gdanmitchell
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 Petroglyph Thefts - Ethical Questions for Photographers | |
There is a huge difference between posting a photograph of a thing and posting specific information about where it is located and perhaps directions regarding how to find it.
I posted a photograph of petroglyphs with my original article at my blog to make just that point - it is possible to share photographs of things in ways that don\'t really endanger them. (If you do know where that one is, please do keep it to yourself. I\'m certain that I\'m not the only person who has been there.)
Again, there are interesting argumentative strategies at work in this thread, and they often are employed when people don\'t want to face the objective facts about a thing.
One such argument is the \"there are worse people in the world\" argument that I wrote about earlier. There are multiple problems with that argument and it is easy to see through the person who uses it. First, until we descend to the level of the very most despicable and immoral person in the entire world, this argument works. Do we really want to go there? Secondly, if one wants to argue based on the behavior or others, it is equally valid and a whole lot more productive to perhaps argue on the basis of \"there are better people in the world\" and attempt to meet the standard set by admirable people rather than disgusting cretins. Third, either way, the argument attempt to side-step the objective facts of the situation and is essentially a distraction for those who don\'t want to face the core question.
I call the second argumentative strategy \"posing the absurd to argue for another absurd.\" We see that in the posts suggesting that the only moral stand is to never make or share photographs of things that are threatened. There a multiple problems with this argument, too. First, it presupposes that there is some \"perfect\" moral position in all cases and that it can be achieved - and both notions are fantasies. Second, it ignores that possibility that some knowledge of a thing can increase awareness of it and perhaps change minds in a positive way without threatening the thing. I earlier used the example of the photo-journalist who might tell the story of a person or people who are in danger if too much is known about them, with the goal of making their story known - in which case the photojournalist may well photograph them in ways that hide their full identities and not identify them by name or other specific information. With the treasures that we are speaking of here, it is possible to show these things and raise awareness of their value by means of photography and writing the speaks to this value and the importance of protection them... and to do so without revealing information that endangers them. A photograph of a petroglyph shot in the depths of a canyon and not including any visual or text information about the location will not help the bad guys find it.
Finally, there is another false argument in this case that holds that by telling everyone where the valuable things are they will somehow be protected. It is true that there is no perfect protection for these things or for anything else in this world. A determined person can find anything eventually. You can lock your valuables in a safe and not tell people about them, but that is no perfect security. However, it is patently obvious that if you not only announce that you are a rich person, that you keep all your wealth at a specific address, and encourage people to go there and check it out... the result is predictable.
As in so many things, neither the black nor the white explanation are the best in the end. Things are complex, including the balance of between locking things up and encouraging the whole world to see them. They cannot be entirely locked up, but doesn\'t mean that it is good to completely expose them - and because too much exposure is clearly not a good thing, this doesn\'t mean that no exposure at all is the only option. But in these cases, little good is served by sharing more information than necessary about things that are largely protected by their inaccessibility and the difficulty in finding them, especially when more accessible examples are easy to find in places where some degree of real protection can be and had been provided, albeit imperfectly.
Dan
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