Ill-considered

I was glad to hear that OJ and his pseudo-murder-confession book and TV special got cancelled yesterday. In the middle of the flap about it, there were concerns raised about this unprecedented move by a publisher to pull a deal because of ‘content’ (as opposed to legal – plagiarism – issues.) And an interview on the news this afternoon had someone reasoning that maybe the publishers realized that they weren’t going to make much money on this book considering that they were probably going to have to spend a lot of money in legal fees defending multiple law suits over it. Actually, the official cancellation statement said that they thought that the project was ‘ill-considered.’

I thought so too. But I’m surprised that it got ‘censored’ anyway – a criticism that will surely be leveled against that decision in the coming weeks. I’m not especially for censorship, but I know that many, many books never make it to sales because they are just simply bad ideas. Surely this should have been one of them.

In any case, I’m curious about the whole ‘legal’ discussion. Mostly I’m not sure how ‘legal’ considerations play into this subject at all, at this point. Here is a man who is commonly acknowledged as a murderer, but ‘got away with it.’ His situation embodies my feeling that it isn’t really much a matter of guilt or innocence any longer – what is ‘legal’ is mostly a function of back room maneuvering, semantics, technicalities and how much money someone has to throw at a ‘problem.’ Segments of the population think that it’s all OK though. In this particular case it seemed to be OK because the prosecutor’s hairdo was weird, and a policeman made racist remarks, and blacks in this country have had a raw deal and on and on. By all accounts, OJ is out there living a marvelous life, making public appearances, signing autographs, and golfing most of the time. (Yes, he has been arrested several times for his violent temper, but there haven’t actually been any consequences for that either.) He lives in Florida because that state’s laws protect his fortune from being awarded, in damages, to the families of his victims, even though a court said he was liable.

And then he negotiated a deal with a publisher to tell how he murdered two people. That’s entertainment. And, some would say, a First Ammendment Right.

The publisher seemed to think this would be OK, with the simple reasoning that OJ couldn’t be tried for the same crime twice, so they were all still off the hook. There was money to be made. But now it is suggested that maybe there wouldn’t be that much money because they’d likely have to spend a lot in legal fees to ward off lawsuits over it. Notice that this opinion didn’t include any suggestion that maybe they wouldn’t be able to ward them off – just that they’d have to throw a lot of money at them – and it might not be profitable in the long run. So now it turns out to be 'ill-considered.'

Legalities are never going to get us to ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ moral or immoral, sensible or not. There is no legal definition for ‘appropriate’ and not much of one for ‘common sense.’ ‘Bad taste’ or ‘giving offence’ is OK as long as it doesn’t have racial slurs – but if it DOES have racial slurs there is hell to pay.

Gee. Maybe this whole posting was ‘ill-considered.’