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Spray painting on property that is not yours is vandalism. Vandalism is illegal. When I said "protest", I meant getting wrongfully arrested for peaceful protes

by Cyph0n 9y ago

Spray painting on property that is not yours is vandalism. Vandalism is illegal. When I said "protest", I meant getting wrongfully arrested for peaceful protesting, e.g., during the civil rights movement. The kind of arrest that involves standing up for what's right. That is something we can all learn from. Getting arrested for spray painting? That's plain stupid. Maybe Banksy could write a similar op-ed, but I would still think that his argument was stupid.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
MereInterest 9y ago
An arrest can be perfectly legal, despite being unethical. Saying that vandalism is illegal and is therefore an illegitimate form of protest is like saying that the Civil Rights Movement sit-ins were illegal, and were therefore an illegitimate form of protest. It simply doesn't follow. Do I think that it is an effective form of protest? Not in the slightest. Do I think that it can be categorically ruled out on the basis of legality? Absolutely not.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  I agree with you completely: legality definitely is not absolute. But if your protest is illegal for no valid or higher moral reason, then I don't think it's worth the risk. Going back to the "mistakes are good in college" argument, college students should be smart and mature enough to know which mistakes are actually worth the jail time.
  - MereInterest 9y ago
    College students should be sufficiently smart and mature, yes. I didn't read the article as saying that college students should deliberately make mistakes for the sake of having made them. Rather, the article was focusing more on the response when inadvisable behavior occurs. Should it be seen as a moral fault on the individual, to be punished, or should it be seen as a societal failure, to be used as a teaching moment? The problem is that it is very hard to have situational rules as a population size gets very large. For a population of 100, everybody knows everybody else, and so any failing can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Since you see everybody every day, you can tell which failings are habitual, and which are rare. For a population with limited communication, exile is a useful tool, including self-inflicted exile after social shaming. This is a useful conversation to have, because we are seeing the first generation with fast communication and indefinite storage. Effectively all college students now have everything about them recorded. 40 years down the line, all politicians will have a searchable history. We, as a society, will need to figure out how to deal with this glut of details, as no previous strategy suits the new situation. There are too many people to keep track of, so one can't get a feel for everybody's habitual behavior. There are also too many details available, so the previous strategy of excluding everybody who has a memorable negative detail available is no longer valid. This turned into more of a ramble than I had expected, but I think it is a complicated issue, which deserves thought.
labster 9y ago
Banksy is free to spray paint $100000 of value onto my property any day.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  Same here. But I'm sure neither of us would enjoy it as much if it was a random college student instead.
  - labster 9y ago
    Yeah. But UC Davis had a bridge outside of town, kind of hidden by vegetation. While there was very little graffiti in the city, that bridge was an open space for graffiti and spray-paint art. I like having public places like that where vandalism is implicitly allowed, so that the rest of us can have nice property. Banksy can paint on my property because he has something to say. Someone just writing their name needs somewhere else to work on their artistic voice.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      Yes, I also like the idea of dedicated public space. It brings out really cool graffiti. For example, I remember seeing a huge mural on the side of an apartment building in Warsaw. It's not "because he has something to say", but rather "because it's worth a shit ton". I'm sure there are many graffiti artists who have more interesting ideas than Banksy does. Would you be alright having an insightful tag on your wall that's worth nothing more than the insight?
    - kaybe 9y ago
      There are many cities with areas with explicit permissions in Germany/Europe. There are lists online too.

by Cyph0n 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

MereInterest 9y ago

An arrest can be perfectly legal, despite being unethical. Saying that vandalism is illegal and is therefore an illegitimate form of protest is like saying that the Civil Rights Movement sit-ins were illegal, and were therefore an illegitimate form of protest. It simply doesn't follow. Do I think that it is an effective form of protest? Not in the slightest. Do I think that it can be categorically ruled out on the basis of legality? Absolutely not.

Cyph0n 9y ago
I agree with you completely: legality definitely is not absolute. But if your protest is illegal for no valid or higher moral reason, then I don't think it's worth the risk. Going back to the "mistakes are good in college" argument, college students should be smart and mature enough to know which mistakes are actually worth the jail time.
- MereInterest 9y ago
  College students should be sufficiently smart and mature, yes. I didn't read the article as saying that college students should deliberately make mistakes for the sake of having made them. Rather, the article was focusing more on the response when inadvisable behavior occurs. Should it be seen as a moral fault on the individual, to be punished, or should it be seen as a societal failure, to be used as a teaching moment? The problem is that it is very hard to have situational rules as a population size gets very large. For a population of 100, everybody knows everybody else, and so any failing can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Since you see everybody every day, you can tell which failings are habitual, and which are rare. For a population with limited communication, exile is a useful tool, including self-inflicted exile after social shaming. This is a useful conversation to have, because we are seeing the first generation with fast communication and indefinite storage. Effectively all college students now have everything about them recorded. 40 years down the line, all politicians will have a searchable history. We, as a society, will need to figure out how to deal with this glut of details, as no previous strategy suits the new situation. There are too many people to keep track of, so one can't get a feel for everybody's habitual behavior. There are also too many details available, so the previous strategy of excluding everybody who has a memorable negative detail available is no longer valid. This turned into more of a ramble than I had expected, but I think it is a complicated issue, which deserves thought.

labster 9y ago

Banksy is free to spray paint $100000 of value onto my property any day.

Cyph0n 9y ago
Same here. But I'm sure neither of us would enjoy it as much if it was a random college student instead.
- labster 9y ago
  Yeah. But UC Davis had a bridge outside of town, kind of hidden by vegetation. While there was very little graffiti in the city, that bridge was an open space for graffiti and spray-paint art. I like having public places like that where vandalism is implicitly allowed, so that the rest of us can have nice property. Banksy can paint on my property because he has something to say. Someone just writing their name needs somewhere else to work on their artistic voice.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Yes, I also like the idea of dedicated public space. It brings out really cool graffiti. For example, I remember seeing a huge mural on the side of an apartment building in Warsaw. It's not "because he has something to say", but rather "because it's worth a shit ton". I'm sure there are many graffiti artists who have more interesting ideas than Banksy does. Would you be alright having an insightful tag on your wall that's worth nothing more than the insight?
  - kaybe 9y ago
    There are many cities with areas with explicit permissions in Germany/Europe. There are lists online too.