But it's all done in...
The best possible taste.
Dilemma 37 is all about taste and decency and quotes the transcript of an investigation by the American government into comic books. The publisher seems to think that one cover depicting a man carrying a woman’s severed head and another showing a man strangling a woman with a crowbar are perfectly all right. Maurice has to bear arms once again against this sea of troubles. It’d seem that the public ought to be protected from this sort of material on the grounds of taste.
Taste is like morality, both depending on what a particular society finds acceptable. (Or, rather, what the government thinks the hypocritical tabloids find acceptable.) Once again, we have no context for the pictures, although it seems unlikely that the misogyny depicted in them shows some evil woman getting her just desserts. This material is just another example of the material that I discussed yesterday, with comics replacing penny dreadfuls as the source of establishment hysteria.
Obviously, the covers are tasteless (I can imagine finding such material in Japan, for example), and if I was Maurice, I suppose there’d be laws to guide me. But if the law has no (clear) view on this material, then I’m not sure that I’d censor it because taste and morality are separate from ethics. Thus, I shouldn’t apply my standards of taste and decency, even although I definitely don’t like what I’m seeing in this case. In reality, I guess where this situation arises, it would be presented to a committee, which might then make recommendations to the government.
The book’s not that helpful on this point, discussing instead the trial which saw the publication of Lady Chatterley.
Taste is like morality, both depending on what a particular society finds acceptable. (Or, rather, what the government thinks the hypocritical tabloids find acceptable.) Once again, we have no context for the pictures, although it seems unlikely that the misogyny depicted in them shows some evil woman getting her just desserts. This material is just another example of the material that I discussed yesterday, with comics replacing penny dreadfuls as the source of establishment hysteria.
Obviously, the covers are tasteless (I can imagine finding such material in Japan, for example), and if I was Maurice, I suppose there’d be laws to guide me. But if the law has no (clear) view on this material, then I’m not sure that I’d censor it because taste and morality are separate from ethics. Thus, I shouldn’t apply my standards of taste and decency, even although I definitely don’t like what I’m seeing in this case. In reality, I guess where this situation arises, it would be presented to a committee, which might then make recommendations to the government.
The book’s not that helpful on this point, discussing instead the trial which saw the publication of Lady Chatterley.
Anyway, it’s the old is-it-art-or-porn question tomorrow. Not the most exciting dilemma, I must admit.
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