NCJ Number
200440
Journal
Critical Criminology Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: 2002 Pages: 1-20
Date Published
2002
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study revealed the significance of power, hierarchies, and social inequality as factors that drive criminalization campaigns aimed at controlling avant-garde flag art and political dissent.
Abstract
The focus of this study was a content analysis of the comments made in a ledger book by individuals who attended the 1989 art exhibit in which Dread Scott unveiled his work entitled, "What is the Proper Way To Display the U.S. Flag?" The exhibit, which was presented at the Art Institute of Chicago, placed the American flag on the floor of the gallery, a display that incited public outrage. As a form of interactive art, the artists invited visitors to record their thoughts about the flag in a ledger provided at the exhibit. More than 1,600 comments were recorded in the book. Despite a notable degree of support for the artist and free expression, the comments in the ledger revealed considerable adverse reaction to avant-garde flag art, as it was often viewed as an affront to American patriotism and civil religion. Such public outrage over Scott's flag art in Chicago was not an isolated phenomenon, however; rather it was related to other moral panics over flag desecration and avant-garde art that was occurring nationwide. These findings suggest that authoritarianism, which involves espousing a rigid respect for authority and its symbols of patriotism, nationalism, militarism, and civil religion, is firmly rooted in American culture. Such values maintain a society that tends to shun antiestablishment expression, and in so doing upholds hierarchies that marginalize voices of dissent. This constitutes evidence that "the criminalization process then is that cultural process whereby those in power come to define and shape dominant forms of social life and give them specific meanings" (Presdee 2000: 17). 5 notes and 87 references