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Article: 20061002

A Brush with Politics

Only in America would an art teacher be suspended until the end of her teaching contract for exposing the pupils in her charge to art.  Or at least you'd hope so.  The trouble here is the nature of modern democracy, and the need for voter appeal.

In a nutshell what happened was this - teacher takes children on a field trip to an established art museum (with active parental consent) to expose them to some realart works; child catches sight of a naked statue; parent (who gave consent for child to visit museum) writes to complain; school board hearing the complaint rules in favour of parent leading to suspension of the teacher.  Just where is the logic, when a teacher doing their job is disciplined for it, particularly when the parent in question must have given permission in the first place?  And furthermore, where is the problem anyway, with naked statuary?  It's not like the teacher took the kids to some seedy club to watch cavorting naked dancing girls.  Are we not just a little bit past the point of finding the human form, and especially the idealised version usually seen in art, offensive?  The irony is that this has taken place in the city of San Francisco - famed world over for its laid back attitude, particularly to sex and sexuality.

The trouble with democracy is that people who run things are always having to walk the path of least offence, which may not be the route to the greatest benefit.  Sadly, being a successful poitician is not about driving progress and competent practical social management it's about not getting sullied with issues that may offend pivotal minorities - the ones with enough of an agenda to create a noise and skew the voting population.  In order to maintain their petty fiefdom and get re-elected to the education board the semi-politicians who wield the authority have to pander to the repression of this ultra-conservative parent (and others like them) in order not to alienate the votes of the politicians and others in the chain of election that leads to their job security.  Democracy may be the best we have, but it sure as hell ain't perfect...

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