Offensive art - again

Mar 25 2023 The Guardian

Florida principal resigns after parents decry Michelangelo’s David as pornography

The principal of the Tallahassee Classical school resigned, because a parent complained to the board that the children had been exposed to pornography.

This is a classical school, it says so in the name, so you would think that classical art would be part of the curriculum. But showing the students a picture of Michelangelo’s 16th-century sculpture of David, is not classical art, it is pornography.

Good thing that the principal resigned; “the lesson plan also included pictures of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.” That would have included both male and female nudity, and the Florida governor wants to ban (among other things) all discussions of sexuality in public schools.

Then again this is a charter school, so they could do something differently, but this is a Christian charter school, so pornography, classical or not, is out of the question.

Maybe schools should not teach art at all, there is definitely something offensive in it; a few months back it was Muslims offended by Islamic art, and now it is Christians offended by art made by Catholics!

And it does not even help that sometimes these Catholics worked for the Pope.

Offensive art

Jan 8 2023 The Guardian

An art treasure long cherished by Muslims is deemed offensive. But to whom?

An instructor at Hamline University, Minnesota, displayed a painting found in a 14th-century Persian manuscript, the “Compendium of Chronicles”, a history of Islam. It shows the Prophet Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelations from the angel Gabriel.

This was during an online class on Islamic art. The instructor had warned of what she was about to do in case anyone found the image offensive and did not wish to view it. But you guessed it, a student complained to the university authorities.

The university’s associate vice-president of inclusive excellence , condemned the classroom exercise as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic”.

The instructor had warned the students that she was going to show the painting; this was a class on Islamic art; and this is a 14th-century painting described as “a masterpiece of Persian manuscript painting”. This is not the Danish Cartoons or Charlie Hebdo, this can not be called Islamophobic.

Someone (the chair of the department of religion, no less) wrote a letter to the university’s student paper defending the instructor, and providing historical and religious context, but the letter was taken down from the website; because it “caused harm”. The chair wrote back to ask: “Are you saying that disagreement with an argument is a form of ‘harm’?”

And obviously “the instructor was “released” from further teaching duties”.

And this happens in a University, a place of learning where students should get an education and learn about cultures and learn to respect different points of view. Except that, to provide that education, you cannot show or do something if a student says so?

The end result here is that by defending inclusive diversity the university is diminishing diversity in education. How can it be a good thing, if “inclusive excellence” does not include excellent education?

A short argument for more Education

Jan 23rd 2021

I found the following comment on some news site while travelling. Only had time to write it down, and can not find the source now. I’ll update this if and when I find where it is from.

Here is the quote: A Taliban commander: “Teachers are dangerous because they change the minds of society”.

Here I have to say, that I fully agree with the Taliban, on the point that teachers do change society, but I do not agree that changing society makes them particularly dangerous.

I am guessing that the logic here is the following. If your identity, your worldview and whatever power you may have, is based on the existence of an unchanging static society, then any change or even perceived change is a threat. In that logic, anyone bringing any kind of change is a threat. So, teachers who teach “new” things, and by doing that promote change in society, are dangerous.

Understandable that a Taliban commander thinks like this, but not acceptable if you are not a Taliban, which most people are not.

I promised to keep this short, so I will not start preaching to the converted and extol all the virtues of education. I assume that if you are reading this, you do not share the Taliban worldview, and are basically the polar opposite of the Taliban.

The point here is; if a Taliban commander thinks that teachers are dangerous because they change society, then education must be a very effective way to change society and diminish the influence of extremists like the Taliban.

So, we should have much more education.