Heretic TOC – Page 23 – Not the dominant narrative

Is truth, beauty? Is beauty truth?

4 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / April 12, 2013 April 12, 2013

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty” – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. From Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats Do we agree with Keats? Can we even say what he means? I am inspired at least to attempt it by Jedson’s thoughts on how we should judge art, an issue we are moved to ponder now that artist Graham Ovenden‘s work is being condemned and censored. Jedson said, “I question the idea that aesthetics is the only criterion by which we should judge art (which I suspect is your position [i.e. Heretic …

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Police are the only art critics who count

19 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / April 8, 2013 April 8, 2013

News that the Tate gallery was removing the work of a leading artist from public view following his conviction for child sex offences made headlines globally a week ago. The sense of shock in the art world was palpable following the downfall of renowned painter and photographer Graham Ovenden, whose sensuous images of prepubescent girls have been critically acclaimed but also the subject of suspicious police attention for decades. No wonder the arty types are stunned: suddenly, they find themselves rudely demoted by the Tate’s implicit acknowledgment that when push comes to shove the police and the courts are the only …

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Masters of our fate, captains of our soul

10 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / April 4, 2013 April 4, 2013

Power. That’s what it’s all about, insist the bad-mouthers these days. The abuse of power. At one time they would bang on about the “innocence” of childhood, but that doesn’t play too well when talking about kids into a double-figure age or their early teens. Bullshit. It’s not about power, it’s about the physical dimension of love, which inspires benevolent and nurturant feelings. That’s always been my response, based mainly on my own introspection and knowledge of really nice guys who are attracted to children, and a few women too. But a few inconvenient realities have been insinuating themselves into my …

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History by numbers from Sir Diarmaid

17 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 30, 2013 March 30, 2013

In response to Silence and shame at the Sheldonian, Clovernews commented: …it seems to me that Church teaching was historically more about the preservation of the virtues of unmarried girls rather than ‘child sexual abuse’ as such. Those challenged to quote anything about the matter from the Bible usually fall back on the one about people having millstones hung around their neck and thrown into the sea if they ‘offend one of these little ones’ [Luke 17:2] – clearly ‘offend’ can mean anything you want it to, especially after 2000 years, and in any case scholars think that passage refers to recent …

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Silence and shame at the Sheldonian

16 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 27, 2013 March 27, 2013

Is silence in the face of great wrongs always shameful? If so, Heretic TOC should plead guilty. By that demanding standard I should have howled the house down at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford last week. I should have “caused a scene”, “demonstrated”, hurled thunderous, passionate execrations, pointing an accusing finger at the stage, and at one man who occupied it: Sir Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch, University of Oxford Professor of the History of the Church, winner of numerous prizes for his many books, presenter of the “landmark” BBC TV series A History of Christianity. Ironically, he was there to talk …

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Bring me the head of Meirion Jones

18 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 23, 2013 March 23, 2013

“I “I want to see heads roll at the BBC. Not trustees, or the Director-General, token sacrificial lambs. I’ll start with the despicably dishonest Meirion Jones. On a pike. Outside BBC headquarters.” – Anna Raccoon blog, 26 October, 2012 When Meirion Jones emailed me early last month, asking for an interview, I was intrigued. Here was a guy, as I soon discovered, with a big reputation as a top flight TV documentary maker, winner of the Daniel Pearl Award for his investigation of Trafigura’s toxic waste dumping in Africa and star of numerous other genuinely important exposés. Yet he was the …

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Researching MAPs: the B4U-ACT initiative

30 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 19, 2013 March 19, 2013

Glen Lamb, Science Director of B4U-ACT, sets out in this guest blog for Heretic TOC the difficult challenge of encouraging better research on minor attracted people. He describes his organization’s developing work in this field and how it relates to differing elements of the MAP community. Because of previous discussions about B4U-ACT on this blog, I wanted to clarify B4U-ACT’s approach and explain some differences between our approach and VirPed’s (Virtuous Pedophiles). Because I am B4U-ACT’s Science Director, I will do this by focusing on the political difficulties in promoting better research on minor attracted people (MAPs), how we are working …

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Inspiration from history for the Holy Father

20 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 15, 2013 March 15, 2013

Buona sera, Pope Francis! Or should it be buongiorno at this time of day? Whatever! You should be OK if you stick to being kind to animals, nursing lepers, and all that, like, good, stuff your sainted namesake did. Oh, yeh, and the poverty, chastity and obedience thing: fine if you practise it, not so great if you preach it. We can do without poverty, thank you very much, and as for the other two, no way, Francesco! Now St Francis of Assisi, like many of Christianity’s most impressively holy devotees, was never actually ordained as a priest. Just in case …

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Mickey and Maria make out in kindergarten

24 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 11, 2013 March 11, 2013

Gail Hawkes, who co-authored the excellent Theorising the Sexual Child in Modernity with Danielle Egan, responded last month to Heretic TOC’s Being a predator is child’s play. She requested, “I would love to read some of your comments or translation of the Norwegian book.” Well, how could I refuse? My response has been a bit slow off the mark, but perhaps I can make amends by throwing in that Danielle Egan has a new book out this month, Becoming Sexual: A Critical Appraisal of the Sexualization of Girls. The title sounds conservative, but a review in Times Higher Education suggests otherwise. …

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If cardinal sinners and lordly lotharios float your boat…

4 Comments / By Tom O'Carroll / March 6, 2013 March 6, 2013

Britain, I fear, will soon sink beneath the sea under the sheer weight of sex abuse claims made in the wake of the Savile affair. The first great tsunami, late last year, rolled across the land in the form of hundreds of allegations against Savile himself; hard behind, a roiling tide fast engulfed fellow celebrities – singers, comedians, concert promoters – and a major inquiry into “historic abuse”, implicating senior figures “at the heart of government”, crested the waves of excitement. Now, in the last few weeks, new allegations in all sorts of unexpected shapes and sizes, like the crazily miscellaneous …

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