Ethics of Graffiti

Vincenzi

split-thread from:
Graffiti and Vandalism, what can be done?

Amelia

I don't know, but I just read a book about that one artist named Banksy. I loved it, and some of his points were excellent. Sometimes, I also dream about a world in which everyone is allowed to draw wherever they wish... imagine the art... and the lack of advertisements that rape our brains.

Amelia

Of course, these are just imaginings. Probably wouldn't work in real life... but a lot of things don't work in real life and they are still happening, so I'm not too worried about change or my radical ideas these days.

Yishai

If it is not your property, then it is vandalism. Vandalism devalues or destroys another person's property. Ethically, I think this is a bad thing. It shows a lack of respect for others and others' property which they have likely worked to get. As far as vandalizing government property, government property is purchased with taxpayer money, which means you are then spitting in the face of even more people.

IMO, it shows a lot of disrespect for others. I'm all for expressing yourself, but there are more constructive (and not destructive) ways to do it.

Kwantum_Kev

I agree completely @Yishai. Letting everyone draw wherever they wish takes into account only the wishes of those doing the drawing. But what about the wishes of other people? Mindfulness and compassion to me are thinking about the rights and happiness of others as much as, if not more than, that of myself.

You can draw wherever you wish now, as long as you have permission. If you don't, and find yourself getting angry or frustrated about it, then perhaps there is some attachment keeping you in samsara that you need to let go of.

Namaste'

Kwan Kev

tmottes

@Amelia my favorite was a guy who did big chalk drawings on public ground/sidewalk/road based on various shadows. Not exactly vandalism since there is no destruction. It may have been Banksy.

Jeffrey

One of the five precepts: not steal

Vincenzi

If it is not your property, then it is vandalism. (...)

the concept of property is inherently flawed, from a dharmic POV.

Vincenzi

One of the five precepts: not steal

who took what from whom?

Vincenzi

@Amelia my favorite was a guy who did big chalk drawings on public ground/sidewalk/road based on various shadows. Not exactly vandalism since there is no destruction. It may have been Banksy.

I have made drawings of sigils in charcoal... water washes them out if in the open.

Jeffrey

who's property is it? If you reason that a city bus belongs to me then I guess I can take the tires off of it and put them on my car.

tmottes

Haha... I could use one of those nice park benches on my porch

Jeffrey

Yeah I want to set up camp with my grill and have a party on the whitehouse lawn. Listen to grateful dead and drink beer. Cool man. :rolleyes:

tmottes

Count me in, I will bring the lawn chairs.

Jeffrey

I'll pick you up in the city garbage truck that I am borrowing for the afternoon.. We can dump out all the garbage all over the city as we drive. Hey its a free country!

I'd say this afternoon but I am busy chopping down all the trees in the city area outside the sidewalks since I need some firewood.

Next tuesday I am planning to paint the fire engine blue and all the cop cars pink and teal stripes.

vinlyn

If it is not your property, then it is vandalism. (...)

the concept of property is inherently flawed, from a dharmic POV.

So, I can only assume that you don't own anything?

Yeah, right.

vinlyn

One of the five precepts: not steal

who took what from whom?

Wait a minute...you said having property is an inherently flawed concept...yet there is a Precept of Buddha's not to steal another person's property.

tmottes

The worst graffitti is when people carve their names or whatever else in living trees or historical/natural sites. I haven't ever understood that. Even as a kid when I saw that, I thought, why would somebody ruin that for everybody else?

Vincenzi

Yeah I want to set up camp with my grill and have a party on the whitehouse lawn. Listen to grateful dead and drink beer. Cool man. :rolleyes:

that will boring parks more interesting! can I bring (potato) chips?

Vincenzi

I'll pick you up in the city garbage truck that I am borrowing for the afternoon.. We can dump out all the garbage all over the city as we drive. Hey its a free country!

I'd say this afternoon but I am busy chopping down all the trees in the city area outside the sidewalks since I need some firewood.

Next tuesday I am planning to paint the fire engine blue and all the cop cars pink and teal stripes.

I'm in for the pink cop cars! I will do the anarchist symbol (my variant) on black!

Paint it Black, Grafitti Edition

Jeffrey

It would be kinda fun to do this stuff hehe

Vincenzi

If it is not your property, then it is vandalism. (...)

the concept of property is inherently flawed, from a dharmic POV.

So, I can only assume that you don't own anything?

Yeah, right.

some papers say that I own some stuff... either by the 'gov or by corporations (buying ticket)

search "gift economy".

Vincenzi

One of the five precepts: not steal

who took what from whom?

Wait a minute...you said having property is an inherently flawed concept...yet there is a Precept of Buddha's not to steal another person's property.

maybe @Dhamma Dhatu was right, some concepts are really "advanced dharma".

thinking about property, thinking of self (not understanding anatta), fueling greed

better; people use stuff... let 'em be; no one really owns a thing, yet it is in a way shared.
for it to be shared, there must be good will and empathy... if there isn't, a "don't steal" precept won't help much (that society).

and... property as currently understood (plz, I don't like spoon-fedding)... in this era it is about MONEY and GREED; not about who actually uses or needs the materials (food anyone?).

give me the precept in pali btw... and a real translation.

"don't take that which isn't given" Isee: gift, ahimsa, and the act of using violence to take something)

Vincenzi

The worst graffitti is when people carve their names or whatever else in living trees or historical/natural sites. I haven't ever understood that. Even as a kid when I saw that, I thought, why would somebody ruin that for everybody else?

that's harming a living organism... not grafitti. a knife isn't really art media...

Vincenzi

a Graffiti is essential putting color in an artistic way, in a public space... you are not taking the wall from your neighboor... just doing him/her a gift, if he/she doesn't like then just paint it over!

Jeffrey

Vincenzi I'm not going to argue this with you this is a silly indulgent thread in my opinion.

Vincenzi

Vincenzi I'm not going to argue this with you this is a silly indulgent thread in my opinion.

indulgent? why will you think that?

Amelia

@Amelia my favorite was a guy who did big chalk drawings on public ground/sidewalk/road based on various shadows. Not exactly vandalism since there is no destruction. It may have been Banksy.

Here is the interesting paradox: graffiti is vandalism and destroys propery-- people should refrain from doing it.

But if people refrained completely from doing things like that and followed all the rules all the time, there wouldn't be any great street art like that which Bansky produces, among others. There wouldn't be any of that memorable and shocking stuff...

Mr_Serenity

It's very simple to think about how graffiti is harmful when you think of it this way. Imagine you wake up and you're about to go to work and you discover red graffiti has been sprayed all over your car or all over the sidewalk leading up to your door. How would you feel?

There is nothing good about it when it's done on someones property without consent. The only good graffiti is the kind that is done with permission and is actually very artistic.

vinlyn

Here is the interesting paradox: graffiti is vandalism and destroys propery-- people should refrain from doing it.

But if people refrained completely from doing things like that and followed all the rules all the time, there wouldn't be any great street art like that which Bansky produces, among others. There wouldn't be any of that memorable and shocking stuff...

Not necessarily true. I've seen graffiti-style art painted, covering exposed walls on the sides of building, with permission.

Vincenzi

It's very simple to think about how graffiti is harmful when you think of it this way. Imagine you wake up and you're about to go to work and you discover red graffiti has been sprayed all over your car or all over the sidewalk leading up to your door. How would you feel?

There is nothing good about it when it's done on someones property without consent. The only good graffiti is the kind that is done with permission and is actually very artistic.

...it really will depend on what was sprayed.

I may leave it, or buy a new black spray paint and paint it over. (Paint it Black!)

Yishai

It's very simple to think about how graffiti is harmful when you think of it this way. Imagine you wake up and you're about to go to work and you discover red graffiti has been sprayed all over your car or all over the sidewalk leading up to your door. How would you feel?

There is nothing good about it when it's done on someones property without consent. The only good graffiti is the kind that is done with permission and is actually very artistic.

I'm sure the rebuttal here would be "who is doing the feeling?"... "who really owns the car?"...

I mean, I understand the wisdom of Buddhist principles. However, society doesn't function like that because society is still commonly attached to stuff. They are attached to their car and things and "property". So, if I were to go out and graffiti somebody's property, that is negative karma. I mean, I just caused suffering to somebody who is attached to their "property".

It's like someone setting a home on fire. Then you go up to the family who owned it and say "Don't worry, property is a bad concept. You never really owned that house. We just allowed you to have it. Also, don't be attached to your material wealth. It is all impermanent anyway. The arsonist was just wanting you to enjoy the flames as he does, a gift."

:rolleyes:

Vincenzi

@Yishai

a non-violent lection of anicca, that's grafitti.

Yishai

Go tag someone's car or house. See if somebody suffers from it. That's all. You need not look past that to find the ethics. That's all I'm saying.

Vincenzi

Go tag someone's car or house. See if somebody suffers from it. That's all. You need not look past that to find the ethics. That's all I'm saying.

I reserve the "right" to do grafitti... unless I think it will harm someone?

what are people, softies? can ppl really be so... repressed as to not allow someone using painting over some random piece of stone?

Yishai

I thought this was about ethics, not rights.

tmottes

This really is a silly thread, either you get permission or you aren't being ethical. Doesn't mean property laws are fair, doesn't mean it can't be art, it just means that the only ethical place to graffiti is your property or somebody elses with permission. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Vincenzi

I thought this was about ethics, not rights.

do you know, that ethics is personal?

grafittis are not against my ethical system.

Vincenzi

This really is a silly thread, either you get permission or you aren't being ethical. Doesn't mean property laws are fair, doesn't mean it can't be art, it just means that the only ethical place to graffiti is your property or somebody elses with permission. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

you don't know the meaning of ethical.

ethical is part of philosopy, it is what YOU think is the right thing to do. it is personal.

maybe it is inmoral, and unlawful. but it isn't unethical for some people.

so, anything that is opposed to whatever you think is right is "unethical" and silly?

Yishai

So... this really is a silly thread. You obviously think graffiti is ethical. We do not. Anything else? Just looks like you are looking for an argument.

tmottes

@ Vincenzi

What is Ethics?
Developed by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer

Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following:

"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."
"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."
"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."
"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."
"I don't know what the word means."

These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.

Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.

Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.

Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.
Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.

What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons.

Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

This article appeared originally in Issues in Ethics IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987)

Revised 2010

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html

Discussing one's own ethical standards is pointless unless they are looking to change their ethics or just learn about your. When we discuss ethics in public, we are referring to the first definition in the essay above.

@Yishai I am going to have to agree, this seems like fishing for an argument.

@Vincenzi I have to thank you because while I was writing a number of responses to you, none of which felt right and subsequently been edited away. I realized that I was actually letting you control my behavior. I won't be continuing to comment on this thread or the one that spawned it.

Jeffrey

If spray painting somebodies stuff is not harmful then I should be able to drag somebody out of bed, shave their hair, and tattoo their entire body without their consent.

Vincenzi

So... this really is a silly thread. You obviously think graffiti is ethical. We do not. Anything else? Just looks like you are looking for an argument.

black and white, dual... how buddhist of you.

Vincenzi

If spray painting somebodies stuff is not harmful then I should be able to drag somebody out of bed, shave their hair, and tattoo their entire body without their consent.

that is just STUPID.
a living body is sacred... a piece of stone delimiting your ego isn't.

lol

Jeffrey

why is a living body more sacred than a possession? buddhism says the self is not form

Its your arbitrary opinion BOTH that the body is sacred and possessions are ego. Your opinion is not shared by most of society. I would say the foundation of society pretty much is property. Have you ever heard the expression "possession is 9/10 the law?"

Yishai

Where do you draw the line Vincenzi? When does graffiti go to far?

Vincenzi

why is a living body more sacred than a possession? buddhism says the self is not form

Its your arbitrary opinion BOTH that the body is sacred and possessions are ego. Your opinion is not shared by most of society. I would say the foundation of society pretty much is property. Have you ever heard the expression "possession is 9/10 the law?"

well... if there's possession, then some is public, some is semi-private and some private... can we at least agree on this?

Jeffrey

sure and the public set down laws regarding what consitutes vandalism.

Vincenzi

sure and the public set down laws regarding what consitutes vandalism.

the only law i follow is ahimsa.

Yishai

sure and the public set down laws regarding what consitutes vandalism.

the only law i follow is ahimsa.

Well, that means lies and deceit, emotional abuse, harassment, vulgarity/profanity, hard drugs, endangerment, theft (of all sorts) and adultery are a.o.k. Go and screw every man's wife(just rufie them if they don't want it), snort some crack, drive recklessly, rob a bank(make sure not to actually hurt anybody), embezzle some money, steal somebody's car, tell somebody you'd like to @#$% their @#$%^, show them your @#$%, tell your family you're dying so you can get some sympathy and attention. These actions aren't ethically wrong anyway. The "social justice system" may frown upon you, but at least you have no guilt!

Now maybe you can classify the harassment and such as violence (on an emotional level), but that still leaves hard drugs, adultery, endangerment, theft, and some forms of deceit, right?

And if you classify non-violence as not hurting feelings then that means that graffiti is off limits.

Jeffrey

well the cops are only following ahimsa when they fine you or haul you in the station to protect the public property.