Butting Heads For Banksy

The man at hand is famed British graffiti artist Banksy, known for his high profile murals and political stencil work across the Western world. Many consider him to be an archetype of modern guerilla art and many others call him a vandalizing menace to society. Today, these two authors will be the judge.

The first author basically states in the thesis that Banksy is a breath of fresh air in the modern art world and that although it's considered highly controversial, his work is something to be admired by the art community. This contrasts to the other article in that the other focuses primarily on the fact that his work is vandalism and it should be frowned upon whether or not it has intrinsic political messages. They both use his sculptures and more dangerous pieces as evidence of their claims. The main difference is that one finds it morally acceptable and the other finds it morally wrong.

The opposing article is more opinion-based while the supporting article is more formal and written more as a critical review in a paper instead of as an opinion article. The opposing one uses beliefs on the final say of the law as a tool to paint Banksy as a criminal and the supportive emphasizes beauty and meaning to justify the illegal nature of his work. They both make their claims meaningful by showing the mainstream support they have on each side of the issue. This just further goes to show how split the public is on Banksy and how interesting of an artist he is to our 21st century culture.

Both positions have good points, but I find that the opposing article lacks the background information necessary to prove their points compared to the supportive which has two references to statistics and a quote by famous graffiti artist, Futura. My opinion between the two articles is not only that the Banksy-supportive article is more validated, but that the overall ideas of the supportive article make more sense than the opposing article which, although scholarly, only is able to use legality as a tool and not other options available like saying Banksy is too offensive for the public, that the murals distract drivers on the road, or that it tells other advertisers that they don't need to pay to have their messages brandished outright in public.

I would say that they relate perfectly to my blog's audience because they both touch on the issue of perception. Some of us perceive the law to be the most sacred ruling of morals and some of us perceive the rest of the world to be the most important judge of ethics. I believe these assumptions are appropriate because they lean more towards inferences than assumptions.