It's Easter. So what real harm can one little cross do, after all? | David Mitchell | Comment is free | The Observer
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When I heard that Piss Christ had been vandalised, I instantly thought of Cock Jesus. More of Cock Jesus later. In case, like me, you hadn't heard of Piss Christ, let me explain that it's an artwork – a photograph, taken by artist Andres Serrano, of a plastic crucifix submerged in his own quite orange urine – maybe he'd just had a Berocca. Last weekend, some devout Christians attacked Piss Christ with a hammer.
I say that's just a continuation of the artistic process. By creating a new work, Shards Piss Christ, these extremist Catholics made a profound artistic statement about Piss Christ's desecration of holy imagery by themselves violating the sanctity of the gallery. It's a devotional work worthy of comparison to the Sistine Chapel.
I hope the process continues. Shards Piss Christ could, say, be pelted with excrement, making Shit Shards Piss Christ. That could be shoved in a bin bag, making Bin Bag Shit Shards Piss Christ. Someone might be sick on that, creating Vomit Bin Bag Shit Shards Piss Christ.
It need never end. This captivating dialogue between the most provocative elements of the contemporary art scene and the hooligan wing of the Church of Rome, this great clash between two such fundamentally annoying groups, could one day result in the eclipse of The Mona Lisa and Hamlet by Explosion Threshing-machine Pig's-alimentary-canal Toilet-bowl Inhaled-then-sneezed-out Set-on-fire Vomit Bin Bag Shit Shards Piss Christ, mankind's most provocative masterpiece.
Which brings me to Cock Jesus. About 10 years ago, Robert Webb and I wrote a sketch based on the daytime TV show Watercolour Challenge, in which the peace of the sleepy contestants, staring at hillsides and dabbing at easels, is shattered by the presence of a "shocking" modern artist. To his consternation, the programme's presenter refuses to be provoked, reacting to even his most horrific blood-, death- and swastika-strewn imagery with a patronising: "Well done, that's very pretty!"
In the first draft of the sketch, Cock Jesus was his final attempt to shock (it never appeared in the broadcast version for reasons of budget, taste and decency). It's a statue of Jesus, he explains, "made out of the amputated cocks of dead Anglican vicars whose bodies I've been illegally exhuming for the last six weeks!" "Ooh, I do love angry art," coos the presenter as she moves on to the next contestant to advise on a quick way of doing clouds.
Cock Jesus and Piss Christ have more in common than penises and the Son of God. Their artists, real and fictional, both craved conflict and, only in the fictional case, was the craving left unsated. In real life, someone, unlike the indulgent presenter in the sketch, always reacts. But I don't think those who protested against Piss Christ, who insulted the artist, sent hate mail to the dealer, protested outside the gallery or finally attacked the work itself, were duped. I think they've succeeded in their aims as much as Serrano. It's the rest of us who are the mugs for dignifying these squabbles with our attention.
I've come to a similar conclusion about the case of Colin Atkinson, the electrician whose employers have told him to stop displaying a palm cross in the van he drives for them. For a while, I got sucked into trying to work out the rights and wrongs. Is the heavy-handedly pro-Atkinson line taken by the newspaper reporting the story correct? Is it genuinely "political correctness gone mad", as George Carey was tempted out of retirement to say (There's a phrase that might catch on – he's got the gift of the gab, that guy), and "one rule for Christians and another rule for followers of any other religion", as Ann Widdecombe broke off from rehearsals to add? Or has the employer got a point? Or maybe the employer hasn't got a point and it's just my contrarian response to that newspaper which is making me look for one? After all, what harm can a little cross do?
Then I thought: "Hang on, I know what might be going on here. Maybe everyone involved in this dispute is awful." It would explain a lot. Most people, if they're not very religious and see someone displaying a cross, would think anything from: "Nothing wrong with that" to: "Mental note: this guy's a bit of a God-botherer – don't get stuck with him at a party." It takes quite a leap of self-importance to decide: "I'm going to put a stop to that!"
Equally, when told by their boss to stop displaying a cross in their van, most people's response would be somewhere on a scale between immediately acceding to the request and complaining before giving in because it's really not such a big deal. Taking it all the way to a disciplinary procedure and talking to a national newspaper is the mark of an unusual man. But is he principled or just stubborn? Righteous or self-righteous? Would it be a better world if everyone was like that?
God, no! It would be a much better world if no one was. The only role for people like that is to stand up to each other. You need the unbending Churchills to save us from the mass-murdering Hitlers but, with no Hitlers around, the Churchills are annoying as hell.
The media's obsession with conflict means that we're confronted with it so relentlessly that we've stopped questioning why it's there in the first place. We ask: "Which side is right? Who do I support?" but not: "Do they really need to be arguing about this? Why is so much of our time taken up listening to small minorities who are incensed by other small minorities rather than the vast majority who just want to rub along OK?"
When watching the news, it's so easy to forget what most of us are like: pleasant, polite, socially shy. We don't want rows, we want a quiet life. We feel inadequate because we don't protest and argue more – we don't stand up for ourselves. And, in feeling that, we forget that the sort of people who do stand up for themselves are cut from the same cloth as the sort of people you have to stand up to.
It's a tyranny of the argumentative, an unholy alliance of the unholy and the holy, of the extreme right and the extreme left, of Stars and Stripes-burners and Qur'an -burners – people who define themselves by their mutual hatred, have a jolly good time doing it and leave the acquiescent majority running around in circles trying to pick up the pieces.
Well, I'm not going to take it any more! By which I mean, I'm sure it'll work itself out.
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