Many years ago as a undergraduate at a small Catholic college, I took a class on English Literature. It turned out to be one of the most instructive courses I ever took. I have long forgotten the details of the class but a few of the things I learned have remained. Most important of those things was an approach to literary criticism. The core of assessing literature, according to the professor, was determining what was being expressed in a work and how it was being expressed. Great literature addresses great subjects. Great subjects are those that transcend time and place. They address things all men have grappled with ever since men first began thinking and feeling. Subjects such as love, hate, hope, and fear are timeless. Every man has access to them because every man has experienced them. They exist in the lives of all men regardless of time, place, and circumstance.
Feelings, on the other hand, make for poor literature. They also make for poor art. Feelings have little relevance beyond those who happen to feel them. Art made to express the artist's feeling about a particular subject bring little insight. Such art is more about the artist than the subject. In emotive art, the artist seeks to express how she feels about a subject, not to inspire reflection or provide perspective to the viewer. The viewer may share the artist's sentiments or he may not. In either case, little, if any, insight is gained. The viewer is pleased, irritated, or indifferent. Such art rarely rises above sentiment. Good art is not about the artist's feelings.
Secondly, great art requires talent. Talent is the language of the the artist. Talent allows the artist to explore and articulate his subject. An artist without talent can no more create a good piece of art than a man with a poor vocabulary can write a good novel or carpenter without talent build a good house. A talentless artist may envision great things but he will be unable to express them in the manner they deserve. One could attempt to explore the Passion of Christ or man's struggle to find purpose in the universe, but if one can only pile rocks upon each other or put a crucifix in a jar of urine one will never be able to explore the greatness or plumb the depths of their subject.
The same distinction can be applied to the spate of offensive protests occuring at military funerals.There is what is being expressed, and there is how and where it is being expressed.There should be no restraint on what is expressed, no matter how objectionable or repugnant, but there is room for restraint on how and where it is expressed. There are other ways to express one's opposition to policy than shouting taunts and insults at families trying to bury their loved ones. Protesters should find those ways.
People's right to protest should be unlimited. But how they protest and where they protest are different matters. To claim a right to offend and insult mourners at military funerals is not to insist on a right to free speech. It is demanding a right to scorn. To disparage mourners at military funeral is not speech. It is spite.
No one is telling people that they cannot protest. They are only being told that they cannot disrupt a funeral. That is not censorship. The only thing that the protesters are being denied is the right to shock and offend mourners. No one is stopping them from expressing their views and opinions. No one is stopping them from writing a play or creating a work of art. No one is stopping them from circulating a petition or marching on city hall. No one is stopping them from holding a rally or running ads. If the protesters are too inarticulate and too limited in their horizon to express their opinions other than through offending people at a funeral, that is their problem.
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