"A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don't know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population"
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The language bristles with the anger of someone who has felt the heavy hand of gatekeepers. The charge is not only that a small group seeks to police images and ideas, but that it does so by claiming a kind of superior wisdom, a moral authority that overrides the public’s own capacity to judge. The target is paternalism: the belief that citizens must be shielded from content because they cannot be trusted to interpret it responsibly. By calling the minority virulent and aggressive, the speaker points to the tactics of moral panics, where intensity and outrage substitute for broad consensus.
The tension here is democratic. In a plural society, taste, art, and ethics are negotiated in public, not dictated by a self-appointed clergy of opinion. The line also carries an accusation of condescension. To say that Americans do not know what they should see is to infantilize them, to turn adults into wards whose sensibilities require guardians. The promise of protection masks a will to control.
Coming from Jock Sturges, the sentiment sits in the long shadow of controversies over his photographs, which often depict naturist families and adolescents and have been the subject of investigations, protests, and attempts to censor or criminalize. He has lived the consequences of a minority’s fervor: raids, canceled shows, books pulled from shelves. That history makes the statement more than abstract principle; it is a defense of artistic autonomy and of the audience’s right to encounter challenging work.
None of this dismisses legitimate concerns about exploitation or harm. It does, however, insist that difficult questions be answered by open deliberation and informed viewing, not by fiat. The warning is about the slippery expansion of custodial power. If a tiny sliver can decide what images are safe, it can also decide what ideas are permissible. The freedom to risk offense is entwined with the freedom to think.
The tension here is democratic. In a plural society, taste, art, and ethics are negotiated in public, not dictated by a self-appointed clergy of opinion. The line also carries an accusation of condescension. To say that Americans do not know what they should see is to infantilize them, to turn adults into wards whose sensibilities require guardians. The promise of protection masks a will to control.
Coming from Jock Sturges, the sentiment sits in the long shadow of controversies over his photographs, which often depict naturist families and adolescents and have been the subject of investigations, protests, and attempts to censor or criminalize. He has lived the consequences of a minority’s fervor: raids, canceled shows, books pulled from shelves. That history makes the statement more than abstract principle; it is a defense of artistic autonomy and of the audience’s right to encounter challenging work.
None of this dismisses legitimate concerns about exploitation or harm. It does, however, insist that difficult questions be answered by open deliberation and informed viewing, not by fiat. The warning is about the slippery expansion of custodial power. If a tiny sliver can decide what images are safe, it can also decide what ideas are permissible. The freedom to risk offense is entwined with the freedom to think.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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