— If I am a Small God, then I must forbid something to my followers
— Forbid broccoli
— Why broccoli?
— I don’t know, everyone does it
Terry Pratchett. “The Last Hero”
Recently, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law prohibiting the storage of pornography. Now simply possessing images of naked women and men makes you a criminal. The fact that such a law was passed is so revealing that it deserves special attention.
This story actually touches on several different problems, which is precisely why it matters. Let us briefly examine them in order of increasing generality.
The Usual Practice of Political Persecution
Let me be clear upfront: I know nothing about the current legislation supposedly intended to “regulate” pornography distribution. I am writing about this not because I am “for” pornography, but because the measures supposedly meant to restrict it are, first, incapable of doing so and, second, restrict something entirely different from their stated purpose.
I should remind you that it started with a law prohibiting the storage of pornography. The very fact of such legislation should arouse alarm and indignation, since it is perfectly clear it was adopted to facilitate political persecution. It does not matter what the state decided to “prohibit storing” — pornography or plastic dolls. What matters is that if they “find” items deemed incorrect, you will be guilty before the state. I hardly need explain that “planting” pornography on your computer or phone is a fairly simple matter for those who know their way around. After all, domestic practice easily permits them to seize your hard drives, record their own content on them, and present it as evidence of your guilt. File creation dates can also be manipulated with a certain level of skill.
Until now, weapons and drugs — planted during searches — have served as universal evidence of guilt. Pornography differs from these items in its ubiquitous nature. I suspect it can be found on virtually every computer. Check your browser cache — there are definitely images of appropriate content there. And they are there not because you are a pornography enthusiast, but because you simply cannot avoid suitable advertising if you use the internet. Your browser kindly saves graphic files from visited pages in the secret hope that when it next encounters the same image online, it will load it from your hard drive (which is fast and simple) rather than, like a fool, downloading it again from the network. This simple technological feature, which not all computer and internet users are aware of, already makes us all guilty before the state.
Here we see clearly the significant step our state intends to take — moving from selective to total control over citizens. The method is simple: choose something everyone does but that is difficult to defend (ah, so you’re for pornography), prohibit it, and make everyone guilty. We are all, as in Soviet times, “under article” — it is toward this convenient state of affairs that our dear state aspires.
It is amusing to accuse plumber Vasya of storing weapons and drugs. But he most certainly has porn. And if plumber Vasya suddenly begins showing excessive social activism, such porn can easily be found on him or planted, and everyone will believe it because they also have it. This is what totality of control means.
Put simply, unlike in recent times, when the state feared itself or overly active individuals (and to fight them it needed weapons and drugs, as universal evidence), now it fears all of us. On one hand, this is a good sign. On the other — we must finally understand that if they are so afraid of you, then you do indeed matter.
The Subject Itself
Now let us discuss the subject matter. Honestly, I do not quite understand what pornography is. If it is something vulgar and disgusting, then I cannot agree that sex belongs in this category. I am surrounded by far more disgusting and vulgar things — television, advertising, and our politicians, for instance.
Moreover, having sex is natural, otherwise the Lord in His wisdom would not have equipped us with the appropriate apparatus and would not have provided us, unlike other mammals, with constant rather than seasonal libido.
Finally, let us consider this angle — what bad things can so-called pornography actually compel a person to do? Engage in “intimate relations” with another person? So what?
Yes, I do have complaints about pornography. They consist in the fact that the people filming it have sex coolly, without passion. From their faces, it is evident that they find this work boring and exhausting and are more concerned about “did I park my car correctly” and “did I forget to turn off the iron.” Such pornography is certainly unnecessary and must be condemned by society.
Fighters Against the Sunset
I hear indignant “moralists” saying something like “so what, you’re suggesting we legalize pornography?” This is a very revealing question that says much about how our people understand society to be organized.
The very essence of pornography presupposes individual consumption and corresponding private intentions. Pornography on billboards or in television advertising is a strange thing, contradicting the fundamental nature of this phenomenon. However, I am by no means suggesting something be “legalized” — I am asserting that certain things exist in society regardless of state activity. Pornography is “legal” — whether someone likes it or not — and exists precisely in the form in which people need it.
From the perspective of “moralists,” people are some kind of bio-robots that can be easily and casually controlled. They believe that if a person knows pornography is forbidden, then he at least will not… not what? Here the logical sequence usually breaks down. Not watch it? It should be obvious to anyone that you cannot assign a police officer to each person. Not watch it publicly? Well, without any state prohibitions, that does not happen anyway. Society copes perfectly well with self-regulation tasks, determining what is decent and what is not.
According to “moralists,” a person is restrained only by state prohibitions. Such a person is simply waiting for them to be lifted. That is, in their view, when such prohibitions are removed, people will immediately rush to do what was previously forbidden to them. In our case, this apparently means that “moralists” believe everyone will rush to watch pornography day and night. I have a question — what is stopping us from doing this today? Do not the prohibitions of the state give the internet, with its megatons of absolutely free pornography, a good answer to this eternal question about the role and capabilities of governments. Today, despite all existing prohibitions, pornography is more accessible than ever. And nothing terrible is happening.
In any case, even if in some people’s opinion something terrible is happening, state activity cannot affect this phenomenon in any way. In fact, we see here a typical shirking of responsibility — an attempt to shift onto the state questions it is fundamentally incapable of solving. After all, vulgarity and rudeness result from poor upbringing and public indifference. They are the result of the actions or inactions of specific people. No “laws” can replace this.
The Moral State
The next point. Suppose pornography is bad. Suppose even that everyone agrees with this. The question is — does the state have any right to stick its nose into problems of this sort?
“morality” is a rather vague substance. And not so much in the content of its norms as in the way its functioning mechanisms exist. However, morality in any case relates to the individual. Moral and immoral acts can only be committed by individuals; neither society nor, heaven forbid, the state can be “moral.” What is true is that morality can arise and exist only in society, as a system of assessments and rules for its participants. Morality, so to speak, has a recommendatory character. You may act however you like, knowing in advance that certain assessments exist of the methods and goals you intend to pursue.
Further. The assessments themselves and their applicability to a specific situation are almost always fluid and changeable. Someone considers a particular action moral, while someone else considers it immoral. Morality is a living, constantly changing phenomenon. That is precisely why it works. It is an important tool that compels us to constantly evaluate our behavior and adapt it to the behavior of those around us, to ponder “what is good and what is bad.” Such a tool by definition cannot be rigid.
This is one side of the problem. The second is as follows. Of course, they will tell me that there are moral problems requiring state protection. For example, theft of property or murder — these are also moral problems, but they are considered crimes and are punished by the state. The question is not whether pornography can and should be equated with murder; the question is somewhat different.
First, “morality” applies to completely different situations, and there exist varying degrees of consensus in society regarding moral assessments of these situations, or no consensus at all. Almost any problem can be examined from a moral perspective. Regarding murder, one can say that there is sufficient consensus; regarding alcoholism, such consensus is much weaker; and regarding abortions in our society, there simply is none. However, we have agreed to proceed from the assumption that everyone considers pornography bad. Does this mean that the state has the right to prohibit it?
Here “secondly” comes into effect — actually, the most important circumstance I would like to mention. The thing is this. Usually moral imperatives, regarding which there is consensus, have a restrictive form. “Thou shalt not kill,” “thou shalt not steal” work precisely because they indicate to us what we cannot do, and moreover, in relation to other people. After all, you simply cannot abstractly kill or steal. There will always be someone specific who will suffer from such actions. Unlike these norms, the norm “don’t watch porn” does not actually restrict a person but prescribes to them what kind of person to be. This norm contains no other people and their interests; it goes beyond morality and is a direct instruction dictating behavioral norms. And the most frightening thing is that this prescription comes from the state.
It is amusing that certainly among the authors of this law are many people who consider themselves “true Christians.” But this very law is anti-Christian and anti-moral. It proceeds from the assumption that the state, not God, is the ultimate authority in the realm of morality, not to mention that it denies the free will of a person — precisely that which made Christianity so popular.
Between “don’t do this” and “do that” lies a chasm. It is precisely these things that distinguish free societies from unfree ones. All totalitarian and fundamentalist states without exception are “moral.” They dictate to their citizens what is good and what is bad. Just the other day in Iran, opposition newspapers were banned. I think pornography has long been prohibited there.