Principles
Do you remember the movie Indecent Proposal ?
A husband and wife bought their dream home together, with the assistance of a huge mortgage. When recession hit, they stood to lose everything they owned, so they went to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money, but lost it all. A millionaire (played by Robert Redford) offered them a million dollars for a night with the wife.
So the wife (Demi Moore) abandoned her principles for the sake of getting out of debt, and of course it all went horribly wrong, and the marriage fell apart.
Moral of the story: Principles are more important than money.
So the theory goes anyway.
Twenty years ago, I used to be a woman of principles, an ardent feminist who certainly would never dream of allowing a stranger to tie her up (for the sake of art, or any other reason). Geez, I was so much against the oppression of women (and the oppression of anything really) that I refused to carry a handbag because I felt it was a symbol of oppression. I was also a morally upright supporter of Greenpeace, a vegetarian (of course), anti-fur, anti-animal testing, utopian loving, and the most politically stuck-up and correct liberalist you would find anywhere.
How on earth then did I end up being a 40 year old nude model, who allows strange guys to tie her up and photograph her ? Nowadays, I carry a handbag, I eat meat, support animal testing (for anti-aging and medical research) and I can tell you quite truthfully that I’d sleep with practically anyone for a million dollars (which would pay off my mortgage and finance my kids’ education very nicely thank you). Please note that if Robert Redford were doing the asking, I would almost certainly sleep with him for free (at least in his younger days).
So what the hell happened to my principles ?
It would be easy to blame it on my career. The problem with a background in law and accountancy is that you wake up and smell the coffee pretty damn quick. People lie about everything. The principles they tell you they have, are not their true inner-principles. People are defined by their actions, not words. You learn not to trust what people are telling you via mouth. The eyes are much more reliable at telling the truth – they are the window to the soul, as you photographers will know.
It would also be easy to blame it on my partner. Richard is the most intelligent man I have met. He is also breathtakingly honest. He never lies or cheats. And I mean NEVER. He sees straight through any principles you say you have, and questions the honest intentions behind it. It is quite exhausting living with someone like this, not to mention upsetting. Rich’s principle of “ Don’t ask a question if you don’t want a straight answer" (e.g. “Am I too old for studio nude modelling ?”) caused a few humdingers, I can tell you.
But the truth, the reason I ended up where I am today, is due to TIME.
Over time, I learned to see things less in black and white, and more in shades of grey. There are no straight answers to anything. Everything could be the opposite of what it appears, an illusion.
There are many problems with principles (if indeed, such things really exist). Being a lawyer, I know that you can argue white is the new black, and you can get away with it too. I have done it myself many times. It’s just technique.
Photography too is about making white seem to be the new black. As with life, a photographic image is not what it seems. You see whatever the photographer wants you to see, which may be genuine, or it may be an illusion. Is the woman tied to the bed actually pleasuring herself, or is she just faking it for money ? Does the fact that she is faking it for money make it any less principled ? She chooses her own limits, and she has her own price.
All principles have a price, and you can choose to change or compromise your old moral judgement, depending on whether you get a more attractive offer.
Also, you define how you see and judge something by your subjective reaction to it. In effect, you choose your own limits, and what you perceive as right and wrong.
Is that feminist really a feminist, or does she actually go home from work at night, and then do all the housework whilst her husband puts his feet up and watches t.v. in his own special “head of the household” chair, before he goes down the pub and she has to stay at home and look after the kids ? Every single damned night. What happened to that feminist I knew and loved ? No I’m not talking about me here. I’m talking about a friend of mine, who was once the most passionate feminist I ever knew and admired. What the hell happened ?
Life happened, as it happens to us all.
Principles are like Photoshop. They can change the original raw image to portray something completely different. You can choose different principles at any time, depending on how you judge the illusion of the photograph.
If all this seems unbearably depressing, just remember, you are the sum of your choices.
All principles can be bought. The question is, what is your price?
Kate, the upside down shot.
A husband and wife bought their dream home together, with the assistance of a huge mortgage. When recession hit, they stood to lose everything they owned, so they went to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money, but lost it all. A millionaire (played by Robert Redford) offered them a million dollars for a night with the wife.
So the wife (Demi Moore) abandoned her principles for the sake of getting out of debt, and of course it all went horribly wrong, and the marriage fell apart.
Moral of the story: Principles are more important than money.
So the theory goes anyway.
Twenty years ago, I used to be a woman of principles, an ardent feminist who certainly would never dream of allowing a stranger to tie her up (for the sake of art, or any other reason). Geez, I was so much against the oppression of women (and the oppression of anything really) that I refused to carry a handbag because I felt it was a symbol of oppression. I was also a morally upright supporter of Greenpeace, a vegetarian (of course), anti-fur, anti-animal testing, utopian loving, and the most politically stuck-up and correct liberalist you would find anywhere.
How on earth then did I end up being a 40 year old nude model, who allows strange guys to tie her up and photograph her ? Nowadays, I carry a handbag, I eat meat, support animal testing (for anti-aging and medical research) and I can tell you quite truthfully that I’d sleep with practically anyone for a million dollars (which would pay off my mortgage and finance my kids’ education very nicely thank you). Please note that if Robert Redford were doing the asking, I would almost certainly sleep with him for free (at least in his younger days).
So what the hell happened to my principles ?
It would be easy to blame it on my career. The problem with a background in law and accountancy is that you wake up and smell the coffee pretty damn quick. People lie about everything. The principles they tell you they have, are not their true inner-principles. People are defined by their actions, not words. You learn not to trust what people are telling you via mouth. The eyes are much more reliable at telling the truth – they are the window to the soul, as you photographers will know.
It would also be easy to blame it on my partner. Richard is the most intelligent man I have met. He is also breathtakingly honest. He never lies or cheats. And I mean NEVER. He sees straight through any principles you say you have, and questions the honest intentions behind it. It is quite exhausting living with someone like this, not to mention upsetting. Rich’s principle of “ Don’t ask a question if you don’t want a straight answer" (e.g. “Am I too old for studio nude modelling ?”) caused a few humdingers, I can tell you.
But the truth, the reason I ended up where I am today, is due to TIME.
Over time, I learned to see things less in black and white, and more in shades of grey. There are no straight answers to anything. Everything could be the opposite of what it appears, an illusion.
There are many problems with principles (if indeed, such things really exist). Being a lawyer, I know that you can argue white is the new black, and you can get away with it too. I have done it myself many times. It’s just technique.
Photography too is about making white seem to be the new black. As with life, a photographic image is not what it seems. You see whatever the photographer wants you to see, which may be genuine, or it may be an illusion. Is the woman tied to the bed actually pleasuring herself, or is she just faking it for money ? Does the fact that she is faking it for money make it any less principled ? She chooses her own limits, and she has her own price.
All principles have a price, and you can choose to change or compromise your old moral judgement, depending on whether you get a more attractive offer.
Also, you define how you see and judge something by your subjective reaction to it. In effect, you choose your own limits, and what you perceive as right and wrong.
Is that feminist really a feminist, or does she actually go home from work at night, and then do all the housework whilst her husband puts his feet up and watches t.v. in his own special “head of the household” chair, before he goes down the pub and she has to stay at home and look after the kids ? Every single damned night. What happened to that feminist I knew and loved ? No I’m not talking about me here. I’m talking about a friend of mine, who was once the most passionate feminist I ever knew and admired. What the hell happened ?
Life happened, as it happens to us all.
Principles are like Photoshop. They can change the original raw image to portray something completely different. You can choose different principles at any time, depending on how you judge the illusion of the photograph.
If all this seems unbearably depressing, just remember, you are the sum of your choices.
All principles can be bought. The question is, what is your price?
Kate, the upside down shot.
posted by Lin at 1:44 PM
5 Comments:
Very nice, informative post. Your life is very interesting. Most funny: you are a (recovering) attorney. Me too. (I'll be outing myself in a future post, so you get an exclusive preview here.) That fact colors so much how I (we) see the world.
Stephen
well, thanks for that explanation about principles and where they go.
i've found myself, quite a bit lately, asking what happened to my generation? where did they go? where's all those free-spirits who inhabited my youth.
like shit, life happens i suppose. at least i still keep my hair long... like that matters.
well spoken... and a wonderful image, BTW... wish I'd thought of it.
You got me thinking there Lin, and I’ve spent a while pondering this one. Where indeed does the “slide” in principles come from? I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a slide at all, more a qualitative shift.
We’ve been buddies for over 20 years, and with Rich almost as long. When we were young & at school, we went to a Catholic school where all in principles were unquestionable. So what changed?
In the field of formal ethics, there are roughly two main schools of thought, deonotological and consequentialist. The deonotologists are guided by ideas of rights & duties and for some these are considered absolute, such as the right to life. For consequentialists, obviously enough, it’s all about thinking through the consequences of a course of action and choosing accordingly.
I think that as we’ve grown older and wiser, as you observed, we shifted from seeing things in black and white to shades of grey. Equally, we shift from absolutes to working out the consequences of our actions. Many of those old black and whites were based on ignorance and inexperience.
In terms of sexual ethics, we grew up with absolutes where anything less than utter abstinence was breaking the moral code. Now, we see that things that we do with our bodies have consequences, but so long as nobody gets hurt, where’s the problem?
So I don’t think it’s about losing our sense of principles, or that everyone has a price. Absolutism in principles will always lead to judgements that increasingly don’t fit. But principles-by-consequences allows us to shift our notion of what is right and wrong according to the circumstances we find. That’s not copping out, its being mature and understanding that just as life is an illusion that varies according to how we see it, so responses have to be guided by context and perspective.
I don’t think I’ve become a less principled person, though how I respond to ethical issues may be very different now to 20 years ago. But letting go of absolutes frees me to be more compassionate to the circumstances I find people in. And working through the consequences of standpoints also frees me to debunk frauds who make unkind judgements of others based on absolutes that they frequently don’t live up to themselves.
So don’t mourn the loss of principles good buddy, welcome the wisdom of shades of grey that we get with the grey on our heads.
Grommit
Lin - thank you for posting this - it's brilliant and spot-on. I think about some of these points often. I think it's important to stick with principles on basic things, but to understand that things are NEVER completely black or white. I used to be a B/W thinker myself, and I've noticed the shift as I learn and "grow up".
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