Quote - We can agree to disagree.  I thought you meant you were ignoring me?

:laugh:

Just checked back in.  Sorry, donquixote -- I don't have much time to contribute to this thread today, or even to do much more than to briefly glance at your last couple of posts.  I might come back later to respond in some detail when time permits -- but please don't take that as a set-in-stone promise.  sigh  There's a retrofit fire alarm system for an existing elementary school building that needs to be designed.  Not to mention other things that need testing..........

Hold the popcorn, RedHawk.  It's much better hot and fresh-popped than when it's a day old.  That's the thing about popcorn.  It goes stale fast. 

Quote - I sincerely hope that it can hold off degenerating that way, I've been around far too long and I'm kind of hoping that history for once won't repeat itself.

And up until now, it's been a good discussion - it's forced me to have to think to explain my own concerns in new ways, which is never a bad thing from my perspective.

So in the hopes of trying to bring it back on track, I'll toss in a couple of current events I think are "similar" to the risks of this law to artists.

In the UK, Darryn Walker faces charges for writing a porn story involving some band called "Girls Aloud".

In Afghanistan, a student has had his death sentence commuted to 20 years imprisonment for blasphemy - he downloaded material from the 'net regarding women's rights in Islam.

To me, these two cases aren't that much different from the matter at hand - both of them are purely subjective judgment calls about material that doesn't actually involve harm to real people.

shrug  As I've pointed out in other, similar threads: you can be executed for running a porn site in China.  You can also be tortured and executed there for being a Christian.  The Middle East is its own story, of course: but the same rules largely apply.  Only for what appear to be 'different' underlying reasons: "different" reasons which end up having precisely the same practical effects.  We aren't likely to change the collective minds of those societies on such subjects any time soon.  But it's interesting to note that one of the standard characteristics of ALL forms of oppressive societies -- of whatever ideological stripe -- in the modern era, regardless of the particulars of the foundational political / social philosophies involved: is to persecute Christianity as a mode of thought: and to persecute individual Christians as persons.  Not to mention Jews.........

But we in the West do seem to have been changing our own minds in regards to cultural mores over the last several decades.  Slowly, at first.  And then increasingly more rapidly as time has gone by.  By and large: we seem to be basing our thinking on the late Roman cultural model.  I'd go into more details: but it's late.  However: I will say this: children were regularly used for sexual purposes, including for "art", in the late Roman empire.

Also, ancient Carthage used to regularly sacrifice children and infants both for the sake of personal convenience and to seal business deals, etc..  Killing infants without conscience is another characteristic of those societies which have so spectacularly collapsed in past times.

The high-sounding, sophistic and oh-so-smooth and oh-so-comforting justifications for doing just exactly whatever we please are always easily ready to hand, to use in a pinch.  But it's the down-the-road results of doing whatever we please that people always have a hard time accepting: results that people prefer to pretend don't exist -- in spite of the repeated examples of those results throughout human history.  But accept those results we will.  We won't have a choice in the matter.

Quote - We're talking about pervs and their collections and you bring up the Bible.  Ok.  So, you have contempt for the Bible and probably for christians as a whole.  But we can agree to disagree.

Argue with DQ, and he'll bring up the Bible and "religion" just about every time.  As I mentioned earlier: it's an especially favored hobby horse: well-ridden.

Quote - I am nearly certain we would strongly disagree about what type of people are most frequently insisting black is white and white is black these days,

I'd say that's a safe bet. 

Quote - what exactly do you mean by the term "popular culture?"

The same thing that most people who use the term mean by it.  If you're looking for a lengthy technical definition, here's a referral:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_culture

I like the opening line of the article.  It's about as good of a definition as I've come across:

Popular culture (or pop culture) is the culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — which are popular, well-liked or common.

Quote - In the modern sense of that term, popular culture is a fairly recent phenomenon.

In the sense of the definition above, it's been around since humans have been around -- in one form or another.  But we can get bogged down in defining terms (which, of course, might be the real goal here ).  Most people know what "popular culture" is in the same way that they know what "philosophy" is.  And you can spend (re: waste) entire lifetimes trying to dig into the fine details -- the "definition" -- of each.

Quote - And are you suggesting that societies in which amorality is reserved for the elite are somehow superior? Or that such societies do not also, and just as often, collapse?

Hmmmm.  This is another odd rabbit trail to go chasing down.  I'm not quite sure how we get from pointing out that civilizations of the past have consistently displayed a generalized cultural acceptance of amoral thinking during the last stages of their existence........over to questions about "amorality being reserved for the elite" vs. (I suppose) "amorality being for everyone".  Sounds like Oppression of the Masses going on to me.  How DARE the elites reserve the privilege of being amoral only to themselves?!!!!!!

That subject.......will require some Deep Thought to work out all of the implications.  In the meantime, I'll continue to read the signs of our times in the light of the times of others who've already lived it -- regardless of whether their examples were for the "elite" or for the "everyman".

Where is that head-scratching smilie when you need him...........!!!!!?????

Quote - My point in bringing up Lot, if you are truly interested, was simply an illustration, i.e., that considerable amorality has always existed

Good observation.  On a sunny day, the sky is normally blue, too.

The point isn't that "amorality has always existed".  That's a given.  The point is its infusion into popular culture in such a way as to spread its toxicity throughout the culture's various layers.  To the point where people begin to insist that black is white and that white is black.......and that the only "true color" (assuming that one is allowed to use an objective term such as "true") is to be found in shades of gray.

Quote - How it is possible to be so drunk that you don't know you are in bed with your daughters and yet not so drunk that you can't perform sexually, I don't know, but perhaps so. But on the other hand, the Bible was written by men, and pretty much in defense of men running and ruling everything, and don't men almost always make such claims? In any case, 100% true or no, just try that defense in a modern-day court and see how far it gets you ...

This thing about Lot & his daughters is an interesting sideshow, I suppose.  It's about like injecting a subject such as whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote the works which are attributed to him into the middle of a debate over tax policies.    But we all have our little hobby horses that we just can't resist inserting into things, I suppose.

It might make a bit more sense to discuss the fates of ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome.  Or, if you'd prefer more modern examples: we can discuss the culture of Europe just prior to WWII.  It's quite instructive.  Even without Lot and his daughters being involved.

Quote - And as for Xeno's comment about "popular amorality" having been tried before, when he is right, he is right. As I recall, Lot slept with his daughters, and the Bible makes it clear that God considered Lot to be a righteous man ...

I don't quite follow your intended connection here -- a more appropriate metaphor would derive from the fate of the Vale of Siddim -- from which Lot and his daughters had escaped.  BTW - Lot was essentially drugged by his daughters.  At the time, he was unaware of what was happening to him.  In other words: the result wasn't from a voluntary act on Lot's part.  And as for the daughter's part: at the time, they'd just witnessed the total destruction of what, to them, was the entire world.  After which they found themselves living alone in a desolate cave in the wilderness.  So the girls most likely actually believed that they were doing something good.....perhaps even (so they thought) necessary.  So it all follows.

But once again:  the story of Lot and his daughters vs. the effects of current "popular amorality" ties in to the cultural debate in ways that I doubt that you'd anticipate in advance -- or likely appreciate.

BTW - none of what's going on right now is new in any sense.  Today's popular amorality has been tried before -- many times.  Usually shortly before a formerly great civilization collapses into chaos.

It's a good sign that we're in the late afternoon, historically speaking.  Perhaps even at dusk.

Quote - Cautionary tales by the Bros Grimm have long had literary and artistic value. They're stories that represent a hundred cultures, the results of the Grimm's collecting them from every source they could.

If Lewis Carroll -- the writer of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, etc. -- were alive today: he'd be in jail.  Among other things, he liked to take pictures of little girls in the nude, etc..  He considered the young ones to be his "special friends", and he appeared to have no interest in romantic relationships with adult women.

So, yes -- it's entirely possible that certain "great works" of classical literature were penned by vile men.  Artistic talent -- along with other inherent personal traits such as a high IQ or a large dose of highly attractive & charming, Smilin' Jack charisma (à la Ted Bundy)  -- can exist side-by-side with the depths of the blackest evil in the same person.

I recall the (true) story of a convicted violent rapist who later heroically saved the life of a child from drowning -- at great personal risk to his own life.  Human beings are filled with such internal contradictions of character.  It's the way that we are as a race.

M4's been released, eh?  Good job.  I'll get over there to take a look.  I'll have to pick up a copy.

In the meantime: we're so sorry.......Uncle Albert.............but the kettle's on the boil, and we're so easily called away...........

I have RW (Real World) matters to deal with at the moment -- so if you want to claim the last post (for now) -- it's all yours.    But I might pop back in again in few / many hour's time -- just for fun.

Perhaps the market will take another 800 point dive on Monday.  Good thing that I'm not invested heavily in the market.  But not to worry, anyway -- Sheriff Barney Frank & Police Chief Chris Dodd are on the job, and they will fix it all for us!  Who knows?  Get the right man in the White House (the guy who was the #2 recipient of sub-prime mortgage money in Congress) ; let him raise taxes through the roof, plus institute a few hundred billion of new spending (when we're already broke) -- and something's bound to happen ! :woot:

Quote - As for not negotiating with brutal dictators, I've never been much interested in philosophical or ideological distinctions in argumentation. If it can't deal with reality, it can't deal. Period.

Yeah -- that's all true......like the 'reality' of a 'grand right-wing conspiracy' to take over the world via religious institutions.  Now that's what I call "dealing with reality".

Quote - Find me any right-winger anywhere who will swear that he would not be willing to so negotiate if he believed that the price of armed conflict was unacceptable and that the national security interest (or even massive amounts of wealth) were at stake.

In other words, any ideological point in argumentation is pointless rhetoric if even its most fervent adherents, in certain contexts, would be more than eager to make massive exceptions.

Yet again -- miss the point totally.  There are political necessities, and there is the underlying awareness of the fact that a tiger can't change his stripes.  The current left believes that tigers can be dressed up in sheep's wool.  And that is isn't in the nature of the tiger to eat them.

Attempts to associate Reagan's policies -- such conservative policies as he actually implemented -- with the current mess are about as valid as implying that Bush caused Hurricane Katrina to strike New Orleans.  Or about like saying that washing your car will cause it to rain.  The two things have no connection with one another.

So along came the Clintons and their Justice Department threatened lenders with awful consequences if they didn't loan money to people with whom there was no reasonable expectation that they'd be able to pay the money back.

This current mess has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with tax policy, or with Reagan's deregulation.  It has to do with an agenda being pushed from Washington -- an agenda that forced banks to loan money to people who had no money, and no reasonable expectation of getting money to pay.  This isn't rocket science.

Why not go back to citing conspiracy theories about funding religious institutions for purposes of taking over the world?  They're more believable -- and more interesting.

As for "no one" suggesting that it's possible to convert men bent upon evil over to the side of sweetness 'n light by saying the right words to them in the right way: that's a central tenant of the entire world-view of the political left these days.  It didn't used to be that way -- back in the days of JFK and Scoop Jackson.  But it is now.