good and bad and Henson

It has been made public that the school which allowed Bill Henson to scout for potential models was St Kilda Park Primary school.

Interestingly, St.Kilda Park has in place classes of philosophy for children. Presumably these are intended to be a model for the alternative to scripture classes in public schools that are often talked about, but rarely exist.

Assuming the principal involved believes in these classes, I would be interested to hear her philosophical justification for turning the school playground into a market place, and a market where apparently only 2 people knew what was going on. Also, I would be interested to know how she sees the role of the children in this case. Are they meant to be active learners, or are they regarded as objects to be organised and arranged by the "artist"?

Another interesting aspect of this case is the discussion about Henson's photos themselves. There has developed a distinction between

1. pornography
2. erotic art
3. just plain art

I don't know where this distinction came from, it seems to have appeared in the last 10 or 20 years in order to justify the existence of "adult" magazines in main street newsagents. I think the supporters of Bill Henson claim that his photos can be classified as 2 or 3.

Now, I'm not sure whether the philosophers from St Kilda Park could explain the distinction between these. I suspect they would base it on whether anyone is harmed by making the images. As far as I know, Christian theology would also consider the harm people can do to themselves by obsession with these images. Before the fall, we were "naked and unashamed" (Genesis 2) but now we have to take care that we see others as made in the image of God, not just a physical object to be looked at.