Maybe Osama’s Right About One Thing

Osama bin Laden has a habit of telling the West what’s wrong with us. One of his recurring accusations is that we are an immoral civilization.

In his November 24, 2002 “Letter to the American People”, Osama states, “You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom.”

I think Osama’s a terrorist murderer who needs to be hunted down, but I have to admit he has a point–and nowhere has it been made more clear to me than in an advertisement in today’s Seattle Times for “Bodies-the Exhibition”.

In case you haven’t heard of it, “Bodies-the Exhibition” is a traveling show that displays actual human bodies, preserved via a process called “plastination” which replaces human tissues and fat with polymers. The bodies are skinned, which displays the underlying muscles, fat and tissue. It might seem the exhibition could be educational from a scientific standpoint, except for two things:

1) The bodies are unidentified or unclaimed corpses from China. None of the people whose bodies are now on display gave their consent.

2) The show is being marketed like an art exhibit. The bodies are displayed in different poses, such as kicking a soccer ball, playing basketball, and even conducting an orchestra.

It was bad enough when Damien Hirst created a sensation with his prize-winning art showing dead animals in formaldehyde, but this is far worse. The bar has been raised. What’s next - live murders while art connoisseurs watch “the cutting edge of performance art”?

When the exhibition of human corpses is seen as art, it is a sign of an ill civilization.

Further reading:
“Cadaver Exhibition Draws Crowds, Controversy in Florida”, John Roach, National Geographic, August 29, 2005

”Who is Running Man?”, Kevin Graham and Bill Duryea, St. Petersburg Times, July 28, 2005