
The Catcher in the Rye: illegal, the author is clearly a sick and twisted person.
Of course, I can't comment on the poem directly because it's not reprinted in the article (thank you, media, for doin' your frickin' jobs), but they do offer this snippet:
For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school... For I am Dark, Destructive & Dangerous.Hm. Threat, or typical fifteen year-old? Criminal intent or commentary? At the very most, this kid and his parents should have been interviewed by a counsellor for other danger signs, then the whole thing dropped unless actual criminal intent were found. Instead, he was expelled and wound up in juvenille hall for a hundred days.
Let me repeat that: he was charged as a criminal for artistic expression. If that doesn't scare you, you're not paying attention.
It gets worse. In a true case of just not getting it, one of the justices comes up with this total apples and oranges argument that does nothing but demonstrate why she should be impeached:
Justice Janice Rogers Brown said the First Amendment doesn't shield works of art with unlawful intentions. She asked whether a bank robber could be immune from charges for giving a bank teller this note: "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Give me the money or I'll shoot you."Well, of course he wouldn't be immune, you dumbshit. He'd be in the middle of committing bank robbery, a felony. The First Amendment doesn't apply to criminal actions. It applies to words and speech, and should continue to apply to them. Let me repeat that. Your hypothetical bank robber would be liable to prosecution for the actual crime of bank robbery; the style of his note is immaterial, and in any case would not be protected speech under existing interpretation of the law. Only a jackass of an attorney would attempt to make that argument; only an idiot of a judge would pull this example out of her ass.
And someone please explain to me here the concept of "art with unlawful intentions." Art has no intentions. It's an inanimate expression of the artist's heart and mind. Yes, artists can have criminal intentions. But so can accountants, mechanics... and Supreme Court Justices. No work of art should ever be censored, no matter how much anyone disagrees with its message, no matter how tasteless some may deem it, no matter how inflamatory its rhetoric.
"Art with unlawful intentions." That brings up images of paintings leaping off the walls of the Louvre to attack visitors; statues mugging people in sculpture gardens; plays turning on actors in rehearsal and giving them nasty paper cuts. Yeah, right. It brings up images of what a complete and total moron the dishonorable judge Janice Rogers Brown is.
When you remove action as a criteria for judging intent, you remove Free Speech protection from everyone and thereby codify the concept of "Thought Crime." Sure, if you find the kid's "List of People to Kill", or he or she tries to bring a gun to school, then you take preventative legal action. But if the kid is just expressing themself artistically, back the fuck off.
The big problem here is that Zero Tolerance bullshit is creeping out of the schools and starting to affect what adults in the real world can or cannot do. Administrators have conveniently abrogated any responsibility they have to use common sense and compassion, so that any odd behavior by a student is treated as if it were a first degree felony. The message we're sending to our children is, "Don't say anything, don't do anything, don't think, don't create; just shut up, follow the draconian rules and no matter how good your grades are, you can still be screwed in a heartbeat for a simple mistake."
The end result: we're going to turn out (or may already have) a generation that does not create, that has no artistic impulse, no initiative, no ability to think for themselves. Or, worse -- we may turn out a generation that, once free of the shackles of Zero Tolerance, may act out against society and themselves in the most violent and nihilistic ways possible because they never had the opportunity to explore their darker impulses and exorcise them via a creative outlet.
By the way, Jean Genet started out as a criminal and wound up sentenced to life in prison. It was because of his writing that other noted French artists lobbied for, and finally won, his release. Nowadays, looks like he would be in danger of having his writing put him in prison instead.
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