If looks could kill.

[rrneck]

The National Endowment for the Arts became a lightning rod for Republican ire in the eighties for funding controversial art that offended the sensibilities of conservative lawmakers such as Jesse Helms, Al D'Amato and Dick Armey. Those lawmakers were responding to the jaundiced opinions of their constituents regarding the content of the artworks in question and the motivations of the artists who made it. It was their position that such content and the way is was expressed was offensive and destructive to the public good. They seemed to feel that viewing such inflammatory art would corrupt the morals of the public causing all sorts of deviant, irresponsible, uncivilized behavior.

The entire notion was, of course, preposterous. It was based on a simplistic understanding of the relationship of a work of art and the individual viewing it. That understanding assumes a one to one relationship between the way something looks and the response of the viewer, as if a particular set of images or formal qualities of a work of art would solicit a predictable set of behaviors in everyone exposed to it.

Efforts to establish the same one to one relationship between the appearance of a particular type of weapon and the intent of the individual using it are equally preposterous. Making a tool look a particular way will not solicit a specific response from anyone. Ever. Attempts to regulate the appearance of weapons or the people who own them through legislative action will invariably meet with the same incredulous outrage as attempts to regulate art. People will respond to their environment and the objects in it in individual ways that simply cannot be defined by legislative fiat.

A rifle is a rifle and a handgun in public is a handgun in public. It doesn't matter one whit if the rifle is black with a pistol grip or if the handgun is visible on the person carrying it. What matters is why any particular individual has the weapon and what they intend to do with it. These are variables that cannot be determined by any legislature regarding any individual without denying them their individuality.

The similarities between the desire to control the appearance of art on the right and the appearance of firearms on the left by controlling how they are funded, made and used should be obvious. I think that desire has a great deal to do with confusion about the limits of legislative action in cultural development. Partisans on both sides of both issues feel strongly about the symbolic power of both art and firearms and would like to employ statute law to further their agenda in the culture wars. Both seem to be an attempt to deny their political opponents an important symbol and thereby demoralize them while simultaneously emboldening their allies.

Such attempts to legislate feelings cannot be accomplished without destroying individual civil rights. From the separation clause in the First Amendment to rules of evidence to strict scrutiny requirements in Supreme court rulings, our system of laws are designed to remove as much as possible the vagaries of emotion from the power of the state. That is not to say that the way one individual or group of people feel about an issue has no consequence. People's feeling are tremendously important and should always be a factor in cultural development. In fact, simple feelings are indispensable to that process.

The system of law that is our social contract affords a measure of predictable behavior among citizens. It gives us common ground and a general framework within which we may live and interact with each other. That's it. The vagaries of interactions influenced by our individual feelings about any given situation have to be worked out in "real time" with those around us. We can no more demand the government surround us with pleasing images than we can demand to be surrounded by people who cannot possibly make us uncomfortable. Art produced under totalitarian regimes is invariably stilted and lifeless because it is produced in a culture that is stagnant. The vibrancy of a healthy culture depends on the interaction of people who feel differently about things. Good laws facilitate that interaction.

It seems to me that the impulse to approach the legislative process as a consumer rather than as a citizen is the single most corrupting influence in our culture. We demand laws that make us feel personally comfortable rather than laws that benefit those around to the betterment of all. An entire industry of ideology production has sprung up to provide us with a menu of convenient attitudes that keep us from interacting with our fellow citizens. It is an industry that benefits the wealthy few among us and denies the bulk of the population the ability to collectively exercise their rights. The gun issue is just one among many wedge issues that serves only to divide us when we should be pulling together to achieve what really matters.

When we put appearance ahead of substance and enact it into law we will kill the vibrancy of our culture and any hope we may have for the future of our country.

[PavePusher]

1. "When we put appearance ahead of substance and enact it into law..."

Not merely appearance, but our personal predjudices of appearance, regardless of objective reality.