Table of Contents
In 1997, a poster depicting an icon of the Madonna playing a piano accordion was produced to promote the Adelaide Arts Festival. The Madonna was depicted enthroned against a background that was recognisably of the park that extends from the Adelaide Arts Centre to the Torrens River, with one of the major cathedrals in the background. She was surrounded by outlines of gods from other religions, including Buddha, Ganesh, and an Aboriginal Wandjina. The style of presentation was recognisably Middle Eastern, a point emphasised by the gold mosaic frame, and the ‘Greek’ lettering of the announcement of the event and its main sponsor, Telstra. It appeared, by all publicity standards, to be a fantastic poster. It was beautiful, and it was rich with connotative association that made it appropriate for the festival. Adelaide is known as ‘The city of churches’, so the poster was very specifically appropriate to the Adelaide arts festival, as opposed to an arts festival in some other place. A third feature of the poster that made it so good was that the image of the Madonna with an accordion is inclusive of what may be considered a form of high art as well as popular culture. Moreover, the image was inclusive of different religious and community groups and the art of different cultures and, as such, reflected and celebrated a multicultural recognition of the value of the arts across different cultures. However, within weeks, the poster was withdrawn from circulation by the Festival organisation because the Greek Orthodox Church had complained it was an inappropriate and offensive use of one of their icons.
Since 1978, the Zuni people of Mexico have been demanding the repatriation of their war gods, or Ahauutas, from museums around the world, including the Smithsonian. Their case involves two issues: first, in Zuni eyes the Ahauutas are communal property and by definition, it is claimed, consider their ownership by museums not ownership but theft. The second issue is one that concerns us here. According to James Clifford, ‘Zuni vehemently object to the display of these figures (terrifying and of great sacred force) as “art”. They are the only traditional objects singled out for this objection’.[2] This same kind of issue may arise in relation to the display of replicas of sacred objects. In 1975, an ethnologist at the National Museum of Canada wrote to the director suggesting the removal of Iroquoian false face masks on the basis that ‘The Iroquois consider the masks highly sacred and even “dangerous” objects that should be viewed only at the time of curing rituals’.[3] The masks were removed five years later, but a proposal to replace them with fibreglass casts of the original was objected to by the Grand Council of Hodenosaunee (or Iroquois Confederacy). The Council denied the existence of a distinction between ritually and commercially carved masks and forbade the exhibition of any masks. It also forbade all forms of reproduction, and the distribution of any information about them.[4]
Both the poster and the display of indigenous artefacts appear to be completely innocuous. The poster did not defile, ridicule or attack Mary or the Church, and the display of the Zuni war god, and the Iroquois false face masks, was simply that — their display. So the objections expressed by the Orthodox Church and the Zuni are mysterious. It is hard to understand why they are objecting, let alone why we might care about their objections. Both cases challenge important values we hold. One case confronts the value of freedom of expression. The second confronts the value of knowledge and the practice of collection for the purposes of study, public education and aesthetic appreciation.
I will argue these two cases are similar, and that this similarity shares features in common with blasphemy, despite the fact that it is not obvious that either of these cases are instances of blasphemy. The attempt to understand what is ‘wrong’, that is, to grasp what appears to be mysterious in both these cases, will provide us with a better understanding of blasphemy. The structure of this chapter will be as follows. In the first part, I address the idea that these cases are dissimilar, because they involve a symbol on the one hand, and an object on the other. I argue that there is no clear distinction between an object and a symbol. I will also address the concern that the intention to blaspheme, or to offend, is a necessary element of blasphemy. In the third part of the chapter I will draw out some of the important features of these icons and beliefs about their connection to the order of the universe in order to show how we might understand these cases to be connected to each other, and to blasphemy.
In contrast to the delicacy with which the Adelaide Arts Festival treated Orthodox sensibilities in relation to the poster including an image of the Virgin Mary, the National Gallery of Victoria displayed no such misgivings about the display of Andres Serrano’s controversial photograph, Piss Christ, which showed an image of a crucifix immersed in the artist’s urine, as part of the Melbourne City Festival in 1998. This image might be considered paradigmatic as a case of blasphemy. Various Christian churches sought the removal of the image from public display, and after the negotiations with the gallery and government proved fruitless, the Catholic Archbishop sought a legal injunction against the gallery displaying the image, on the grounds that it was blasphemous, indecent and obscene at law. According to Anthony Fisher and Hayden Ramsey, the Archbishop’s action was supported by the leaders of other Christian churches, as well as the Jewish and Muslim communities.[5]
Justice Harper of the Supreme Court of Victoria commented in his refusal of the application for the injunction that the photograph ‘of itself’ might be seen as ‘inoffensive’,[6] on the grounds that it was beautiful, and showed the crucified Christ in a golden light; the knowledge that the image was created by immersing a crucifix in urine is clearly connected to sacrilege. Sacrilege is the violation of sacred things, and blasphemy, according to Fisher and Ramsey, may be defined as speaking against God or the sacred or ridiculing things consecrated to God or held sacred.[7] However, as Fisher and Ramsey point out: ‘most sacrileges do imply blasphemy in the narrower sense of ridiculing the sacred’.[8] Yet, it might be argued, a plastic crucifix is not a sacred object, at least in any legalist theological sense. A plastic crucifix has not been dedicated or consecrated, or, as is done with church bells, baptised. But a plastic crucifix is a symbol; it represents the sacred. Hence, we should not think that there is a clear distinction between the use of an object, and the use of a symbol.
However, these ‘innocuous’ cases do not appear to be cases of blasphemy, because there does not seem to be any involvement of a deliberate offence. Deliberate offence, that is, intentional offence, is intrinsic to some definitions of blasphemy. For instance, Roy Perret defines blasphemy as ‘an illocutionary act which is a function of the agent’s complex intention. In the case of a blasphemous speech act, the speaker intends that the hearer should come to believe something through the recognition of the speaker’s intention that the hearer do this’.[9] Perret supports this intentional interpretation of blasphemy as theologically correct with a quotation from Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica:
…a man failing to advert to the blasphemous nature of his words, and this may happen through his being moved suddenly by his passion so as to break out into words suggested by his imagination, without heeding to the meaning of the words: this is a venial sin, and is not blasphemy so called. (Summa Theologica II,ii,13)
This definition suggests that neither kind of case I mentioned, of the display of the Zuni war gods or of the use of the icon, could be considered cases of blasphemy. Neither obviously involves the intention to offend, or a propositional content that the speaker intended the hearer to come to believe.
The Piss Christ example is much more clearly a case of blasphemy than the cases I described in the introduction to my chapter because it appears to involve intention. It is also interesting that apologists for Serrano, and Serrano himself, appealed to the artist’s intention in order to argue that it was not blasphemous. Fisher and Ramsay reported that, as the scandal progressed, the artist repudiated his earlier claim that his art is simply colourful and deliberately shocking, and asserted that, instead of intending to scandalise, ‘his goal all along had been to increase the devotion of his fellow Christians by helping them identify better with Christ in his pain, suffering an humiliation’.[10]
In contrast to the definition of blasphemy in terms of intentional offence, Frank J. Hoffman understands blasphemy to be a family of concepts that may be explicated by determining what the religious points are in each case, and determining what social practices exist for homage and desecration in each case.[11] Hoffman’s culturally relative account is consistent with Fisher and Ramsay’s position that objects symbolising mysteries ‘can only be understood in the context of the religious culture and history of practice from which they emerge’.[12] Hoffman argues, against Perret, that there is no single perspective from which to define blasphemy. He points out that blasphemy, like obscenity, is often dependent partly on the attitude of the hearer or recipient. He illustrates this point with an ‘amusing’ story:
Suppose, for example, that there is a pet parrot who is capable of uttering a perverse litany impugning the religious focal points of the ‘great religions’ of the world. Now, just as the parrot has completed impugning the God of Christianity along with the rest, Aunt Millie, being a frightfully devout (and easily scandalised) Christian lady, indignantly rushes in from the kitchen with the carving knife, ready to lop off the poor parrot’s head. Feathers fly, and in the wink of an eye, the badly mangled parrot has sung his (black) swan-song. Aunt Millie is unlikely to be repentant at the thought that the parrot did not intend to blaspheme.[13]
Despite this unpleasant picture of the people who make claims that something is blasphemous as the kind of people who would kill parrots, it does seem arbitrary to insist on a strictly intentional definition of blasphemy, supported by an appeal to religious authority. Given that we are dealing with a phenomenon of offence that has broad agreement across different religions, and is of concern in relation to political issues such as how we should relate to other people’s religious beliefs in a multicultural society, we require a less culturally specific, and less religiously specific, definition than the intentional account given by Perret.
But even if intention should not appear as part of the definition of blasphemy, Aunt Millie’s lack of appreciation of the parrot’s lack of intent is also significant. If intention matters, it may not be the case that it defines whether something was blasphemous, but the level of culpability. We might appeal to the doctrine of double effect: it might be thought that the blasphemy might be permissible, or at least more acceptable, if the blasphemy is the ‘unintended side effect’ of a good intention, such as the liberation of mixed up human beings from the tyranny of apostles of purity, or the education of the general population of the suffering of Christ. In suggesting this use of the doctrine of double effect, I suggest that intention may play a different role from that argued by Perret. Rather than a definition of the act, intention may play a role in our understanding of the moral significance of the act. Similarly, while thinking killing someone is wrong prima facie, we distinguish between different acts on the basis of the killer’s intention. For instance, we distinguish between calculated murder, crimes of passion, manslaughter, reckless disregard of other people’s safety, killing in war, and justifiable self defence. These distinctions rely at least in part on the intentions of the killer. Similarly, in cases of blasphemy, we may refer to cases where we think it justified (such as the exposure of hypocrisy in the Church, or the exploration of sincere, but heretical, belief) and ‘gratuitous’ acts of offensive behaviour.[14]
Fisher and Ramsay appear to agree with Hoffman that the cultural context within which the objects are created provides conventional and appropriate responses for how artists may depict certain images, and for what may count as blasphemy. Their argument that Serrano’s Piss Christ is unacceptable depends on a conventional account of what it means to immerse a crucifix in urine. It ‘can only be a profanation according to the standards of the culture and religion of which it is an artefact, and photographing it and displaying such a deed can only be a blasphemy in that culture’.[15]
This may be made as a stronger, universal claim about defilement. In her classic text Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas makes some general, and widely accepted as important, observations about the nature of defilement and its relation to the manner in which we comprehend the world, and organise our societies.[16] However, the attempt to maintain purity and to avoid defilement should not be seen as a desire that is necessarily totalitarian or fundamentalist. It is something that is part of everyday consciousness. Dirt, she claims, is matter out of place. The coffee in my cup is clean, but if I spill it on clothes, I am dirty. According to Douglas, ‘dirt is essentially disorder…Eliminating it is not a negative movement, but a positive effort to organise the environment’.[17] And she claims that this is not only true of Western secular societies:
If this is so with our separating, tidying and purifying, we should interpret primitive purification and prophylaxis in the same light…rituals of purity and impurity create unity in experience. So far from being aberrations from the central project of religion, they are positive contributions to atonement. By their means, symbolic patterns are worked out and publicly displayed. Within these patterns disparate elements are related and disparate experience is given meaning.[18]
According to Douglas, the categorisation of purity and danger is a major structuring organisation of our society — representing social hierarchy, differentiating between groups within and between societies and cultures, but also of structuring our relationship with other people in our societies — and extends beyond human life to the order of the cosmos. We fit into a broader pattern of relationships. Keeping the purity rules therefore maintains a pattern or order to the world. If Douglas is correct, the concept of defilement and purity will be central to all societies, as well as all religions.
In summary, it appears that blasphemy is connected to sacrilege, as what we do with objects, and how we represent them may both involve defilement. The idea of defilement is cross-cultural, and not merely associated with fundamentalist or totalitarian religions. Our intentions do not define whether something is blasphemous, as what counts as the defilement of an object or symbol is dependent on socially agreed norms. It is still not clear, however, that the Madonna and piano accordion is an act of defilement, or that the display of a Zuni god is an example of such contempt. This is what makes them such interesting cases. There is nothing clearly offensive about them. In order to explore what is wrong with such acts, or at least what is perceived to be wrong about such acts, I explore the cognitive content involved in recognising certain kinds of symbols.
[1] To Robert and John, with my thanks for their conversation, their warmth, and for sharing their ceremonies with me.
[2] James Clifford, 1988, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, p. 209.
[3] Memo from Michael K. Foster to Dr Barrie Reynolds, Chief Ethnologist, Canadian Ethnology Service, 10 March 1975, File E7-6R, Canadian Ethnology Service, Canadian Museum of Ethnography. Cited in Ruth B. Phillips, 2004, ‘Disappearing Acts: Exposure, Enclosure, and Iroquois Masks’, in M.S. Phillips and G. Schochet (eds.) Questions of Tradition, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 74.
[4] Ibid., pp. 74-5.
[5] Anthony Fisher and Hayden Ramsey, 2000, ‘Of Art and Blasphemy’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 3, pp. 137-167, p. 138.
[6] Ibid., p. 155.
[7] Ibid., p. 139.
[8] Ibid., p. 139, note 3.
[9] Roy W. Perret, 1987, ‘Blasphemy’, Sophia, vol 26, no. 2, pp. 4-14, at p. 5.
[10] Fisher and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 156. One might question the veracity of this account of Serrano’s on the basis that Fisher and Ramsay are at points quite sardonic about Serrano’s artistic intentions.
[11] F. Hoffman, 1989, ‘More on Blasphemy’, Sophia, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 26-35, at p. 30.
[12] Fisher and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 157.
[13] Ibid., p. 28.
[14] People may accept the doctrine as a factor in determining moral culpability, but, like Fisher and Ramsay, remain dubious of the artist’s claims about his or her intention or, like Webster, remain dubious that the artist’s intention is relevant to the interpretation of the work.
[15] Fisher and Ramsay, ibid., pp. 157-8.
[16] Mary Douglas, 1966, Purity and Danger, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[17] Ibid., p. 2
[18] Ibid., pp. 3-4.