(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Learning quite a bit about the censorship laws of the 1920s and 30s, and how the courts interpreted the First Amendment. Including a brief history on Ernst Morris, the co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU.

Interesting quotes :

1. Margaret Anderson, the editor of The Little Review, insisted that the genuine art rested upon two principles:

"First, the artist has no responsibility to the public whatever." The public, in fact, was responsible to the artist. "Second, the position of the great artist is impregnable... You can no more limit his expression, patronizingly suggest that his genius present itself in channels personally pleasing to you, than you can eat the stars."

This reminds me of a discussion that I had this weekend with two women from India, who stated prior to colonialism - they had more freedom of expression. The influx of the British and the missionaries had to a degree quelled that and made them self-conscious. They began to self-police themselves. The culture responsible for the Karma Sutra was now afraid to talk about sex at all.

Art was quelled.

It also reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend once regarding Margaret Mitchell and Flannery O'Connor's racism - she stated that she would rather it wasn't suppressed, because it enabled her to understand how they thought better - so she could come up with a counter-argument.

Ernst Morris's take on Censorship was slightly different and more encompassing. Morris started his career fighting the ban on a sexual education guide or pamphlet.
Then eventually chose to take up the fight regarding Ulysses, in an effort to change the censorship laws of the US. Ernst Morris thought of Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment as a way to keep the culture roiling not as a source of stability.

Censorship was a tactic used by entrenched powers to quell democracy's inherent turbulence, and groups like the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Ernst thought, were their moral instruments. Censorship was what happens when power brokers who benefit from the status quo team up with moralists who believe society is perpetually on the brink of collaspe.

To fight for the freedom of books was to fight for the priniciple of self-governance that had inspired the American Revolution. For Ernst, there was no strict separation between political and sexual ideas - burning books sent a chill across the entire culture.

"Censorship," he wrote, "had a pervading influence on the subconscious recesses of individual minds." It altered the way the country approached science, public health, psychology and history. Only a blinkered Victorian mentality, Ernst thought, could think that the Roman Empire fell because of its moral decadence."

[This is just my personal opinion, gathered from various studies, I can't guarantee that is absolutely true: No, the Roman Empire ironically fell for the same reason the British Empire eventually did. If the Victorians had a been a wee bit more self-aware - they may have stopped the downfall of their own empire. Over-expansion. In short they took on more than they could chew, over-drew on their resources, and went bankrupt. It's also the same reason the Soviet Union and US are running into problems now - again taking on far more than you can afford - or allowing your grasp to outstretch your reach. WWI just about did Britain in. Rome was pretty much done in by all the wars and territorial fights that they were constantly dealing with. Had zip to do with culture, or sex, and a heck of a lot to do with violent and somewhat pricy warfare.]

The worst part about the censorship regime was that it was maddeningly arbitrary. Books that circulated for years might be banned without warning. Customs officials might declare a book legal only to have the Post Office issue it's own ban. A judge or jury could acquit a book one day and condemn it the next, and the wording of the statues themselves stoked confusion.

Apparently the NY Criminal Law Statute had about five descriptive words, while the Federal Law just had one - obscene. So Ernst decided to go after the Federal Tariff Law. So instead of going after the law regarding the transit of publications through US Mail, he went through the law governing imports from foreign countries. This way no one went to jail and they might get it over-turned.

Only one problem? The customs officials didn't make a habit of searching every packaged imported, hence the reason people had been sneaking the book in by importing it. Ernst had to take the package back to the customs officials and insist that they search it, so that it would be seized and he could fight the law in court.

I found this to be hilarious. He also had Joyce's assistant cut and past critical praise in the front of the book - so that he could use the critical praise in court.

Fascinating book - amongst the more informative and interesting non-fiction or historical novels that I've read. Most have a tendency to put me to sleep. Not that this one doesn't as well...but not quite as often.

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

"First, the artist has no responsibility to the public whatever." The public, in fact, was responsible to the artist. "Second, the position of the great artist is impregnable... You can no more limit his expression, patronizingly suggest that his genius present itself in channels personally pleasing to you, than you can eat the stars."

This statement is at once noble, and idiotic. I think it is more fair to say that all art is ephemeral; to last it needs someone to support it, someone to produce it and someone to preserve it. For the life of the artist all those things can be done by the same person. To last longer somebody else eventually will have to care enough to not throw it in the trash, paint over it or let the kids play with it till it's gone. How many museum pieces of pottery and statuary are known solely because somebody cared enough to dig through ancient garbage dumps to find and in many cases repair them?

There really is no such thing as a great artist without an audience. Heck, why do people post stories and poetry on line? Because we understand the need to share "art" even if we run the risk of criticism for it. The greatest artist in the world is only a dabbler, if nobody else cares.

Censorship sounds like worst thing in the world to those with crumbling or very limited censorship, like those of us in the western world in my life time. We all know the reasons. But to say that the public has a responsibility to the great artist, is just horse feathers. It's up to the artist to impress us, not up to us to worship the great artist. Margaret Anderson is doing her bit to preserve what she likes. But expecting the rest of us to care because she says so...

To the clever, censorship can even be an opportunity. Look at the movie The Moon is Blue. A mediocre romantic comedy if there ever was one, the movie did spectacularly well at the box office, purely because the Catholic Church objected to the casual, if totally accurate, use of the word "virgin" in the film. No need to dwell on the fact that plenty of people love to do things they think they are not supposed to. What's pornography and what is art is always a matter of taste. Plenty of people have made and still do make a good living selling what they positively know greatly offends some people who aren't their target customers. Are they being defenders of art or assholes? Frequently they know they are being a little of both.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think the author of "The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle over James Joyce's Ulysses" would agree.

Here's what Kevin Birmingham writers in the epilogue (I just finished the book tonight):


"One of the paradoxes of the printed word is that whatever strength and durability it has is inseparable from its inherent weakness. Even a book like Ulysses, we consider essential to our cultural heritage book, might never have happened - might have ended in a New York police court or with the outbreak of a world war - if it were not for a handful of awestruck people. Joyce's novel, with its intricacies and schoolboy adventures, with each measured and careful page, gave them what it gives us: a way to sally forth into the greater world, to walk out into the garden, to see the heaventree of stars as if for the first time and affirm against the incalculable odds, our own diminutive existence. It is the fragility of our affirmations - no matter how indecorous they may be - that makes them so powerful.


Margaret Anderson was an interesting character. She was an a social activist - and ardent feminist, who fought for women's rights at a time in which men were basically censoring works like Ulysses to protect the morals of "the little lady" or "the women" (seriously the judges actually had that phrase in their opinions as did the prosecutors in their arguments - enough to make me want to hit them really hard in the you know what). Women were considered beneath men socially back in the 1920s and 30s, they'd only just gotten the right to vote. Add to this? Margaret Anderson was a lesbian who was fighting for gay rights - in the 1920s! And she was a radical anarchist - although not quite as radical as Emma Goldman.

She adored Joyce. Joyce, himself, had no idea what to make of her, and Ezra Pound struggled to keep her in check. But her idea of the artist not being interfered with is hardly new and I can't say that I agree with it - it is like you say, rather idealistic and not all that realistic. Like I said, she was a character.

Unfortunately, like it or not, art is not created in a vacume and its worth is ultimately in the hands of those who fall in love with it, shrug it off ambivalently, who hate it with a passion and wish to eradicate it from the Earth.

A modern example - would be "The Interview" - not such a great movie, a bit crude and various movie-goers freely admitted they wouldn't otherwise see it if North Korean terrorists hadn't tried to censor it. Ulysses was somewhat similar - many people would never have attempted to read it or gotten interested if it had not been banned or censored by the government. I certainly wouldn't have become interested - if it weren't for my mother's thesis about its censorship. So ironically - hatred of a book or a work of art - can bring more attention to it. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if it had not been censored.

No, as an artist, I think it is ambivalence I fear the most. The shrug of the shoulders. Or the casual disinterest. Just jump on Good Reads or Amazon, the controversial books such as Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray, Harry Potter, or The Goldfinch become best sellers, while the books that aren't controversial disappear from print in a scant few months regardless of their literary value. Writers and artists are like it or not at the mercy of the public, who will hold them accountable - regardless of whether they should.