Fine points of protest in isolation, Keiran.

But just stay on topic please, or at least digress only to make a general point. Your points are spurious and, therefore, wasted.

Nil-observer, my comment is very much on topic if you are discussing the topic of children having innocence in their childhood as passionate Kevvy "education revolution" Rudd repeatedly points out. However, a person with a perspective as narrow as your crosshairs on a glock and as shallow as dishwater when it comes to understanding art, artists and the art community, will follow aggressively a pre-emptive censorship out of ignorance.

When our Prime Minister condemns Mr Henson and his art he does untold damage to our cultural reputation and definitively, it is no way to
build a creative Australia that is crucial to the healthy functioning of our democracy. We get the same message from Mr Rudd when it comes to science. i.e. ignorance, superstition and aggression.

The ABC's “Professor Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator" should represent the warning sign that there is something rotten to the core with its deceitful corruption of the truth whilst masquerading as honest science. This terrorizing and brainwashing of children to advance a political agenda a la the Hitler youth is nothing short of disgraceful. There is no moral purpose nor education revolution to be found at the ABC where Rudd is expected to have a definite responsibility.

Nil-observer, there are plenty of "champs" out there but the difference between champ and chump is U. The point here is that we will never have politicians or scientists or artists of substance, integrity and intellect unless the public have the same.

Well K, I meant to actually endorse your other concerns, though redirecting them to more receptive venues. But I suppose it's always useful too provoking some personal invective and class-based condescension along the way; helps us know who we're dealing with, but I have to inform you that your implicit claims to an aesthete's depth and sensitivity are, for me, quite underwhelming.

No K, this discussion is not really guided by "the topic of children having innocence in their childhood...passionate Kevvy", etc., as you have assumed. It's Henson's art, and the writer's prods into "wowserism" and the alleged depravity Henson's work represents. Rudd's rhetoric is the usual soundbite guff we expect from that office, so I was disappointed you decided to treat the PM/Top Dawg's comments as deserving precedence here. But that would be your preoccupation, probably because you respect hierarchy too much. Also, I suspect you have serious misgivings about whether ALP bosses have the right credentials of postcode and private school; if so, don't worry, they usually come from the same circles as the more avowedly liberalist petals like yourself and other self-proclaimed "art aficionados". More pointedly, the "Henson Art" and "ABC Science" issues amount to quite separate categories of relevancy if it's several paragraphs of your forum text we're considering.

My personal perspective mainly covers concern for my young daughters and how to ensure that they do not succumb to the many aggressive pressures of our culture's various species of opportunistic predator. I've seen how impressionable they are with their age and natural curiosity, so I treat the Henson issue as so very important (and infuriating) precisely because of the Brahmin-like authority our culture accords the “high art” scene by virtue of its upper-middle class status, privileges and carefree presumptions of exceptional rights to determine trends, including those in common understanding about morality.

Yeah, your mentions of Nazis and Hitler Youth are wonderfully emotive. But examine that era's own aesthetics of pedophilia (and objectification, including homoeroticism) to understand instructive parallel notions of “degeneracy” for this case. Oh, and watch Pasolini's “Salo”...

mil-observer>"My personal perspective mainly covers concern for my young daughters and how to ensure that they do not succumb to the many aggressive pressures of our culture's various species of opportunistic predator."

This argument is purely one of fear and irrational. It's established that most abuse is within the family. Right there you show how ill-prepared you are, because you assume society is "doing something bad" to your child.

Secondly, you must give consent for their pictures to be taken, and they also must consent (but that is apparently optional at present because people like you assert they are unable to consent...in that case, how would you determine their approval of your consent if you were to give it on their behalf?).

Also, as a parent YOU have the responsibility to prepare them for society. Changing soceity so it protects them is extremely lazy and abusive to other adults whose rights you are infringing to produce your safety bubble.

You my friend, are a gullible fool and irresponsible as your analysis of 'threat' is incorrect and disingenuous.

Hmmm, more name-calling and other abuse. Once again, Steely aims his can of Ironic Aid spray 90 degrees away from the target. Either I didn't explain my fears properly, or steely misunderstood my previously expressed concerns about “commodification” and “value for human life”.

Clearly then, steely presumes that my fears for my daughters are all tabloid-induced “rock spider” paranoia: 10 points for condescending, presumptuous, and kneejerk abusiveness, with bonus gold star for undertones of snobbery (hostility and scathing judgementalism towards worker with family, presumptuousness about tabloid consumption) Yeeaah ;-).

Intensive objectification of children has many destructive effects, hence my term “our culture's various species of opportunistic predator”. Steely missed it completely, preoccupying himself instead with rock-spiders and incest-daddies. My concern is how such commodification of children, especially when sanctified by “high culture” brahmins, makes it more acceptable to abuse not only children, but all of us, and in so many ways, whether by ripping us off at work, in the wider market, the bureaucracy, the law, and so on.

Of course, some always claim that art merely reflects the wider society, and I don't pretend that a remote vacuum produced the neoliberalist creepiness that I perceive in Henson or his willing (let's say “aspirational”) victims. But “Changing society so it protects [one's kids] is extremely lazy and abusive to other adults...”?! Not exactly steeltrap reasoning, steely.

And “lazy” protectionism? It's very hard work trying to change society to protect kids. For a more extreme test of Steely's view, if the society is blatantly cannabilistic should WE be steely-responsible and “prepare them” with say a spicy batter? And for society's occasional war – including its criminally aggressive types - should I be “responsible” by preparing my kids to become complicit, indiscriminate invaders and cannon fodder? Just a bit closer examination and you look like a real toadying sickoe, steely.

[Maybe in this forum I should've kept quiet about being a worker. Gawd, haven't met so many pompous snobs since I accidentally walked through a young liberals' booze-up. This is what passes for Australia's arts-supporters and freethinkers now?]

Commodification sounds a lot like communist.... it's an anti-capitalist, anti-materialist term used to hoodwink well-meaning citizens into thinking about society as evil in nature and increase oppression/authoritarianism in the name of "protection". I do not see the reason for such terms unless that is the agenda.

>"Intensive objectification"

As in intensive farming [of children]? Is that what you are trying to suggest?

mil-observer>"10 points for condescending, presumptuous, and kneejerk abusiveness, with bonus gold star for undertones of snobbery "

That is a good description of your own comment.

>"It's very hard work trying to change society to protect kids."

I think it's very easy actually. That is why you have the over-used slogan, "Protect the children" or "Someone think of the children" (at the expense not the adults). When it comes to children, people can be moved about as much as the thread of terrorism. Completely irrationally, it doesn't even have to make sense. That's why the communications minister Stephen Conroy invoked child pornography in the hope of silencing criticism from both sides of politics on his Chinese ISP censorship/filtering scheme.