At Making Light, Kid Bitzer comments on South Park’s depiction of a certain well-known prophet wearing a bear suit :
ah, but maybe the idea is that “depicting as” is an act of the will which does entail a “depicting”.
like so: suppose i say, i hereby depict mt. everest as a caret: ^
i expressed the intention to depict mt. everest as a caret, or to depict it by means of a caret. and even though it’s not a very illuminating depiction, there’s some sense on which i have, indeed, depicted mt. everest as a caret.
and that’s still true even if i replace the caret with any other mark. (i would have depicted it as an asterisk, but the aerial view costs more).
now suppose you have the further thought that by depicting mt. everest as a caret, i have ipso facto depicted mt. everest. “depicting as” is just a way of depicting, and the qualifier can be dropped salva veritate.
if there were a prohibition on depicting mt. everest, then one might conclude that i had violated it, just by expressing the intention to depict it, even as something else.
i don’t endorse any of the steps in that argument, of course. but i do offer it as one possible reconstruction of the crazy.
and to the extent it is right, it shows that what they want to prohibit is the intending itself. it’s almost like what they want to control is people’s thoughts.
Sweet.
