At 10:56 PM 26/02/2007, you wrote:
>Kerry J. Schooley wrote:
>
>Much as I'd like to think that these things
are
>intrinsically wrong, I have to recognize that
there
>are entire structures with their moral supports
that
>suggest it's okay to bomb an entire city in order
to
>kill one person considered to be evil...
>
>*************
>Thought I'd give this another go.
>
>So are you saying that because a significant number
of
>people do not recognize certain actions as wrong
and
>subsequently avoid doing them, then intrinsic
right
>and wrong simply don't exist?
I am saying precisely that, or at least if there is an
intrinsic right and wrong nobody human has been smart enough
to figure out which is which. I know it's comforting to
believe in an absolute, and I won't claim to have avoided the
temptation, but Einstein posited that all things are
relative, that it's all a matter of perspective and I think
that noir fiction deals with the application of relativity to
our ideas of moral behaviour. The early writers of noir
(but not necessarily hardboil) were writing for an audience
that believed the generally agreed upon ideas of morality, or
at least that the institutions of western civilization, the
keepers of our morals if you like, had failed to avoid the
hell of twentieth-century technological mass warfare.
Further, according to my own observations the desire to act
upon moral principles, partially due to the application of
absolute moralities in a complex world, has generally
worsened the human condition rather than improved it, and is
itself usually immoral according to at least widely held
principles of morality.
Yep, I'm one of those hated, moral relativists. It's a tough
a slippery row to how, I admit, but that's no reason not to
roll up one's sleeves. Morality is more an aspiration than an
accomplishment so far as I've ever been able to tell.
Fear not. I've no desire to erase those who believe in moral
absolutes from the face of the earth, or even from this list,
but I have to admit I don't understand what such people could
possibly enjoy about noir fiction, unless it's to titter
about the other half- the losers. Still, there's much I don't
understand about this world.
There. I hope that bores you all. Kerry
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