Mark wrote:
> As for moral books, in his preface to The Life of
Dorian Grey, Oscar
> Wilde (whose homosexuality led to jail time for
immorality) wrote:
> "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral
book. Books are well
> written or badly written. That is all."
I knew someone smarter than me would pull a good quote.
Thanks. That's a good one. It goes in the file.
And Jim, still gnawing on that ol' morality bone,
wrote:
> If, as you seem to admit, artists have moral
obligations, then it
> stands to reason that the art they produce must be
consistent with
> those moral obligations.
That stands to your reasons. It only leans slightly to mine.
I figure I'm an alright guy -- I wouldn't lie or steal or
kill, generally, but I do have characters in my stories, even
occasionally the "heroes," do all of those. As do the
characters in your own stories.
Does that mean you write immoral stories?
> To say otherwise is to say that if, to use your
example, a cook does
> something immoral like putting poison in the dish
s/he prepares, the
> dish itself is morally neutral. Obviously a dish,
being inanimate,
> can't make moral choices, but it was produced for an
immoral purpose
> to further an immoral action.
But it's still a bowl of soup. Even laced with arsenic it's
morally neutral. It may be bad soup, health-wise, but is it
morally "bad"?
Or are you going to suggest that anything designed
specifically to kill or harm is inherently immoral? Is
arsenic itself immoral? Or does it depend on how it's
used?
And what about weapons? Is a nuclear bomb immoral? Is a
handgun? Is drunk driving? Is speeding? Is littering? Is
thinking bad thoughts?
> Art that is produced for an immoral purpose, or that
is produced in
> an immoral way, reflects the immoral actions of its
producer. That's
> why a novel that is plagiarized, however
well-written it may be in
> its own right, reflects the immoral actions of its
writer.
But if you didn't know who the author was -- or didn't know
the source from which it was swiped -- you wouldn't know it
was an
"immoral" book. And you'd be forced to judge the book on its
own terms, not by how it was created.
Which, to me, is how art should be judged. It's what's on the
page that ultimately counts, not how it got there.
So, ignore the creation of the art (and the artists
themselves) for a moment, if you can, and tell us what
exactly makes a book immoral.
And, if there are immoral books out there (by your
definition), so what?
Should something be done about them? What?
(This notion of "immoral" books really intrigues me, so
please type slowly. This is a big topic I'm trying to get my
head around here.)
> Miker's comment was in response to my assertion that
an artist
> adapting a piece of work created by another to a
different medium
> owed a moral obligation to the original creator to
show a modium of
> fidelity to the original work. In other words I was
talking about
> the moral obligations of the artist. So it was
reasonable to draw
> the inference, when Miker responded by saying "Art
has no moral
> obligations," that he was talking about the producer
of the art.
It would also be reasonable to believe that perhaps he meant
exactly what he said. Miker?
Which brings us back to John, who said:
> ... art has no obligation other than to
have
> a point of view
YES. Because without some sort of point of view, it would
simply be craft, right? Or at most lesser art.
By the way, pursuant to the thread of whether Altman
somehow
"betrayed" Chandler, didn't Chandler also dismiss Marlowe in
one of his essays or letters somewhere as a "ridiculous
man... Tarzan on a motor scooter" or something like
that?
That would seem to imply that perhaps the author's vision of
his hero wasn't quite as diametrically opposed to Altman's
after all, despite the much trotted-out "Down there mean
streets" riff.
Kevin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Feb 2007 EST