Let's Compare

As a few of you probably know, to your complete lack of interest, there is another social media tempest under way. This one is slightly notable, because it has moved Magnum Photos to respond, which of course has the mob going insane like a bunch of koi going after a cookie. I think I have something to say that's not just stupid cat-fighting, though. However much I enjoy a stupid cat fight.

The crux of this thing is that a Magnum photojournalist named David Alan Harvey, who I had never heard of but is apparently a solid B-lister, went to Thailand in 1989 and took some photos of and around Bangkok prostitutes. These pictures ended up, in the fullness of time, in the Magnum photo archive. Some kind of tool went through at some point (fairly recent, the bootprints of "AI" are pretty visible) and added a bunch of tags to all the Magnum photos.

A few of Harvey's photos were tagged "prostitute" and "13-18" indicating that the tagger was pretty sure these were, in the current parlance, trafficked children rather than prostitutes. How old the young women were is anybody's guess. The loudest voices of course are sure that they (male, middle-aged, white, British) can easily tell the age of a Thai woman. One might cattily wonder, and I do, how they got to be such experts at judging the ages of Thai children. Magnum has fired back claiming that as far as anyone knows they weren't underage and anyways the nude ones were dancers not prostitutes.

Two things are clear. First, nobody actually thinks any of the photos broke any laws, despite cries to the contrary. The most strident voices have cheerfully downloaded the content, and have declined to call law enforcement, although occasionally they have expressed mock fear that now they own kiddie porn. Second, there's almost certainly some dicey material in these pictures. Were there trafficked children in Bangkok in 1989? Yeah, I'm pretty sure there were. There's a lot of unknowns here in the actual photos, but it is absolutely possible that these pictures contain depictions of women under 18 years of age, engaged in sex work.

This opens up a whole ball of colonial attitudes. We're seeing a lot of projection of Western attitudes on to other cultures here, a lot of judging by Western standards. Which is not to suggest that selling kids is considered A-OK in Thailand, I'm pretty sure it's not. But it's perceived differently in Thailand, and in India, and everywhere. Every culture has its own unique take, here. This I mention merely in passing as context-setting, as it were.

I am opposed to exploiting children. There is no ambiguity there. I hold the Western attitude, 100%.

Consider now the famous Eddie Adams photo from the American Adventure in Vietnam, in which General Nguyễn Kgoc Loan executes a bound prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém.

There is no ambiguity here, the photo depicts a war crime. The war crime being committed by an American ally was never prosecuted, naturally, but that it was a murder and a war crime is not really disputed. Again, we view this with a Western gloss. I'm not going to go full-Kipling here and say "Asiatics simply don't value human life the way we do" but there is almost certainly a bunch of Vietnamese specific subtext here. Still, I am confident that in Vietnam this is still murder, and still not OK.

So here we have two photos, depicting what are to western eyes terrible crimes.

There is no doubt that some people, including me, feel differently about these photos. Eddie Adams gets a pass, as a journalist. He was merely documenting the appalling truth of the world. The General and his men are implicated. Perhaps the USA is implicated. Eddie, though, was doing yeoman's work exposing the evils of War.

David Alan Harvey, also documenting what might have been crimes, apparently does not get the same pass. The social media mob is certainly set on destroying him, and if they can manage it, Magnum in the process. To be fair, though, I also feel the distinction although not to desire to destroy.

There are differences, of course, in the crimes. I am loathe to assert that either is substantially more horrific than the other, they're both pretty clearly in "that's very bad" territory. The character of the crimes is different, in that children are victimized in one and not the other. There is also the possibility, insinuated constantly but never stated and certainly never proved, that Harvey actually took part in the crime — it is possible he himself used the services of a trafficked child. Finally, Harvey's work may have produced pictures which it is a crime merely to own.

It is certainly true that Eddie Adams was helpless to prevent the murder he recorded. It is also true that Harvey was helpless to end prostitution in Bangkok, or even to liberate a single prostitute. Neither man had the power to prevent the evil they were recording. Did Harvey have more power to wreak good, somehow?

Adams was, I believe, surprised, and reacted almost by instinct to a rapidly unfolding situation he was helpless to prevent. Harvey was not surprised, he went to brothels on purpose, and likely stage-managed his shots. He is, if not actually implicated in the crimes, at any rate more hands-on, more involved. He is in the event, voluntarily, remains there, and likely adjusts it to suit his camera. He influences it, though he is just as helpless to put a stop to it. Is this the difference?

If the murder Adams witnessed had unfolded over a day, or an hour, and Adams had walked around and through the scene, recording every detail of it somehow, would we condemn him for it the way Harvey is being condemned, or would we view him purely as a journalist still?

I don't know the answers here, but there is something going on here.