As Americans we tend to be quite outraged and baffled whenever a case comes up about speech that would be thrown out of the courts in the U.S. without batting an eye. We’re rather used to the first amendment (arguably one of the most important and fundamental contributions to free society in ten thousand years) and the protections it affords without realizing that most of the world only operates under a pseudo-version that is not actually guaranteed. Case in point: the trial of artists in Russia for pissing off the Orthodox Church.
If you haven’t heard, a couple of dissident artists put on an art show with, apparently, a caviar Madonna, and are apparently, according to the prosecutor, “Mr. Samodurov’s and Mr. Yerofeyev’s activities as extremist and directed at inflaming religious strife, and that they intentionally sought to offend believers.” And they didn’t even hang a copy of Piss Christ. If intentionally pissing off believers is a crime though, I don’t think you’ll be seeing Skepticon (intentional plug for a very awesome skeptics conference in Southwest Missouri that you should certainly attend) to Moscow anytime soon—even if we had that kind of money. I’m just wondering though, if intentionally offending believers is a crime, is the reverse true as well?
In the same article one of the priests, Father Kozlov sets the standard of offense as, in reductionist hyperbolic terms, boo-hoo, Mr. Mean Guy didn’t do what my conservative, outdated and indefensible belief structure dictates, rejecting church control over social society, and now my feelings are all churned up like a high school junior(s) who just got dumped by her (or his, or their) star of the football team boyfriend the week before prom. So I’m pretty sure the definition of “offense” is quite broad.
The thing is, I find it a little more offensive that these same religious people consistently come to the conclusion that anything not bending to their moral whims is headed down the shitter. Gor Chahal, some art critic connected to the church, or future bond villain, trots out yet another variation on a theme, “Secular society — and as a result secular art — is entering into a dead end.” So, I’m just wondering, with secular society thriving, secular art doing an amazing job of being relevant (after all, dissident contemporary artists have managed to piss off the church state apparatus so bad as to be put on trial), church attendance dropping like a rock over most of the western world, and church officials consistently being caught up in hypocritical scandals, which group is actually entering a dead end? Whoopie’s answer doesn’t even matter on this one, I’m pretty sure you can get the center square.
Father Kozlov, meanwhile, is worried that a harsh sentence will turn Mr. Yerofeyev and Mr. Samodurov into martyrs. After all, the last thing the church needs is martyrs for the secular world to be used against them. The church would rather stay low key and only have their conservative inanity exposed in the New York Times. If it’s too excessive, they might end up on P.Z. Myer’s blog.
