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Peter Guither 2/21/96 pete@thelivingcanvas.com Bloomington - Normal, Illinois, USA |
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Peter Guither 2/21/96 pete@thelivingcanvas.com Bloomington - Normal, Illinois, USA |
I think we need a new kind of Nanny software. Content on the internet needs to be screened based on the maturity of the viewer, not the age. In my experience, children are much better able to deal with most indecent materials than are 70-year-old politicians.
Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship.- Aryeh Neier, Civil Libertarian
When we performed "A Midsummer Night's Dream," we had fairies in fully opaque body stockings slithering and jumping and leaping. I got complaints from parents who had brought children about us having these "lesbian fairies writhing around on stage." The children just thought they were fairies and had a great time.
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1927)
It is the intent of the committee that in the administration of this act there be given the fullest attention to freedom of artistic and humanistic expression. One of the artist's and the humanist's great values to society is the mirror of self examination which they raise, so that society can become aware of its shortcomings as well as its strengths. Moreover, modes of expression are not static, but are constantly evolving. Therefore, the committee affirms that the intent of this act should be the encouragement of free inquiry and expression. The committee wishes to make clear that conformity for its own sake is not to be encouraged, and that no undue preference should be given to any particular style or school of thought or expression... The standard should be artistic excellence.-From the original report adopted to accompany the authorizing statute which established the NEA and NEH in 1965.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion- Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness. There are circumstances in which nakedness is not immodest... Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness. Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person... The human body is not in itself shameful, nor for the same reasons are sensual reactions, and human sensuality in general. Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of a person.- Pope John Paul the second
Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love? Why am I afraid, I who am not afraid? Why must I pretend to scorn in order to pity? Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand? Why must I be so ashamed of my strength, so proud of my weakness? Why must I live in a cage like a criminal, defying and hating, I who love peace and friendship? Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched?- from "Great God Brown" by Eugene O'Neill
Essay written by Peter Guither, General Manager of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and Illinois State Theatre as well as a fine art photographer.
Photograph on this page © 1995 Peter Guither. You can reach me at: pete@thelivingcanvas.com