PORN FOR 6-YEAR-OLDS TOO MUCH EVEN FOR SWEDES

But no penalty for the porn-peddler, of course

Stockholm's Dramatiska Institutet broke a range of further education regulations rules when it ran an arts project in which a group of 6 year old pupils were exposed to pornographic material read from a novel. The National Agency for Higher Education has delivered its report on the "school porn scandal" which erupted in January this year and its criticism of DI (the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre) is damning. The children had been invited to participate as the audience in the project, entitled "Love & Sexuality". They were filmed as they provided feedback on the students' work.

While the accompanying teacher was out of the room, a male student from DI read from a text which graphically depicted "two small girls" having oral sex while a woman watched. Re-entering the room, the children's teacher interrupted proceedings as soon as she heard what was going on - some 5-7 minutes after the reading had begun.

According to the National Agency for Higher Education, DI had not asked parents' permission before filming the children. Nor had there been any analysis of the potential effects on the children of such a controversial topic - as is required by the UN's convention on the rights of the child.

Before the children's participation in the project, DI sent a letter to schools explaining the theme and stating that experts from Save the Children would be present in the classrooms - which they were not. The agency described as "noteworthy" the fact that DI had not given schools an accurate description of the conditions under which the project would be run. "My hope is that the National Agency for Higher Education's thorough investigation and proposals will be a great help to Dramatiska Institutet's continued work and will minimise the risk of anything like this happening again," wrote Sigbrit Franke, the head of the agency, in a press release.

DI has until September 30th to provide a response to the report, including an explanation of how the failings will be dealt with. Astrid Assefa, the chairwoman of DI's board, told Dagens Nyheter that even an arts school must have routines which provide suitable protection. "At the same time, you can't allow for the fact that someone might overstep the mark," she said. No action has been taken against the student who read the pornographic text.

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Diversity and Divisiveness

An interesting post lifted from Bill Vallicella, the non-Italian-American philosopher

Liberals emphasize the value of diversity, and with some justification. Many types of diversity are good. One thinks of culinary diversity, musical diversity, artistic diversity generally. Biodiversity is good, and so is a diversity of opinions, especially insofar as such diversity makes possible a robustly competitive market place of ideas wherein the best rise to the top. A diversity of testable hypotheses is conducive to scientific progress. And so on.

But no reasonable person values diversity as such. A maximally diverse neighborhood would include pimps, whores, nuns, drug addicts, Islamo-headchoppers, Hell's Angels, priests both pedophile and pure, Sufi mystics, bank clerks, insurance salesmen, people who care for their property, people who are big on deferred maintenance . . . . You get the point. Only some sorts of diversity are valuable. Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal claim on our respect.

For example, one may value a district which is home to a diversity of restaurants (Turkish, Thai, French. . .), but only if they are all good restaurants. A diversity which includes ptomaine joints, greasy spoons, and high-end establishments is not the sort of diversity one values. Or one may value a philosophy department in which a diversity of courses is on offer, but not one in which the diversity extends to the competence levels of the instructors or the preparedness levels of the students. One wants excellent instruction on a diversity of topics - but that is just to say that the value of diversity must be kept in check by the competing value of unity: the instructors are precisely not diverse in respect of their excellence.

Diversity unchecked by the competing value of unity leads to divisiveness. For this reason, one ought not 'celebrate diversity' unless on is also willing to 'celebrate unity.' And this is precisely what too many liberals and leftists cannot, or will not, comprehend. They unreasonably emphasize diversity at the expense of unity.

Compare the unreasonable overemphasis on diversity with the unreasonable overemphasis on liberty. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth of late in liberal enclaves over the evil John Ashcroft's assault on our civil liberties. Liberals make the same mistake here that they make in the case of diversity: they fail to appreciate that liberty and security are competing values each of which requires the other to have the value it has.

If you have followed me this far, then take action. Support English as the official language of the USA and oppose the deleterious idiocy of bilingual education. Celebrate unity and the conditions of its flourishing all the while respecting the competing value of diversity. When libs and lefties spout off on how precious 'diversity' is, balance their claptrap by underscoring the value of unity.