"the idea that you can define it on your own terms"

This is precisely what I refrained from: I used your own definition and shown it as without credibility. If art is 'ANYTHING' then one does not need a definition, nor can one critique ot applaud it - how convenient. This allows for any wring doings with impunity.

I responded to the runaway notion art is anything and everything - a premise which can be used to violate any paradigms against it. This gives one the freedom of doing anything they like, and calling it art, while it negates anyone else finding any faults in their doings - regardless if they do good or bad. Science, history, geograpgy, plumbing and farming pineapples cannot use that criteria and get away with it. If art is anything, then why object to it also being not art?

IamJoseph “There is a stark contradiction of terms in those two statements, namely with 'different' and 'principles'; while the former stands unqualified - the latter demands conditions.”

Contradiction yes the simple, being absolute and principles requiring understanding of conditions and caveats.

I am however quoting from dictionary.com,

enter “Art” and you will see the same.

I fear you are implying only the “simple” and real life is the more complex.

“Philosophy” is not a series of simple observations but heavily influenced by “principles”

If I look up “Philosophy” in dictionary.com among some other definitions it includes

“the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge,”

“One can either have different with no principles - or different with principles - one cannot have both”

If you want to have a debate about the 'simple' definition of “Art” I fear it will be inconsistent with Bowden's expectation a philosophic definition.

Bowden is expressing opinion from the “Philosophical” perspective, based upon the more complex “principles” and not “simplistic”.

I figure, however, we are seeing the ‘simple’ clinging to the simplistic definitions which they can grasp, with more complex philosophical principles remaining beyond their intellectual reach.

“corruption of what art is or can be”

When art can be all things to all men,

Where can “corruption” find a place

Well I guess, in the interpretation of everything by everybody.

To be all things to all men usually results in many things being corrupt to some.

For instance, a Muslim would observe “corruption” from art depicting a representation of a person, be it by Henson or Botticelli, because of the non-universal values he holds.

Your sense of ‘corruption’ is no different to the Muslims

It is a parochial concept, not a universal value.

And since it is not a universal value, it cannot hold or pretend to be some universal or philosophical truth .

Actually, if art were to be confined to those values enshrined within some universally accepted "truth", you would end up with blank canvases and unhewn rocks.

[try PARAGRAPHS Rougey: more efficient, less self-important]

IamJoseph: I infer justifiably from his text that Steely's foray into aesthetics and definitions would really mean to include as legitimate “art” HARD-core kiddie porn and even child prostitution and child sex abuse; it just seems that he daren't make such particularly relevant conclusions so plain and explicit.

But congratulations anyway, Steely! You finally steeled yourself to make yet another shaky, emotional and vitriolic stand, perhaps revealing again some peculiar pathology driving your support for that cause. For those who missed or forgot it, I spell out his cause again: “adults making and/or using photos of naked children for entertainment purposes”. Such passionate advocacy and unflagging loyalty for a cause so, well, peculiar. For steely's sake, I reiterate the basic legally traditional premise, now largely defunct in Australia: “adults making and/or using photos of naked children for entertainment purposes” are liable to be prosecuted for child pornography, as Gregory Carlin has reminded us clearly with reference to some good UK law. Therefore, any parent, artist, pimp, or other who uses children for soft- or hard-core porn, child prostitution or other sex abuse, should face prosecution for serious sex crime. Of course, potential punishment and mitigation must be assessed on sensible scales of harm, intent, example, etc., as with other criminal cases.

But again Steely claims some dangerous and amorphous ideological nexus with those who would uphold traditional prohibitions against kiddie porn; Steely has labels for such (ideologically varied) among those of us who urge traditional morality on this subject: “communists/socialists”, “feminists”, and just now “fascists”.

Steely's angle on feminists here is very odd too, and actually quite disturbing; it seems to be some deep problem with women generally, as apparent when he exploded on OLO debater “Bronwyn” elsewhere (see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7463&page=0). It is already very clear steely's deep antipathy towards people like Hetty Johnston, Franca Arena, and probably also Gillian Sneddon (the woman who blew the whistle on Milton Orkopoulos. See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/27/2174078.htm, for example).

mil-observer, you can't possibly maintain that my defence of this artist, the model and her parents is vitriolic and emotional, when you are the one advocating "vigilantism" in an earlier post if people did not meet your "demands" of "traditional morality" and when, activists like you and Hetty have labelled Henson and the parents child pornographers as if a mere decree immediately qualifies them as such (the vitriol of which is patent and claim is arguably libelous)?

There is no peculiarity in defending principles of free speech and expression except in that it's so rare. Thieves and liars such as yourself have explicitly promoted the idea of vigilantism in this thread if your demands are not met (presumably against the artist and her parents, or the model herself as she is a strong supporter of the photographs and the artist).

Why shouldn't I be antipathic toward socialists or fascists who seek to oppress and control others who they disagree with? Feminists have been a key part of the censorship agenda as have the religious. I am not apologetic to identify their agendas and call them out. They have been given free passes in our society for too long. I love women and have no problem with them at all.

AAAAH.. COL.. I now see the 'titanic struggle' between you and MIL SPEC :)

Col said: "when governments decide what is .... we get intolerance"

degenerate books to be burnt,
degenerate teaching outlawed,
degenerate thoughts to be rectified in psychiatric hospitals.

Agreed....but I think so much of life does automatically involve intolerance already..its neither unusual nor bad neccessarily.

Have you not seen many examples on this forum of people describing 'religion' as a disease which should be medically treated ? I've seen every one of em.. if that mob ever get up.. all your 'd' points above will come true.... for us.

You used the Muslim example re 'non universal' values..but there is no such thing as 'universal' values.. there is a UN convention which suggests there is..but it's just ink on paper..

One mans 'human rights' are anothers 'licence to insult' and many are killed over the difference.

"STEELY" also finds criticism of old men who marry little girls quite 'ok'... so the pattern is beginning emerge.. hmmm *looks at Steel intently*

MIL-SPEC.. I have to applaud your language.. a good read. Once I fully train you.. you will be most useful in my 'cause' :) doncha luv it haha.

Now I get a pungent taste of what Franca Arena had to deal with! This situation probably speaks volumes for the widespread elite influence and reputational investment such Australian pedo art has attracted.

OK steely. So you do then, on your “principles of free speech and expression”, offer implicitly some potential support for more explicit/hard-core varieties of such art photography, as I have suspected? And say performance and /or installation art of the same such activity? According to your own principles and conception of “art” you and your ilk must do - hence my earlier mooting of “the ugly possibility” that vigilantism may well become necessary for child defenders in particular, and anti-fascists in general, in future response to the social degeneracy and danger to children that these Oz art cases portend. In recent years, some vigilante-style mobilization has taken place throughout Southeast Asia in response to the vile infection of child sex tourism – is that an example of “oppression” for you too steely? I trust that Rougey would call it (correctly) “intolerance”.

If your principle does not support cases where art works use hard-core kiddie porn, then your principle is unsustainable and useless; you would have proved yourself to have just wasted everyone's time, including your own.

However, if you are consistent in trying to sustain your principle, then you must advocate in-principle support to such activity as valid - doubtless on your previously expressed concern for preconditions of consent. Therefore, such a condition would merely be that there is some measure of consent from parents, or at least from the children themselves, around the activity of sexual abuse of such children.

By such principle you avoid considering the wider moral, social and legal concerns around the entire case of artistic kiddie porn, whatever its level of transgressive and offensive severity. I maintain also that you confuse and mislead on these cases' wider ideological concerns, though I realize that aspect of debate would be a futile pursuit in our discussion, incompatible as it is with your indulgence in uncritical and abusive name-calling.