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To: Oliver Optic

None, I am engaged. However, my parents raised me with careful supervision, and from their guidance I know that children are mature enough to recognize clear moral principles when explained in a manner they can understand. I believe art is not intended to be safe, to be easily digested. People used to cry murder at the works of Marcel Duchamp at the Armory Art Exhibit in New York, but now he is considered the greatest influence in art.

Eliminating a perceived cause of anti-social or inappropriate behavior will simply allow it surface somewhere else. I watched "R"-rated movies as a child, but my parents watched them with me, explaining a character's motivation, what drives them, whether they were good or evil (as relevant to the plot) and didn't simply leave me by the television in hopes it would babysit me.

Oh yeah, those "R"-rated films were authored by perverts like Antonioni, Godard, Kubrick, Scorsese, Bogdanovich, Franju, Welles, Cameron, Spielberg and Truffaut.

Just because you feel that television or film or music is corrupting your youth does not make it so. It is a tired and unproven argument. In my record collection, I have an original LP of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" (a gift from my father). When three young men were accused of murder in West Memphis, TN in lieu of physical evidence, the defense presented the same album as evidence of clear anti-social behavior.

Obviously, since these three youth listened to an album about youthful independence and the brief period of time we call mortality, they clearly must be bent on homocidal madness. They are still in jail because of a flawed belief system. I dare you to puruse the archives of magazines from the 1950s and 60s, and read articles about rock and roll and R&B's "troubling influence" on the youth at the time. All you have to do is replace the words "Beatles" or "Led Zeppelin" or "Cream" or "Muddy Waters" with today's modern artist, writers, actors, television shows and you will have the an exact model of today's critiques on culture.


23 posted on 05/01/2006 5:21:26 PM PDT by AuteurEye
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To: AuteurEye
Fair enough ... and I appreciate your thoughts.

I frankly felt it was a bit inappropriate for you to be lecturing us on "maturity and common sense" when you've never had to struggle with whether or not it is safe to let your little girl (or boy) walk around the block.

Further, I do not apologize for believing that the dramatic increase in sex crimes and other debauchery is at least partially linked to the cultural debasement and exploitation of the sacred gift of sex being daily promoted by what you are calling "art."

27 posted on 05/01/2006 5:35:36 PM PDT by Oliver Optic
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