[Attalus]

The definition of art that I would go by is: 1.Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. 2. the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
3.The study of these activities.
4.The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

The old Victorian question used to be: "It's pretty, but is it art?" Now we turn it on its head and ask, "It's brutal and sickening, so is it art?" I would submit that it is not. The problem that I have with your definition, Heirophant, is that any sensory stimulus afffects parts of the brain, and thus, subtly or boldly, the emotions, qualifying as "art" in your definition. I think this stretches the definition of art so broadly that it loses all usefulness. I have no quarrel with your categorization of squeamishness as primarily unconcerned with morality. I have killed, slaughtered and eaten venison and different birds, and had no indigestion. I have argued many times that vegetarianism has no inherent moral superiority to omnivorism, simply because as a biologist, I regard all species as equivalent. Where the film quite obviously crosses the line is by treating a species that many people have an emotional connection with as a victim, they are attempting, quite dishonestly, to equate this with commercial slaughter of animals specifically raised as food. This is more akin to pornography, and indeed the lowest pornography, child pornography and snuff films. conscious