Modern Sensibilities
A long time ago people were employed to wander around the world's greatest art pieces and paint or make (For statues) little fig leaves over the penises or vaginas so that it wouldn't offend anyone.
Artwork was destroyed forever by a little "Modern Sensibility" and today we sit here and shake our heads saying "How could anyone even think this was an acceptable practice? Where were the lynch mobs to beat those people within an inch of their lives? What idiots would think that destroying history is an acceptable practice?"
Luckily, we have outgrown that...
Or have we?
My sister and I have been working for many years on our family Genealogy. It's been a very large project, with a great deal of data collected. For the last 5 years, we have been working in collaboration via a website which (Even though it is clumsy and sluggish) allows us both to work on the same family tree.
It also makes GEDCOM files, the computer format for Family trees (Like a Word Document for Family trees).
As of today we have 3550 members in our family tree, traced all the way back (Directly) to King James I of Scotland.
But, as I said, the website we use is clumsy and slow... I thought "Hey, there has to be a Wiki for Genealogy out there somewhere! Wiki's are perfect for Genealogy! You can link to all the people forward and backward and all would be cool!" I go and look and lo and behold! There are Genealogy Wikipedeas! :D
The first one I come to is great! But you have to build a new page for each person you upload (We do have 3500 people... that will take approximately 6 years to upload)... well.. that kinda sucks... the second one is even cooler! It allows you to upload your GEDCOM And makes the pages individually... automatically! It's awesome!
Except...
Anyone living is stripped of all data, their first name is removed and all birth/death/vital data is stripped and removed. Joe Smith Born 1979 Died ??? is then made into Living Smith Born UNK Died UNK...
This is done so that no one can get onto the Genealogy site and derive your mother's maiden name or something like that so that they can get your bank information...
The problem is, we don't put a death date in when we don't have that data...
So we now have many "Living Smiths" who were born in the 1300's sometime... We don't know when anymore because the birth date and all data on that individual has been stripped.
So, because of "Modern Sensibilities", Genealogical data becomes the art of today...
And if you said "So?" to the above statement, you are among those who would have said "So" to the fig leaves...
And if you said "So?" to the fig leaves... erm... just don't talk to me about it (Art degree and all).
You gotta wonder what else is getting destroyed by modern sensibilities while we sit here and happily say "So?"
---Miffed by having to rebuild his GEDCOM...
posted by Aabh @ 11:33 AM
7 Comments:
Mr. Davis,
I'm not seeing the connection between the destruction of art and the removal of personal data for security purposes.
I would really prefer that my personal info remains as safe as possible!
I'll definitely challeng you any your animation degree gives you more "love" of art than I have.
By comparison, I don't think that my history degree gives me more of a love of history than it does anyone else.
Also just a point of fact; "painting a fig leaf" on a nude figure in the Sistine Chapel does not "destory it forever". Artists do "salvage" and "restoration" work on items all the time. In most cases those pieces are suffering far worse damage than a fig leaf over genitalia.
However, it does stink for your historical work. Maybe there's a way around it? Perhaps you could write a script that would insert something in those records that would give an estimated death date or a code that would trick the system into thinking there is one there so it does not strip off the names, etc. Just a suggestion.
You must have had a really bad day!!!! Hang in there, buddy!!!
Nick
Hmmm... I'm not knocking your love of art, my friend. Simply saying if you don't love art, don't taunt me. I had to study it :D
And what is art? Isn't it a window to another mind? Isn't it, in some way, a small amount of data communicated from one spirit to another? And who's to say the critical piece of that data is the face? perhaps it was the penis (Hey, I don't paint these things...)... I can see that if I were to depict Adam and Eve, it would stand to reason that they should be nude, as that was the whole point of the serpent and all... thus, painting fig leaves on them sorta scrambles that concept.
And, since you brought it up, I, too think that painting fig leaves on artwork is tantamount to grafitti :D
And as for not seeing the connection; here's another way to look at it; when Genealogy was created, your mother's maiden name wasn't considered vital information, so it was all good. Then someone came along and thought what a wonderful thing it would be to use that as verification. Then someone else came along and said what a wonderful thing to steal... My father used to put his social security number on everything...
They will steal anything. And we are slowly destroying everything to prevent them from stealing everything... to the point where we no longer have anything... which is one of the great paradoxes in this modern world... that and jumping at every political shadow claiming we are protecting ourselves from being terrorized...
Not a bad day, just having one of those "Either I'm seeing something no one else is, or I'm insane" moments :D
Would I ever taunt you?
Of course the answer to that is, YES!!! But not about art!!! I love it as much as you do, even when it's crappy art!!
However, being inconvenienced doing genealogy work is not the same as allowing someone to chop up a van Gogh or a Monet into little pieces!!!!
You make an excellent point, however that living in a world where seemingly insignificant personal information equals massive amounts and power and money to people changes many dynamics of how we live.
The real question is whether we can make decisions about how to deal with it using reason and logic instead of ideology and hysteria. Then we become the Bush Administration. ;-)
I would not say that you either see something no one else does or that you are insane.
I'm not big on black and white issue dynamics. When we start polarizing every issue to extremes then we become the Bush administration, is there an echo in here?
The answer is in finding a balance between the two needs: information security and the requirement that we remain an open society.
People are grappling with this issue all the time regarding identity theft and the availability of critical information. You are not insane to question it. I question it as well.
However, by the same token I think that it's a little extreme to compare the defacing of art with your being inconvenienced in doing your research.
For which I deeply sympathize with you I might add!!!
My issue is with what I interpreted as your driving your issue to an extreme. Instead I would rather find a solution for your problem.
I want you to do your historical thing!!!!!
Good discussion!!!!!
Nick
Don't worry, I understand where you are standing on this. I don't think you are belittling my Genealogy project :D
And, as typical with us, we are getting very involved in a discussion of politics and sociology.. which is perfectly normal. :D
I think if someone went around and did as the bad guys did in Harry Potter (I.E. Obviously being bad), we would stop them.
The point wasnt supposed to be that Genealogy equals art, the point is that when people defaced the art in historic times it was perfectly normal for that society. If you had a Delores Umbridge wandering around defacing art today people would stop her... or at least be very, very upset and it would be big news. Something history would remember.
The Geneaology is a symptom. All I'm pointing out is that there are "Destruction of Art"s going on around us, but maybe we don't notice it... maybe we don't see it because it is perfectly normal. Because it's not like Harry Potter and if this occurs it won't be obvious to us that it's happening.
Sobrino,
Actually your metaphor of
covering private parts being acceptable at one time and not now...as opposed to not covering private parts(ssn#) and doing it now is not all that bad. By the way guys the study of art or history is not meant to foster "love" of anything. It should however give you understanding and perception. By the way Nick ...I do hear the echo...there's a hurricane headed my way ...that darn Bush Administration!!
One of the 3550.
Tio, do be careful! If it looks bad, get out of there. Go to dads... (Not like I expect he will be in that much better shape, but at least he's inland a ways) I worry about you guys and that storm, it's already a Cat 4 and getting Rita-er...
And Hey Anonymous person, get the heck out of the way of that Hurricane!!!!! Please!!!
So Mr. Davis, you pull the Umbridge card on me, eh!!!??? I see how it is!!!
I never thought that we were far apart. I'm just bringing up some valid perspectives. I definitely hear what you are saying. It’s just that from my perspective there are no easy answers to these questions. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ask them.
We always have to reevaluate where we are. I just get nervous when the “answers” comes from the perspective of hysteria. There are many elements in our society, like in the world of Mr. Potter, who benefit from hysteria and fear and use it to get what they want.
And though I won't mention any names per se the initials GWB (or is that Thomas Marvolo Riddle?) Come to mind in that regard. And I’m not especially fond of those kinds of people.
Have a good one!!! Another chapter down in editing the novel and I’m hoping to have a 1st draft ready by Oct or Nov.
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