Ok, so it seems like the heat is turning up on this Jill Greenberg controversy stuff. You remember Jill. The woman who takes photos of the emotionally wrenched kids in the name of art against the Bush administration (I think)…
From Hawk’s previous post on the subject:
So what is Jill Greenberg doing? She is taking babies, toddlers under three years old, stripping them of their clothes and then provoking them to various states of emotional distress, anger, rage etc. — so that she can then take photos of them this way to "illustrate her personal beliefs." If you’d like to see how worked up she can get these kids you can click through here. Be warned that it is graphic. Although the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind.
Continue reading at Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection
After looking at the photos, I agree.
How can I have a problem with this and not with Witkin (NSFW)? Easy: informed consent. It differentiates sex from rape, boxing from assault, and DNR orders from murder… an important concept, to be sure. Witkin’s models know what they’re getting into and freely choose it. With kids of this age, there’s no way to make a legal or moral argument that they’ve been informed or have consented—that’s what makes it abuse.
I’m a big believer in fighting ideas rather than people, but in this case, I can’t pretend that I don’t think that Jill Greenberg—personally, not just her methods—is a reprehensible piece of shit. And where the fuck were these kids’ parents?? I sincerely hope that every one of the subjects finds a way to sue the ever-loving fuck out of everyone involved in this shameful affair.
Gotta hand it to you, convincing people that your blurred photos and pictures of busted shopping carts is art is pretty clever. Especially after all that crap about Jill Greenberg being a child abuser. That’s not abuse. Having a adults up hand down you pants when your six is child abuse. Being beten black an blue and thrown doen the stairs for crying is child abuse. You freaks wouldn’t know the difference.
If you have a problem with my photography, great! Let’s talk about it! However, using that problem in a fallacious attempt to discredit my opinion on the Greenberg situation is, well, fallacious.
Gotta hand it to you, convincing people that your blurred photos and pictures of busted shopping carts is art is pretty clever.
A classic appeal to ridicule. For the fallacy to have a better chance of being successful in an argument, you may want to try directing it at the subject of the argument rather than something totally irrelevant:
Especially after all that crap about Jill Greenberg being a child abuser.
You’ve made a claim (that my claim that Greenberg’s actions are child abuse is incorrect) but haven’t backed it up. You’re also implying a connection between your opinion that my photography isn’t art and my opinion on Greenberg that doesn’t exist. Discrediting my photography doesn’t discredit my opinion on child abuse any more than it does my ability to fry an egg.
Furthermore, saying that my photography isn’t art doesn’t automatically imply that it’s bad, it just means you don’t think it’s art. If you’re looking for an insult, I’d look elsewhere. The questions of what does and doesn’t qualify as art and whether photography categorically even has the potential to be art don’t concern me at all—I’d rather be out making more pictures.
Having a adults up hand down you pants when your six is child abuse. Being beten black an blue and thrown doen the stairs for crying is child abuse. [sic]
I agree with both examples. However, this has no bearing whatsoever on whether Greenberg’s actions constitute child abuse.
You freaks wouldn’t know the difference.
This is an ad hominem attack and an unsupported (as well as likely incorrect) assumption.
See how well this holds up when the subject is changed to something less emotionally charged:
If you want to discuss this rationally, I’m all ears.