The BBC reports here that Sweden will not follow its Scandinavian neighbors by banning so-called sexist advertisements. Denmark and Norway limit the use of sexuality in marketing, but Sweden feels this is an imposition on free speech. The BBC explains:
“Basically, if something is offensive or it makes the viewer feel uncomfortable when they look at it, it shouldn’t be done”, explained Sol Olving, head of Norway’s Kreativt Forum, an association of the country’s top advertising agencies.
“Naked people are wonderful, of course, but they have to be relevant to the product. You could have a naked person advertising shower gel or a cream, but not a woman in a bikini draped across a car.”
This raises an important question: as our representative, does the government have a duty to protect our mental environment? Big companies with money to hire ad firms certainly have more power than you or I do, and it makes sense that the government would check that power by representing our will to not be bombarded by mindfucking adverts.
On the other hand, shouldn’t we all take individual responsibility for collectively cocreating the visual and social world in which we want to live? Isn’t governmental intervention just an unnecessary middle step? How about this: companies that disrespect our mental environment–and in the process disrespect women, people of color, poor folks, and all of us–don’t deserve our respect. If an ad pisses you off, then don’t shop at the store that published it. FURTHER, I offer, if an ad pisses you off, then do something tangible about it. Tear it down, subvert it, cover it up, whatever. We all have a voice in how we want our neighborhoods to look.
So why petition the government to make change you can make with your own hands? Free speech is sexy, but it goes both ways. We don’t need the government to protect us from advertisements, but you can expect them to cry for the government to protect their advertisements from us.
I seem to be developing a habit of ending posts with quotes from hip-hop songs, and this one is appropriate:
“I won’t stop paintin till the world looks the way it should / I’m on a mission to make heaven look like my neighborhood”
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Well written. My freedom of speech ends when I impose on another’s own freedoms.
Unfortunately, tearing down or covering up advertisements is destruction of property. How can we affect a change without doing damage? Any solution that calls for harm to be done to one party, whether economic or political or psychological or whatever, has a significant risk of backfire. I would hope that the cure is not worse than the disease.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Our views part ways when it comes to property. I think the mental environment is collective property, but that is not reflected in social structures. But I respect the absolute idea, not the imperfect manifestation.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 am
I agree with Jack; my idea of property does not give corporations the right to do half the things individuals do, much less larger social structures.
Corporations — money-seeking machines, basically — have too much power in this country.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:51 am
And they exist that way as a matter of inheritance. Postmodernist discourse delegitimizes the old stories used to justify authority, and I find these arguments most compelling. Very little about this country or its structures has been decided collectively. Our forefathers were elitist intellectuals, the modern corporation is just less ruthless child of the old behemoths, our political process is moblike, etc…
No coherence to this comment.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Though I respect your opinion, I feel obligated to point out that almost every thing we eat and wear has been touched by a corporation. We’re not out there shearing our own lambs and growing rice ourselves. The fact that something comes from a corporation doesn’t make it inherently evil. More generally, the fact that somebody profits by your behavior should not preclude your behavior.
As they say, no sense throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
In any case, I believe that laws, whether legitimate or not, exist for a reason and unless civil disobedience is your objective, it’s generally a good idea to follow them. After all, murder and corruption and rape are illegal, but I don’t see any civil rights activists out there committing these crimes under the claim of civil disobedience. In fact, I shudder to think what a sit-in event protesting rape would look like.
Rather than discourse on our obvious differences of views, why don’t we examine them? I’d like to try to define property. Rather than do so, I’ll list some considerations.
1) If I am the sole owner of a piece of property, I should have the right do to with it as I please unless it infringes on another’s right.
2) If I am the sole owner of a piece of property, I should be able to sell it in an orderly transaction and buy property from others in an orderly transaction. An orderly transaction is one which is not rushed or coerced and allows for due diligence for both parties; it is also an arm’s length transaction and not between related parties.
3) If a property is shared, then all owners should have some sort of say in any material changes to the property.
4) Property can be a physical object (my pants) but could also be an idea (my song lyrics, my invention).
5) The owners of property have a right to deny the use of property to others; i.e. property is exclusive.
6) The outright and direct destruction or damage of property should be outlawed. However, activities that reduce the value of property indirectly may or may not be illegal. For instance, the invention of the typewriter reduced the value of a printing press to some degree; this sort of competition should not be discouraged.
Based on these considerations, I’m not sure how to approach the somewhat nebulous idea of mental environment as collective property, though precept #3 would indicate that every member of the collective should have a say in it. However, defacing an ad is clearly covered by precept #6.
If you would like to add to my list of precepts (or refute them), I look forward to your thoughtful opinion.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Okay I will respond in a new post on Thursday, so look there for further discussion.