This story is a beautiful example of how human diversity can flourish pluralistically on a foundation of strong property rights without the universal billy-club of the Leviathan police state hovering over everyone's heads. Censorship is constantly touted as the correct path to prevent the moral disintegration of society. It is liberally applied in many countries around the world. Obviously, the only way to stop pornography from eroding the social structure is to use the punitive power of the State to banish it. But it turns out that not only does using the power of the State fail to improve social mores, it actually fails to achieve its own ends. Child pornography is a great example of this. As with the war on drugs, the State has completely failed to stop the spread of child pornography. Worse than failing, the State is often a distributor of such illicit material in sting operations. And the temptation to use its stash of child pornography in more devious ways must be irresistible to the "wet work" types in the intelligence agencies; blackmail, extortion, framing or even outright dealing.
But there is an answer to the ills of society. The answer is not more tyranny. The answer is not more minimum wage drop-outs feeling people up at the airport. The answer is not more SWAT teams. The answer is not invading more countries. The answer is not raising the minimum wage or expanding the government schools or paying teachers higher salaries. The answer is to allow people to settle their own disputes according to the prevailing, local legal customs. The answer is to break the back of the monopoly on dispute-resolution. The answer is to spread the ideas of peaceful society, property rights, free exchange. The answer is to Mind Your Own Business unless you're willing to spend your own money to do something about it.
Note that the singer and the farmer parted ways on friendly terms. He's free to set the rules for the use of his own property and she's free to dress how she likes on her own property or with the permission of whoever's property she is on. When did we forget that this is how society works?
Clayton -
What kind of local custom would be against hot naked womenz like Rihanna?
@John Ess: Well, I think if you look at history in any depth beyond the developed world ca. 1960s to today, you will find that female modesty is the rule in all but tribal, societies in the tropics. So, it is the modern, developed world that deviates from the norm on this point. You can call it "progress" but I think this is prejudicial, we don't know yet whether it is, in fact, progress or not.
In any case, my real point wasn't about social norms but about private property. Even if this farmer was located square in the middle of Beverly Hills and he later changed his mind after seeing Rihanna undress, it's his property and the two of them can reach an amicable disagreement so long as everybody respects everybody else's property rights. Rihanna's body is her own so she can clothe/disrobe as she sees fit without "society" interfering so long as she is on her own property, on unowned property (e.g. the ocean), or on someone's property who consents to her state of dress or undress. It's a two-way street... so long as she has permission from the property owner or happens to own the property or be on unowned property then no one has any business interfering wth her use of her body however she sees fit, regardless of social norms. If someone is permitted to interfere with her exercise of property rights over her own body in the name of social norms or mores, then we have socialism in its embryonic form. Similarly, for someone to interefere with this farmer in the exercise of his property rights in asking Rihanna to stop filming is also engaging in socialism. The decision over the use of his field is not a collective decision any more than her decisions over the use of her body are collective decisions. The farmer has the final say in the use of his field, Rihanna has the final say in the use of her body and pluralistic society is absolutely possible with the rules of private property.
I believe this is a point that libertarians should stress more strongly. Consider Maddow's painful interview with Rand Paul where she harped and harped on whether he would vote for the Civil Rights Act. The implication of the line of questioning is that libertarianism is inherently prone to sectarianism, segregation, oppression and moral absolutism. Nothing could be further from the truth and I think this story vividly illustrates the point in a microcosmic way.
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I don't think there was any demand by the society to get rid of naked women. So nothing was really solved, except one person's preference.
And if your preference is based on property rights, it can't have a preference one way or another: topless or 'modest'. Since either can be the case. And hence nothing was solved through the action. Except one person's preference.
if she didn't comply, he would turn to the state to arrest her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9colletage
Titties have a long and proud history in the West
female modesty is the rule in all but tribal, societies in the tropics
This is not true. There is plenty of evidence of female "immodesty" throughout history. What do you call all of those medieval religious paintings with reclining naked women? In the ancient Greek cultures of the Minoans there was a matriarchal society where women walked around bare-chested as a sign of power.
History is full of naked people. It's just recently we've taken an aversion to public display of nudity (at least looking at this from the macro level; I do not know the thoughts of a 14th century French farmer)
Some of the art from later times attempted to emulate the Hellenistic period, where the nude form was symbolic of beauty. Of course those were young, good-looking nudes and not your typical person. At least that's art. How folks went around town is a different story.
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but Greco-Roman society seems to have been much more tolerant of nudity than contemporary Euro-American society. For example, people routinely went naked in the public baths. Wearing clothing outdoors seems to have had more to do with hygiene than with modesty back then.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Well, I will try one last time to drag this thread back to my point in the OP - social mores are beside the point. For example, I saw a clip of an Irish journalist saying "The whole world is laughing at us because of this." Even if it were true, what a silly thing to say. It's not like Ireland passed a law prohibiting Rihanna from shooting her film scantily clad in an open field. An individual property owner simply asked her to move on when he disagreed with her usage of his property. She could have asked another property owner but apparently chose not to. This is no different than agreeing to let someone use your phone then asking for the phone back when you overhear they are trying to arrange a meeting with a prostitute. That doesn't make a laughing-stock of society, it just means that you don't want your phone used to arrange an illicit encounter. And the point of noting this is that civil, decent, orderly society emerges from this, from the negotiation between property owners over how they will or will not allow their property to be used.
Anglo-American sex issues arising from false and hypocritical Victorian "morality" should not be confused with the general problem of female modesty. The practical reason for female modesty is rape-prevention. The feminists can hyper-ventilate all they like over "blame the victim mentality" but the fact is that women dressing a certain way in the public thoroughfare in most of the world through most of history has either meant you're in the business of selling sex services or you're stupidly painting a target on yourself. I don't think we really know how the Grecian or Roman woman walking down the street dressed. Bear in mind that statues are no indication and that there is a significant difference between the lifestyles of the wealthy noblewoman which we are more likely to find in the history books and the lives of women in the rabble in the streets.
Perhaps it is telling that Athenian women were rarely in the streets at all, and that an Athenian man could legally murder someone found sleeping with his wife. I'm sure these customs were not uncommon across many ancient societies.
John Ess: What kind of local custom would be against hot naked womenz like Rihanna?
Obvious market failure. Quickly, someone call the government!
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
@Muffinberg: ROFL, I just had to generate a meme for that...