Muhammad: The "Banned" Images Blog Free Speech at Risk

Plato Lives . . .

"Our first business [as government planners] will be to supervise the making of fables and legends [i.e., of art], rejecting all which are unsatisfactory . . ." (From the _Republic_.)

. . . In Russia

A well-known museum director and a curator were both convicted "on charges of inciting religious and ethnic hatred in an exhibition called 'Forbidden Art — 2006,' which displayed works that had been banned by Russian museums."

The Platonist "prosecutors argued that the men’s activities were extremist and meant to inflame religious strife."

Supporting the censorship were "fundamentalist Russian Orthodox activists dressed in black T-shirts decorated with the Orthodox cross, skulls and crossbones and the words 'Orthodoxy or Death.'" (Anybody for a "Everybody Draw Russian Orthodox Day"?)

So much for the idea that centuries-old, abstract philosophy has nothing to do with real life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13curators.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=organizers%20of%20art%20show&st=cse