Modelling ethics

General Discussions
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Wow, scale model building is much more controversial than the average passer by would think. It’s been amusing watching this conversation degenerate from the question first posed in the OP. I’d never heard of the “Cancel Culture” movement, although I am aware of it’s occurance, in American society at least. I was born and raised in the deep south and I know some that beleive “The South will rise again”. . . seriously?!
I imagine there’s a study group in a room somewhere full of Human Behavioral Scientists tracking this forum getting all excited watching the lights blinking on a console with metering devices clicking away and one of the white coated fellows shouting “they’re at it again!”.
The essence of the question, as I understood it, was, “does it bother your conscience that you build models of killing machines?” . . .
For me the answer is yes . . but I don’t obsess over it, I do what we all do, I set boundaries and make a concious decision not to build such and such.
The thing is, it’s just human nature to appreciate or admire power, whether it’s a Topfuel dragster or an F9F Cougar we marvel at the dominateing power of it.
I have an associate at work that gets particularly condescending when I mention anything about tanks, (he knows I’m a modeler), I was explaining one day that not all tanks are tanks and in the conversation I commented on the massive bore size of the Sheridan’s 152mm main gun, “it’s the size of a coffee can, can you imagine?”, well he gave me a disdainful look and we went about our way. Another day we were talking about hand guns since he likes to go to the range every now and again and I said something about a chain gun and exclaimed “how the heck does that thing chamber, fire and eject a round that fast, well he’d never heard of a chain gun and dismissed my comment, so a few months later we’re each at our desks in adjoinig offices and suddenly he blurts out “dayum!”, I answer back " what’s up?”, he say’s “come look at this!” . . . turns out he stumbled across a video of the DIVADS (?) naval air defence weapon and was simply enthralled by the lightning fast operation of the gun, and I’m like “yeah, similar to a chain gun”.
Sooo anyway . . what was the question?

LOL, love you guys :face_with_hand_over_mouth:
Cajun :crocodile:

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83

To revisit your original question, my short answer is, no. Having said that, though, I would qualify my answer by saying that I don’t model some things simply because the ethics of the situation concerned. That is, I have zero interest in say, building a diorama depicting a firing line of people engaged in ethinic or racial “cleansing.”

However, I would point out that there are numbers of examples of dioramas that do depict people engaged in horrific acts which have been created explicitly in order to protest those acts and events. The builders intentionally chose those subjects with the purpose to communicate the horror and terror of those historical events with the viewers.

(I’d send anyone interested to search the internet for photos of, say:

Rick Lawler’s “Burden of Sorrow”
Bob Tavis’ “Strange Fruit”
Bob Tavis’s “Zoot Suit Riots”

And there are others, like my friend Daniel Buchmeier’s recently completed diorama of Korean “Comfort Women.”)

I would suggest considering the point from another perspective, that is, modeling as an art form intended, like all art, to convey a message, emotive or otherwise, from the creator to the viewer.

It’s the motives of the artist that have an ethical quality, not the mere subject of the work. If the model artist’s message is unethical, then the art could be considered unethical no matter the subject. The opposite would be also true. If the model artist’s message is an ethical one, then even a depiction of the most horrific or acts and events would be ethical.

The viewer may be uncomfortable, and perhaps he or she might find the subject or its depiction distasteful, but the ethics of the model artist are not inherently wrong because of that. In fact, creating those emotions in the viewer might be the intended purpose of the modeler.

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84

I have similar credentials Cum Laud in my BA history major and a similar library on the subject.

“What is past is prologue”

All of history is interwoven. You cannot remove part of it as you would a recipe. Good or evil it is all what made us what we are. Trying to erase the parts you find unpleasant is a disservice to those who lived in that era. It also opens the door for ignorance to enable those events to be repeated.
Many of the statues being removed were key figures in the events. None were advocates of the underlying causes… ie… none created slavery.
Who you admire/glorify is up to you but forbidding the representation of both sides is an affront to history and liberty.
The Constitution makes no claim to protect anybody’s feelings.
If we are to bend to the whims of the vocal minority whose feelings are hurt… where does that end?
Keep in mind these forces are only present in the US and are hugely political in nature.

Finally, keep in mind that politics were instrumental in the development and construction of the actual tanks your model represents. Many a painting, photograph and movie depict highly unpleasant segments of our past. Should they be banned lest someone gets upset?

The South may include things you do not hold dear but it is all part of every Americans heritage.

Model what you want and don’t tell others what they should or should not model.

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85

Only to your final point, don’t know if that what was directed at me or a summation of the thread but I never, not one single time in all this, told anyone what they should or shouldn’t model.

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86

General summation. The OP was concerned with which subjects were appropriate in modeling.
My opinion is there is no guideline for private concerns. Public exhibition is only limited by local public decency laws… assuming there still is such a thing. Given current behavior I fear they are a thing of the past.
Model what you want but nobody is required to like or even approve of it.

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87

I read that last sentence as directed to all model builders.
Live and let live sort of.

88

Back to the original question:
Any object can be used for an unethical purpose so whatever we choose to model could in theory
be questioned as being unethical.
It is almost always possible to find a dark connection for any object:
stick, stone, knife, cross, bonfire, frying pan, flatiron, table, car, train, ship, human figures, …

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89

Even busty anime girls riding tanks?

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90

You’ll get burned at the stake if nipples are showing.
Murders, shootings and killings are OK but show a female nipple and your soul will be condemned for eternity.
Around here a bared nipple barely raises an eyebrow or two …

Edit: the most common reaction would be a yawn, followed by ‘Who cares’ and then ‘What’s on the other TV channels?’

Back in the early 1990’ies H&M had an advertising campaign in late November and December trying to sell fancy ladies underwear, The model was Anna-Nicole Smith. The reaction is Sweden was: Yeah? So what? OK, she looks nice.
In Norway, our closest neighbour country, they banned the advertising campaign as a traffic security hazard …
The reaction in Sweden to the Norwegian reaction was: :rofl: :rofl:

Use Google translate on this:

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91

. . . well, around here it would raise more than an eyebrow heh heh.

And down the rabbit hole we go.

Cajun :crocodile:

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92

Hopefully they’d be painted better than some crossed eyes we’ve seen/done.

93

Jeez; I’ve been tempted to add to this but upon reflection, can any thread suck the life out of the hobby more than this one?

Could we not get back to such thorny problems as sanding gun barrels, or identifying the correct shades of British Army Blanco, or “100 uses of stretched sprue”?

94

Funny how so many movies exist taking place in Nazi concentration camps. And anyone remember Mel Brooks’s movie “The Producers”? Even people of the WW2 generation found that funny.

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95

Would you have the slightest idea about how many unethical models could benefit from
some stretched sprue.
Would it be an ethical or unethical gun barrel?
Shades of Blanco could be OK but shades of grey would be ‘danger close’

Edit:

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96

Movie critic Richard Roeper did laugh at the objections to the depiction of the extreme cruelty of Christ’s crucifixion when so many more movies show violence, bloodshed, and torture.

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There was also: To be or not to be

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There were a number of movies made about Nazi Germany before the Holocaust officially took place.

99

Mel Brooks did a bunch of movies that would cause all kinds of outrage if made now.
Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part 1, Robin Hood Men in Tights…

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The scene when Robin returns to his castle, only the foundations remain, and finds the blind servant reading Playboy for the Blind

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Being outrageous is not enough. A number of his movies were simply not good, such as Life Stinks.