The Ethicist

[sknowles]

<p>Did anyone read Randy Cohen's column Sunday (11/23/08) about someone photographing students at a party in a public place, see <a

href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23wwln-ethicist-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=&st=nyt&oref=slogin">article</a> (may

require login account). We're now unethical too.

[BrianS1664879711]

You forgot to tell the real reason for the issue being "ethical or unethical". Cohen would have been more right if he just said that the guy was a "jerk" rather than refering to his actions as an "irate reaction from a camera-happy quasi official on a Saturday night."

[sfcole]

I actually sat down to write a response, but lost interest. My viewpoint was, after having endured living on frat row in

several university towns--U.W Seattle, Florida State, etc.--was that rowdy student parties do indeed deserve the title of

"scourge." My guess is Cohen either has never had to live with it day after day, or was a frat guy himself. From the parties

that started on Thursday and lasted till Saturday, to people urinating off the balconies, to the garbage strewn all over the

sidewalks, and of course the constant noise all night, life near large groups of partying students is indeed a scourge.

Forget the photography--maybe in these times, colleges, parents, and students will start to realize that students need to get

more for their money than a constant (and to everyone else, irritating) drunken despoilment of the commons.

[charlesheckel]

These young people are at least of age, and need to take responsibility for their public deportment like everybody else. Mr. Cohen seems to think of himself as an arbiter of morality, and that title is certainly worth all the clout he actually has to enforce his morality. Why listen to him?<p>

I'll bring up an associated problem from my own experience. In my last two years as a middle school teacher, students engaged in an activity they refer to as "freaking." They did it at the dances, so I suppose one could call it a sort of dance, but the old-fashioned term is "dry humping," and the boys were walking off the dance floor with spots on their pants from frottage against their partners' clothed vulvas. This was not taking place in the back seat of a car or under a rock, but in public with sixth graders looking on.<p>The "chaperones" were not looking on--they were carefully taking back seats and channeling Helen Keller, as the parents of the freakers would not support them and the freakers themselves would undoubtedly find a way to retaliate--"don't snitch," as their blinged-out rap idols would say. It occurred to me that one solution to the problem would be to videotape the dances, much as school buses are videotaped routinely, which would provide a deterrent and an objective record of the activity in question. <p>Unfortunately, there is a vaguely worded statute in my state against child pornography which prohibits any sort of photo or video of any minor that a judge may deem of a sexual nature, which does not exclude that minor's public deportment. I think there's a difference between protecting minors and protecting the public sexual activity some of those minors feel entitled to engage in, but unhappily it is not reflected in the law.<p>The problem doesn't end there--the PE teachers started finding condoms around the periphery of the field that year, and in my last year it escalated to the point that my principal had to cordon off the lunch area to keep the kids from shambling into the bushes for a noon quickie. It didn't help much with the problem of the morning quickies, but it was at least a sashay in the right direction. It's not one middle school, but a nationwide problem, and it's spreading into the elementary schools, where a small coterie of fifth grade girls are sneaking into the boys' restrooms for oral sex, which they think they just have to do "so the boys will like you." It's a pity we're scared to death even to look at the problem.

[sknowles]

I wrote an e-mail to Mr. Cohen and got a response. Somehow he thinks the photographer is the problem, especially when

it's a fomer city official. I asked hm if he or the student(s) would be angry if another student had taken and posted the

images, or a journalist doing a story on the extent of student partying? I thought it was interesting he expressed

photographing the rowdy party in a public place was unethical. Next time I do street photography, I'll wear a t-shirt with,

"Please excuse this photographer. He left his ethics at home."

[matthew_newton]

I just don't see what the ethical quandry is. If you behave in a manner that most people would consider inappropriate and someone happens to capture it on still or video then it certainly isn't unethical on the part of the photographer/videographer. Even as a 'young person' you should realize that your actions have consequences. If you like to do keg stands as a college student and you are throwing pictures of yourself doing that on facebook or some other website where the photo could be accessed you should realize that a future employer could access it. Or you should realize that if you are partaking in lewd or rowdy behavior at a party where you might have someone take a picture of you and post it somewhere that there could be consequences someday.

 

The only two things that I could see being questionable or unethical is either A) The activity in question and if the activity is then B) The person negatively evaluating that activity as a metric for hiring or retention.

[BrianS1664879711]

"I just don't see what the ethical quandry is."

 

It is the apperaent abuse of power, not the act of photographig or photographers. The guy who is postin ghte pictures is "taking matters into his own hands" rather than calling the cops... and using his civic position to add weight to his curbside justice-style solution. That is what Cohen seems to be responding to.

[BrianS1664879711]

"I asked him if he or the student(s) would be angry if another student had taken and posted the images, or a journalist doing a story on the extent of student partying?"

 

What was his answer?

[craig_gillette]

I don't think there is too much of an "ethical" issue. There may be a "knowledge" or "maturity" issue. Does he

somehow find this different than the kind of photography we see all the time n things like TMZ or tabloids? Is

the problem that these are college students? We hear from academics and sometimes those with limited(?)

followings outside of academia, that colleges are places of wisdom and learning and that these students have the

solution to the world's problems in their hands. Colleges have become a place where selective freedom of

expression is tolerated and active repression of opposing positions is accepted. Now we see that along with the

wise, we have the boors. Of course one has to wonder why that is a surprise to anyone, even in academia.

 

Strange (maybe not?) that the solution suggested by an ethicist or academic or journalist, whatever he or they

are, is not to deal with the actual behaviors and the problems it causes but to argue that the one who makes it

more public is the problem. Perhaps someplace, somewhere, someone forgot or never learned that other people

don't have to accept their behavior. People aren't obliged to be tolerant.

[phyrpowr]

The photographer is a FORMER official of some small sort, no civic position. If you're in a public place, you can be photographed then put on the net, tough, live with it. If you're embarassed by your actions, quit 'em.

 

The photog's problem, to these people, is that he's not young enough, and his site isn't "way cool awesome, dude"....typical thinking for adolescents, ridiculous and disturbing in a supposed adult "ethicist"

[jennifer_spencer]

The article clearly states his position as to how he'd have felt if it wasn't a former city official:

"Even if an ordinary citizen posted the pictures, that, too, would be unwise. In our youth, we all did things at

parties that we would not want published in the newspaper."

He says it's too harsh.

 

I lived near the football stadium and a concert venue for my university for nine years. I can testify that there

are times when public shaming is the only way you can fight back against the way people behave when they think

they have license to "cut loose". When it's on your new car (vomit) or under your window (screaming racial

epithets), you can't sit back and chalk it up to "just unwise youth". When the Grateful Dead would play the

venue - we had hashish, nudity and communes in VW buses on the corners for weeks, but at least the followers were

relatively mellow. The angry bands attracted a worse sort of crowd that often vandalized and robbed.

 

I think that a picture is pretty harmless in comparison to what a lot of people might do. If those rowdies get

to party in the name of "free speech" then the photographer can publish under the same rights. What's good for

the goose is good for the gander.

[charlesheckel]

Well, we should all look at the bright side--if problems like these continue to be blown off, they're nowhere near as bad now as they're going to be.

[lex_jenkins]

Cohen seems to have dashed off that column with all of his brain tied behind his back. Professional journalists

continue to inspire me by revealing how shallowly they can plumb the depths of pop culture and sociology. Cohen

is yet another timid spelunker fretting over the potholes of civilization, convinced he's in his depth.

[elyone]

I have done a similar ting once. There were some punks making noise with their girlfriends under a building I once lived in. I did not want to start up with them and calling the police would take a long time.

 

I simply took my camera and and good old SB26, no film even, went down an started to click/flash them. Boy did they run.

 

That article is dumb. He is essentially admitting that taking photos might be an effective way to punish those who act that way. It might be the ONLY way!

There is NO excuse for that kind of behavior and NOT everyone acted like that in their youth. As usual, the ones who act 'bad' are apologized for, no matter how much they disrupt the surroundings.

 

Think of soldiers who join up at 18, and do college later on, when they are usually married. No crazy parties for them. What about all the people who had to work their way through college and never had time for parties. etc etc.

[roger krueger]

The job interview thing is the lowest point of his stupidity. If there aren't names attached, how exactly is the prospective

employer going to find it? Duh. I suppose if you're someone already of public interest an anonymous photo might get

republished with your name attached, but for anyone else the chances are zero out to several decimal places. People get

screwed on stuff they post themselves, pics their traceable-via-social-network-site friends post, not random anonymous

pics.

 

Cohen strikes me as one of these ivory tower sorts so surrounded with polite sedate older intellectuals he no longer has any

connection to how the rest of the world lives, yet gets off on pontificating about segments of society that may as well be

Martians for all he really knows about them.

 

He also has that liberal confusion of equating "nice" with "ethical". Shooting and shaming is hardly a nice thing to do to

someone. Neither is sending them to prison when they commit a crime. But I see zero ethical problem in either case. Ethics

is about fairness and honesty, not niceness. I'll take a fair, honest asshole over a sweetness-and-light crook any day of the

week.