Who owns history?

[dismalist]

Much of the problem stems from bandying about the term "public" with reckless abandon.

For most art, education, libraries and other stuff, the relevant public is very small. Therefore, if each little public got to decide on what it wants to spend money on, there is no problem. Competition will see to it that what's sufficiently valued will be undertaken.

As I said on another thread, a library in a Jewish neighborhood should very well have the right to not have Mein Kampf in its collection. Not for the country, but for the neighborhood. There are many libraries in many neighborhoods, and anyone wishing to read Mein Kampf can still do so. College exhibited art, college curricular content are no different.

Anybody remember when television had three channels [or fewer in parts of the country]? There's room for discussion of standards in such a case. Now that we have 1000 channels, just turn off what we don't like. And we have 3500+ colleges and universities.

[Wahoo Redux]

For most art, education, libraries and other stuff, the relevant public is very small. Therefore, if each little public got to decide on what it wants to spend money on, there is no problem.

Are you worried about precedent?

[dismalist]

For most art, education, libraries and other stuff, the relevant public is very small. Therefore, if each little public got to decide on what it wants to spend money on, there is no problem.

Are you worried about precedent?

I'm not worried about anything so long as there is competition. :-)

[artalot]

The murals are definitely problematic as to content and style of representation. And the artist is pretty clear that he wanted them to be difficult to look at. But neither artists nor patrons own the interpretation of the work, and that's what's at issue here.
So, I think the question is what do we do with public art that is difficult in terms of both subject matter and style of representation. I don't know that I have the answer, but I do think that universities are unique in the realm of public institutions in that we are called to educate. At the very least, this seems liked a missed educational opportunity.

[secundem_artem]

Waaah waaah waaah.  Just the next chapter in who is being oppressed by whom in the race to the bottom of the misery olympics.