Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Mrs. Warren’s Profession: George Shaw was a Bad Man and Shavianism a Fraud

Mrs. Warren’s Profession: George Shaw was a Bad Man and Shavianism a Fraud

Last updated on: October 28, 2016 at 10:27 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Mrs. Warren’s Profession: George Shaw was a Bad Man and Shavianism a Fraud 2016-10-28T10:27:45-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Shaw: a degenerate with the right enemies.

George Bernard Shaw, a workmanlike writer who offended all the right people, had a play open in New York City on this day in 1905 that dealt with prostitution “frankly.” If the play had not been closed the next day, nobody would recall this mediocrity, but banned it was.

Why?

It offended public morals.

Note that it was banned for commercial production to which the general public was seduced into paying for an amoral sermon with the lie that is was “frank.” And the bigger lie that it was entertaining. Mr. Shaw and his friends were free to produce any play they wished in their own homes, but frankly Shaw and his partners wanted to change the morals of the general public to find a right to their vices while making bank doing so. They used liberty as an excuse to advance libertine morals.

Of course, anybody who wanted to know about the exploitation of girls and women for money only needed to go down the street and take a look. People who wished to do so did. Some of those people, like the Salvation Army, wanted to help. Other people wanted to exploit and Shaw was content to use these women in a new way for money miking and left nobody with more information on prostitution, just a night’s titillating entertainment.

Good luck finding a defense of New York’s modest defense of their moral order. Lazy intellects declare Shaw the hero and New Yorkers boors. Nothing is so unpopular in the United States just now as obscenity laws unless it is Donald Trump. There is no use wasting political time arguing for them and I shall not. It is worth asking, however: “Why are we sure that censoring the arts is so bad?” We are not talking about political speech.

If Shaw wanted to write a play arguing that present laws about the arts and obscenity were bad, he could have done so. Americans rarely have argued for censoring political speech, but then Shaw would not have made money on a political argument.

There is a long tradition that says that a city will have to censor the arts to maintain adequate public morality. Plato argues for censorship in his “city in words” in Republic and every country, even the most liberal, censors something. There are things that cannot be published in the United States of America right now and few people would wish them to be published. The question is not whether to censor for public morality, but what to censor.

If you want a society where sex is reserved for marriage, then popular money making entertainments that undermine this public virtue are bad. Why shouldn’t they be banned?

Our experiment with nearly unfettered Internet porn certainly has had an impact on public morality. What if Americans don’t like what it has done to us? Is it wonderful that fifth graders have access to what they have access to? Is it good for grownups? These are hard questions to even ask, because the assumption is always that the questioner is for oppression. Of course, in 1905 most Americans thought the libertines were for pollution of the public mind (which would change the public mind). They were willing to ban a play (and then dismiss the case) in order to uphold a standard.

Few have any sympathy for the people of Boston or New York who wished to live as they lived and essentially none of those people are in positions of public influence. Public morals have changed, but I doubt “arguments” have changed them. What has? I would suggest widespread consumption of entertainments that condone those behaviors are plausibly connected.

Suppose one thinks (based on reason, revelation, and experience) that many of the changes are bad. Doesn’t that make the people of New York in 1905 seem a bit more reasonable? I think so, but if you want to be banned in a New York school now try making those arguments! You will not make it a day.

The best argument, and the one that persuades me, against censorship of the arts is my distrust of “big government.” I would not trust federal censors at all. I am, however, very sympathetic to local or regional arguments for censorship. Should France be able to keep the French language from being overwhelmed by English language entertainment products? Should Nigeria be able to protect her way of life against cultural imperialism?

I am not sure, but I do know this. Making heroes of men like Shaw is bad history, bad reasoning, and bad morals. If a Christian defended Hitler, we would all rightly condemn him, but Shaw defended Stalin and papered over his mass killings. Shaw was a moral degenerate, but Shaw wrote a “frank play” on prostitution that got banned in New York so his defense of mass murder by a leftist does not remove him from hero status. Arguing for sexual freedom will (in intellectual America) produce a pass on defending a mass murderer. So is the rest of the world to be swamped in our dreck as we head into decadence?

What can the rest of the word do to protect against a dying culture that still owns the broadest broadcast ever known?

This is a hard problem. How can India protect herself from Hollywood morality if India wishes to do so?

On the whole, liberty works, but then certain forms of immorality undermine liberty making women and men less capable of managing their own affairs. Letting a man choose to become a meth addict is letting him make one choice that will prevent him from making most other choices. Letting people make money peddling immortality (as a culture defines immorality) will change the morals of the consumers.

I suggest no answers, just this: Christians should, at the very least, recognize that we (as individuals) are not going at deciding what is good for us. Somethings once consumed change us. If there exists wild eyed censors (Harry Potter will fill us with demons!), then I have met bizarre Christians who have the opposite mission. Said one Christian educator to me: “My goal is to show every Christian young adult attending my program that it is ok to say b- .”

Jesus evidently died so he could teach kids to indulge in crudities.

Shaw wrote some very good plays, but managed to also produce a great many bad plays. He wrote and wrote with an unerring instinct to love dictators as long as they loved him. His moral influence was awful, but nobody has a good word to say for his critics if they are not named Chesterton. Maybe it is time somebody said a good word for the plain people of New York in 1905 who looked at the rogue and said: “No, thank you.”

Let’s at least think about it.

——————-

Read it here. Good luck.

For fun read this line aloud:

PRAED. Well, you must have observed, Miss Warren, that people who are dissatisfied with their own bringing-up generally think that the world would be all right if everybody were to be brought up quite differently. Now your mother’s life has been—er—I suppose you know—

Well, as Reagan famously began an amusing quip, you will observe that people who think that playwrights who put “er” in their scripts are second only to Shakespeare are people who think Stalin a fine fellow.

Art

Culture

Previous Post

October 27, 2016

We Have Beans: That's Enough

Next Post

October 29, 2016 Now that Trump has Lost: Let's Unite

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In what city was Jesus born?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Nazareth Capernaum Jerusalem Bethlehem

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »