OBSCENITY
The curious notion of taking offence.
Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?
The phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder” simply says that beauty is subjective, it rests on personal taste and opinion. There is no agreement as to what beauty is, but everyone can hold a personal view on the matter. There is, nevertheless, a general consensus on many forms of beauty in definable contexts.
Obscenity seems to suffer from the same symptoms.
The word obscenity exists, it appears in the worlds dictionaries, where you will find definitions that are somewhat consistent... but that is a very generous view. In essence there is very little agreement on what constitutes obscenity.
Given the lack of agreement, the human being invokes the personal right to claim to have “a grown-up view” on the subject, which usually constitutes an “I'm right, you can think what you like, obscenity is in the eye of the beholder” attitude.
Unfortunately, personal opinion on what constitutes an obscenity can, and often does expand into enmity, anger, violence and destruction. There are probably significant answers to be found in biochemistry. Our emotions are under the influence of our body chemistry, but following that line leads to chicken and egg problems. Does chemistry result in or is it invoked by thoughts and opinions? That is a problem for another time.
I wish to discuss the concept of obscenity with reference to the implication that pornography lies at the heart of everyday life. Exactly what I wish to define as pornographic is found in this essay.
Here I need to say more about what I am considering as obscene.
First I will list ideas and events of everyday life I wish to apply the term obscene to, then try to derive a definition of the obscene to justify my choices.
- Banking as a profit driven enterprise.
- Rape and torture as weapons of war.
- Psychological suffering as entertainment. (Reality TV).
- "Stare decisis et non quieta movere" (Legally binding precedent).
- The need for the military.
- Psychological heirarchy.(Imposed arrogance).
The list above is a representitive selection of human activity* I feel personally motivated to describe as obscene. There is no priority to the order of the list, which merely serves as an introduction to further discussion.
*Note the use of the term "human activity". For something to be described as obscene in this consideration it must be based on human actions. Displaying human sexual activity or violence on film may be catagorised as obscene, but similar actions by animal life in nature documentaries, for example do not fall within my catagorisation of obcenity. See *******.
Relating pornography and obscenity to everyday life is to place everyday events into catagories that many will automatically deny have any pornographic or obscene content.
The list above, banking, war, and law are all topics for intense controversy, and we could debate the relative merits of their classification as obscenities.
But psychological suffering is not a term that should be associated with entertainment? Is it?
TIME FOR SOME DEFINITIONS.
- Obscene- Anything an individual feels should be hidden from others.
- Obscene- Anything an individual feels should be hidden from the self.
These definitions describe how we may feel when confronted with something we feel is obscene.
They say nothing about the thing creating the offence.
Bear in mind we are looking for a definition, we wish to give a description of how the word is used in general parlance. Be it a single word, a written work, an image or a full length movie, it is the psycho-physical response it induces in the individual which makes the event worthy of the description "obscene".
The difficulty for the law, with such as the Obscene Publicationa Act, is that there is nothing in the object directly applicable to its effect on individuals in general. Each individual has a personal response. Hence arise useless "definitions" like... "a tendancy to deprave and corrupt".
This is an immensely significant claim:-
"...there is nothing in the object directly applicable to..."
Am I claiming that cause and effect are unrelated? Not yet, that comes later, but I am saying that cause and effect are unpredictable. When a TV presenter displays a deep cleavage and thigh tops through a split skirt some see beauty and some dispatch an e-mail of complaint to the broadcasting regulators.
Its time to try something I think those who have a mind to have had very little sucess.
A definition of Pornography.
It is crucial to begin by being clear that definition does not equate to meaning. A definition states how a word is used to create an impression of an accurate "meaning", but the definition is descriptive of how we, collectively, use the word in context of the times and circumstances.
People use words in ways their experience, or lack of, allows them to relate and appreaciate the terms. With potentially emotive words it is remarkably easy to soon be talking at cross purposes and being trapped in layers of misconstrued opinion.
None more so than the word Pornography.
To labour this point, bear in mind the uses of the word "mean".