On 2/23/07 7:09 PM, "Michael Robison" <
miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> **********
> There are three basic questions being batted
around.
> First, can art be moral or immoral? Second, if
art
> can be moral, is there an artistic imperative to
make
> it so? Third, is morality a required theme in
art?
>
> miker
>
To cite but two definitions of moral... ³giving guidance on
how to behave decently and honorably² or ³good or right, when
judged by the standards of the average person or society at
large².
Morality is in the eye of the beholder. Can art be moral? It
is possible for art to give guidance on how to behave
decently and honorably, but again, this is subject to
interpretation. The same movie or book that might be
considered moral in one part of the world could be considered
immoral elsewhere. I mean, is there anything that is
universally regarded as immoral? Maybe sexual abuse of a
child, but certainly not murder. One man¹s terrorist is
another man¹s martyr.
If anyone on the list has been to Dachau, there is a piece of
art there. From a distance it looks like a pile of twisted
metal. When you get closer you realize it¹s shaped, and what
it is is metal formed to look like a pile of skeletons. (You
can see the sculpture here:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachauscrapbook/MemorialSite/International01.h
tml - scroll down for close ups). Does it have morality?
There is a wall nearby with the words, ³Never Again² listed
in five languages.
In the context of the environment the sculpture certainly
represents what is good or right by the standards of the
average person or society at large. But what if you took the
sculpture out of the context? What if it sat in my back yard?
Would it then have morality? What if someone formed a similar
sculpture and put it at Ground Zero? A monument to some, an
offense to others, would be my guess. Would it then depend on
who formed it? Would it have different Œmorals¹ if the
creator was called John or Ahmed or Ira?
Someone once told me that the author only does part of the
work in telling the story. The other part comes from what the
reader brings. From page xv of The Flood, ³The Flood became a
set text for the university¹s Scottish Literature department.
I was invited to sit in on a tutorial, with my identity being
kept secret for the first half of the session as far as the
students were concerned, I was just a newcomer, albeit one a
few years older than them. One student...delivered a paper on
the book¹s wasteland imagery; another discussed Old and New
Testament themes and borrowings, while a third had made a
detailed study of the author¹s use of elements and colours. I
started taking notes at one point: it was all good stuff!
Even if I had not consciously meant for these patters to
exist, I was happy to acknowledge them if readers could see
them. (I was a fan of the literary theorist Wolfgang Iser
eventually using his name for a Professor in my first Rebus
novel. Iser¹s thesis was that it¹s what readers see in books
that is more important, not what the writer intended them to
see. The name for this is Reader Response Criticism.)² - Ian
Rankin
In recent decades we¹ve all heard stories of violent acts,
with the perpetrators citing movies, music or video games as
instigators. Is Grand Theft Auto evil? Is it moral? Is
morality even the point? No, it isn¹t the point. It¹s a game.
It¹s purpose is to entertain. It may entertain one person and
not another. While one person in 10 billion might claim a
song or game or book or movie made them commit murder, the
overwhelming majority didn¹t respond that way, so is the
song/game/book/movie bad or immoral? As a rule, no. There may
always be one or two things I might be willing to make an
exception on I personally wasn¹t too keen on those Nazi
Gingerbread cookies last Christmas but in and of themselves
were they immoral? No.
Now, could they have reflected a moral position? That is,
again, a different question, and it supposes we know the
intent of the artist. The reason we make horrific mistakes in
society is that morality changes over time. Hundreds of years
ago when First Nations people were being killed and driven
off their lands many applauded such acts. This was government
sanctioned for the most part. Now we can¹t apologize enough
for the sins of generations long gone. In WWII we locked up
Germans and Japanese because of their ancestry... Now we¹re
apologizing. A movie made in the 1940s that depicted that as
a good thing might then have been considered Œmoral¹. Today,
it wouldn¹t be considered moral.
I will admit that when I read my first book that I consider
to be hardboiled
(Simon Kernick¹s The Business of Dying) I struggled with one
thing: I felt guilty for sympathizing with someone who did
things that were immoral. I suspect it was a throwback to my
Œchristian¹ programming I was conditioned to judge and
label a sin a sin. What made the difference for me was asking
a different question: What if I knew someone who worked in a
job every day where they saw guilty people get away with
their crimes? Could I understand the desire to take the law
into their own hands? Yes, I could. From one point of view
Milne did things that were immoral. Simplistic thinking would
be to say he was a monster, a criminal. From another point of
view he was a man with a conscience who sought justice. He
was conflicted by the failure of society to put murderers and
rapists away. Viewing body after body, seeing lives ripped
apart by crimes, is it reasonable to think that some people
might wrestle with taking the law into their own hands? Yes,
I can understand that dilemma. Milne is not a monster, he¹s
human. He just takes things one step further than most
people, but it is never about killing for the sake of
killing.
I don¹t believe art has any moral imperative. The idea that
it should have morality isn¹t far removed from the thinking
of those that believe in censorship. Those are people that
want all art to have morality, and if it doesn¹t express
their morality it shouldn¹t be readily accessible. They¹re
willing to set themselves up as the judge of what is
acceptable thought and what isn¹t, because they¹re willing to
suppress creative output with thinking that differs from
their own.
Perhaps one of the best examples of what the reader brings to
the equation, and how it can drastically change the
interpretation of a book is from a few years ago, when
children were phoning in to a radio program to talk about
their favourite part of the story Bambi.
One child said his favourite part was when Bambi¹s mother got
shot.
Cheers, Sandra
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