The Battalion
OPINION
Wednesday, July 18,1990
Opinion Page Editor Damon Arhos 8
Controversy over ‘obscene’ art attracts more attention
The United States seems to finally
have begun humming about one of its
most precious resources that has often
been ignored — its artists.
The National Endowment for the
Arts (NEA) has come under such fire
from some citizens that the general
public is really beginning to pay real
attention to the artists in their country.
Sure, not all the attention is good,
but it’s still attention.
It has gotten to the point at which it
is tough to find a national news
magazine that doesn’t include an
update on the controversy of “art or
obscenity.”
Stories about the NEA appear
weekly, at least, in most urban
newspapers.
And, as a result, quite a few
members of the American public have
been exposed to and have learned
about what Jesse Helms, the Rev.
Donald Wildmon and others with the
same views think should be stifled —
“obscene” art.
And I, for one, get a kick out of it.
The big controversy here is that
some people believe the NEA should
quit giving funds to artists that offend
some U.S. taxpayers.
Others say that by asking all artists
who need funding (and that’s a lot) to
sign an agreement to limit the scope of
what they can produce, they will be
limiting the artists potential and make
them afraid to create the art they
really want to create.
According to Newsweek, a Gallup
Poll showed that though 71 percent of
people in the United States believe
obscenity in the arts has increased,
more people are now going to arts
events than to live sporting events.
Obviously, a large number of
MAsa;L.igs
POST
Americans aren’t all that offended by
the arts.
And if that great a number of
people are interested in the arts, the
small number who are offended have
no right to change the NEA’s policies.
A number of people think that the
idea of tampering with genes was bad,
but if they got together and threw a
big fit about it, would tl e U.S.
government consider pulling all tax
money used for college scholarships
and loans for genetics majors?
No way. The government would
laugh at the idea of taking away the
opportunity from those who want to
be a part of the field of genetics.
The majority of Americans are not
speaking out against art in the United
States. Still, the government officials
in charge of the NEA are willing to
take away, or at least limit severely the
types of people who could receive,
what amounts to scholarships for
people trying to make a career in that
field.
And that money comes from the
same taxpayers as the ones who are
paying unwillingly for genetics majors.
But what the public really needs to
worry about is this: The people
working against the NEA are
promoting the idea that the art we are
funding that they are offended by is
obscene.
But those people are lumping
obscenity and offensiveness together.
The courts have yet to define of
obscenity, and therefore, laws limiting
obscenity have always been dangerous
to creative people or groups because
they could eventually allow people to
censor ideas they find offensive, not
just pictures or individual pieces of
art.
Ideas that some of the people
attacking the NEA seem to find
offensive are ideas about religion,
sexual equality and sexual orientation
— ideas promoted by subordinant
groups in our society who are trying to
fight for their rights as U.S. citizens.
Mail Call
We cannot start limiting our
freedom to express our ideas.
If we are offended by someth^
we should tell people we areoffeni
We should speak out. We should
protest.
But if we keep making policiesaL
laws that limit other people’s freed:
to express their ideas, those policiti
and laws could be turned aroundoi
us and used to keep us from
expressing our own ideas.
I have little faith that the leaden
the movement against the NEAanf
“obscenity” in art will ever think tin
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of obscenity, and therefore,
limiting obscenity have always
been dangerous to creative
people or groups becausethej
could eventually allow people
censor ideas they find offensivi
not just pictures or individual
pieces of art. Ideas that some
the people attacking the NEA
seem to find offensive are ides
about religion, sexual equality
and sexual orientation.”
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what they do to the artists could
backfire on them or those that come
after them. People in favor of
censorship rarely think about the
long-term consequences, it seems,
that their need to shape the moral
integrity of others is immediately
satisfied.
But it still makes me smile a bitam
when I think that now, becauseof
their hard work, the art that offend:
them so is now being viewed more
than ever.
Ellen Hobbs is a senior joumalim
major.
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Chapter seeks veterans
EDITOR:
Former participants in the Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC), 1933-42, are being sought by a CCC alumni group
which is planning to honor the hundreds of thousands of
men who built parks and so many other projects during the
Depression.
Karl E. Busch, program director of a branch chapter of
the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps
Alumni, is seeking contact with CCC veterans as part of
this effort.
Send your name, address, CCC camp number and state
(along with a large, self-addressed stamped envelope) to
CCC museum, 3623 Rendale Dr., Jacksonville, Fla. 32210.
Busch hopes to encourage state and federal agencies to
construct CCC museums in locations where the corps
worked.
The idea is to honor these men and preserve the works
of the CCC for future generations.
Carl Gidlund
Public affairs officer
U.S. Forest Service
View of poor distorted
EDITOR:
Rudy Cordova composed a misleading column in
which reality was oversimplified to the point of distortion
(“Poor don’t deserve our handouts, pity,” The Battalion,
July 13).
His focus was so scattered as to render his piece inco
herent.
He conflates the issue of economic aid for development
of Third World economics with welfare assistance for the
poor in the United States.
Aid for international development must be channeled
properly so it builds an infrastructure for further eco
nomic development.
To label countries’ requests for such aid a demand for a
“handout,” conjuring up the notion of beggars, is mislead
ing.
Cordova then makes a cutting comment on Rev. Jack
son’s ubiquitousness and appearance at the Poorest Peo
ple’s Summit.
The truth is that there are millions of people living in
poverty in our own country.
But the implied argument that foreign aid should be
reduced to help those poverty stricken people in the
United States is now channeled by Cordova into a vitupera
tive attack on these poor who just “sit around” and do not
take advantage of the many opportunities in education and
business that have been open for centuries.
If such grand equality exists, as Cordova believes, why
was the Civil Rights Act of 1965 necessary and why do em
ployers in their ads claim they are equal opportunity em
ployers?
And Cordova, in classic manner, blames the victim.
“They have no one to blame but themselves for their
problems,” rather than those responsible for establishing
and maintaining an inequitable system.
Cordova in his final statements seems to attempt to link
Jesse Jackson’s inexperience for the job of president with a
poor person’s inexperience that might render them unable
to get work — an astoundingly false analogy.
In Cordova’s dream world, plenty of jobs exist, and
matching person to task is easy.
In his final sentence “What a country!” the reader does
not know whether he thinks the United States is crazy for
permitting the “likes” of Jackson’s presidential aspiration,
or if it is worthy of praise for being a land of opportunity.
Tom Ahern
Graduate Student
Glossary was incomplete
EDITOR:
Please, Gary Gaither, do elaborate on the connection
between the communist government in the Soviet Union
and the First Amendment to the United States Constitu
tion (Reader’s Opinion, July 10).
And while you’re at it, please explain why you failed to
include terms such as self-righteous, paranoid, pseudo-
moralistic and hypocritical in your glossary.
Could it be because they so aptly describe you and your
far-right, conservative ilk?
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