Allegory VS Interpretation

[Mercurius]

No, but you seem to have left out that offense actually has a point, or maybe you have missed that point.

Generalizing from "in a book" to "art" to encompass TV, film, books, music and so on...

Real-world people are influenced by art, right? Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably a solid example of this, in a positive sense. But, there's also a negative sense, where depictions in art have negative impacts on real people.

This is part of what I was on about when talking about responsibility - the things you put in the world impact the world. If you are not considering what the impacts of your work may be, or are making poor choices, you can have a negative impact on real people.

Not to say that someone's fanfic is going to be directly responsible for some kid beaten up in a schoolyard, but the aggregate of artistic works is relevant. Offense isn't just about it being distasteful. It is about how your art may be part of maintaining or worsening the unwarranted conditions that real people live under.

None of which I disagree with. With my own work I think about how it might impact the people who read it. So this question about whether or not artists should think about the impact of their work is more of a philosophical one. And ultimately it is up to the individual artist.

But we're also talking about censorship, feedback, and backlash, and the degree to which the "voice of the people" (or, more accurately, a voice) has the power to limit what artists produce. I am advocating for artistic freedom. Let artists produce what they want to produce, and let them decide how they think about their work and how it impacts others. We can decide to support or not support their art through our purchases and time. Where I grow leery is when publishers and artists feel limited by the potential for backlash, even when that backlash is coming from just a few bloggers or tweeters.

I would also add that offense is based on interpretation, subjectivity, and how one frames what is interpreted. We're too quick to assume that if someone takes offense it is automatically inherently offensive and must be done differently.

 

[Bawylie]

You may have missed the point here. The complaint is that we shouldn't allow certain behaviors online. Fine. But, the behaviors in question are already illegal. They are already not allowed!

What more protection do you expect than that?

Insurance.

 

[MoonSong]

Ryujin is talking about consequences within the law. What you're suggesting here would be harrassment, and thus illegal.

Well, the motto is loved by people who engage in this kind of vigilante justice that cares little about the law. And well, many of the cases I mentioned before were actually legal at the time. (And some of these abuses remain legal). Attaching "consequences" -legal or not- to speech is another way to control and suppress speech. Unsafe speech is not free speech.

 

[Mercurius]

Poe's law and all. Mein Kamf disproves you right there. It specifically targets a group with hate.

But I think we can rule out works that specifically target a group with hate. Those are inherently offensive. That's their goal.

We can also imagine a book the espouses a political view that we agree with by demonizing opponents. That's inherently offensive to our political opponents, even though we know they are Wrong.

Let's carve that kind of thing out of the discussion. Some books are written to offend. The core subject isn't about that. It's about "I came to tell a story, and people freaked out" It's sort of the surprise, unlike what Salman Rushdi could have expected.

In the Striped Pajamas story, from what I could tell, it was about a boy dealing with their sibling changing gender. It wasn't intended to be anti-transgender (again, from what I can tell), but got stuff wrong like deadnaming the transgender person, using their old gender, etc.

Were the people who read it and objected to its handling, victims? Were they concerned about the material because they knew it was a work that would influence people on their views of transgender? I'm pretty sure the latter question is yes. You want the material to be right, because some transgender person has a young sibling and a book could help them understand. Especially because the book was praised and appears to be getting a movie or something.

I'm confused about your first four paragraphs, because you're saying I'm "disproved" but then you say things that I agree with. We're not talking about Hitler (Godwin!) or political manifestos, but art and literature.

As far as Striped Pajamas is concerned, "what is right" changes and varies depending on time, context, and the individuals involved. There isn't one "true and right way" to depict transgender people, or any group. I think we need to disentangle ourselves a bit from this pervasive idea that categories of people all have a "right way" to think and be depicted. Every such depiction is the expression of a single individual, who has their experience and biases and is really just a snapshot in time.

 

[Umbran]

I am advocating for artistic freedom.

Which, to beat the same drum... comes with a responsibility you don't talk about much.

Let artists produce what they want to produce, and let them decide how they think about their work...

That's fine. They can think what they want.

... and how it impacts others.

They don't get to decide how it impacts others, any more than a cook decides whether or not they cause food poisoning through clumsy handling of ingredients.

We can decide to support or not support their art through our purchases and time.

Dude. Freedom of speech goes both ways. Authors don't get to say, "I got to speak first, now you shut up."

Your position would be much, much stronger if you parroted my own point back at me - that the "twitter mob" has the same responsibility for the impact of their words - if they crush creativity with their actions, that's their responsibility. But you missed that opportunity.

I would also add that offense is based on interpretation, subjectivity, and how one frames what is interpreted. We're too quick to assume that if someone takes offense it is automatically inherently offensive and must be done differently.

You again seem to reject the posit. The ultimate issue isn't whether it is offensive, but whether it is HARMFUL.

And yes, the author is free to have their own opinion on harmfulness, or offensiveness, even one that flies in the face of evidence and reason, if they really want. Nobody is stopping them. But if you want to live in a pace where you have the freedom to publish your word, you also accept to live in a place where EVERYONE ELSE gets the same freedom.

We can have the discussion on whether, say, racist depictions are harmful, if you want. I don't expect the results will work in your favor, though.

There is an adage, that when one is used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Published authors now no longer have the privilege of being the few with a broad platform, able to reach millions. Social media gives everyone a broad platform. And so, it feels like authors are being oppressed, when they are actually getting a taste of equality.

 

[BookTenTiger]

But we're also talking about censorship, feedback, and backlash, and the degree to which the "voice of the people" (or, more accurately, a voice) has the power to limit what artists produce. I am advocating for artistic freedom. Let artists produce what they want to produce, and let them decide how they think about their work and how it impacts others. We can decide to support or not support their art through our purchases and time. Where I grow leery is when publishers and artists feel limited by the potential for backlash, even when that backlash is coming from just a few bloggers or tweeters.

I would also add that offense is based on interpretation, subjectivity, and how one frames what is interpreted. We're too quick to assume that if someone takes offense it is automatically inherently offensive and must be done differently.

I think this is a wonderful ideal but it's never been a reality. Artists, in order to be published, have always had to fit into society's moral spectrum. There has always been a backlash to artists and publishers who push boundaries or purposefully offend; or even those who do not mean to offend! Whether that backlash is based on race, fears of communism, or a cultural shift, artists and publishers are always restricted by what the "masses" find acceptable.

I mean, Renaissance artists didn't sculpt and paint endless Jesuses and Mary's just because they were religious... That's what the public and the church demanded! When Impressionists started painting (gasp) peasants!!! there was HUGE backlash!

So if backlash and artistic restriction are the norm, let's look at the intention of our current era. What is motivating the current trend towards representation and diversity?

 

[Janx]

There is an adage, that when one is used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Published authors now no longer have the privilege of being the few with a broad platform, able to reach millions. Social media gives everyone a broad platform. And so, it feels like authors are being oppressed, when they are actually getting a taste of equality.

This one always feels like it takes some extra thinking when I see it pop up. You can vote. I can vote. I don't feel much different from before now that you can vote.

But I think rights aren't privilege. You or me getting to vote is a right. Pretty simple.

What privilege usually crops up is the little perks and extra grace and "let it slide" that one group gets. Speeding, no prob, here's a warning. Murder somebody, how about a couple years, you still got a future. Write a racist scene where Tommy Lee Jones plays a FBI guy who swats the wrong house and callously shoots the owner when he runs out of his bedroom with a pistol? It's OK, nobody's gonna point that out.

Yeah, nobody thought twice about that scene in The Fugitive back in 1993. But today? That scene's problematic in how it presents law enforcement with zero consequences except for the black lives affected by it.

The privilege of skating by unchallenged on that kind of content is ending. Stuff like killing the black guy in the party off first is going to get called out. Maybe that means white authors can't do that anymore. It's been contaminated by those who came before.

I guess getting caught doing questionable stuff feels like oppression.

 

[Ryujin]

I think this is a wonderful ideal but it's never been a reality. Artists, in order to be published, have always had to fit into society's moral spectrum. There has always been a backlash to artists and publishers who push boundaries or purposefully offend; or even those who do not mean to offend! Whether that backlash is based on race, fears of communism, or a cultural shift, artists and publishers are always restricted by what the "masses" find acceptable.

I mean, Renaissance artists didn't sculpt and paint endless Jesuses and Mary's just because they were religious... That's what the public and the church demanded! When Impressionists started painting (gasp) peasants!!! there was HUGE backlash!

So if backlash and artistic restriction are the norm, let's look at the intention of our current era. What is motivating the current trend towards representation and diversity?

And yet what we are discussing here is more regression than progression. The "Twitter backlash" isn't typically against people who are trying to move forward, but rather those who are expressing thoughts and opinions that are socially conservative. The Black woman who is treated like an animal. The LGBTQ+ character who just has to be the villain, "...because ...." They aren't pushing boundaries, but are rather painting them in broad lines that could be seen from orbit.

At least that's the way that I see it.

 

[Mercurius]

Which, to beat the same drum... comes with a responsibility you don't talk about much.

That's fine. They can think what they want.

They don't get to decide how it impacts others, any more than a cook decides whether or not they cause food poisoning through clumsy handling of ingredients.

Dude. Freedom of speech goes both ways. Authors don't get to say, "I got to speak first, now you shut up."

Your position would be much, much stronger if you parroted my own point back at me - that the "twitter mob" has the same responsibility for the impact of their words - if they crush creativity with their actions, that's their responsibility. But you missed that opportunity.

You again seem to reject the posit. The ultimate issue isn't whether it is offensive, but whether it is HARMFUL.

And yes, the author is free to have their own opinion on harmfulness, or offensiveness, even one that flies in the face of evidence and reason, if they really want. Nobody is stopping them. But if you want to live in a pace where you have the freedom to publish your word, you also accept to live in a place where EVERYONE ELSE gets the same freedom.

We can have the discussion on whether, say, racist depictions are harmful, if you want. I don't expect the results will work in your favor, though.

There is an adage, that when one is used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Published authors now no longer have the privilege of being the few with a broad platform, able to reach millions. Social media gives everyone a broad platform. And so, it feels like authors are being oppressed, when they are actually getting a taste of equality.

I don't seem to know how to split quotes, so will have to reply in one fell swoop.

I think artists have responsibility to their own work. Do they have responsibility for the impact of their work? Only to a degree. I don't think Christopher Nolan is responsible for a mentally ill person killing 12 people, just as I don't think Gary Gygax is responsible for whether or not someone is offended by something he wrote 35 years ago.

I never said artists "get to decide how it impacts others." I was saying they are free to think of it as they see fit, they are free to choose what kind of impact they intend. We can't enforce our own view on them as to how they should think about their own process.

I am not saying that people shouldn't complain or be triggered. What I am concerned with is the added part that often occurs..."let's cancel them!" Or, "let's re-write history!" (someone actually suggested that Dragonlance Chronicles be re-written with an updated social ethos).

It is not equality to try to cancel someone, or to create a climate in which anyone that veers outside a certain ideological framework--in any way--or creates art that isn't passed through the filter of a certain paradigm, is fearful about speaking up or expressing themselves. If you think this doesn't happen, please address the issue of Zhao's Blood Heir and why you think that is OK or the type of climate that we want our artists to create within. In the end, the author was the one who was actually harmed, not the few bloggers who attacked her.

So my suggestion is: Let artists create, even if it is provocative or challenges or disagrees with our own personal worldview. Let people respond how they want. But let's keep the free-flow of ideas and discussion. There are ways to complain or point out problematic elements, or how it impacts oneself, without trying to censor or cancel.

 

[Umbran]

What privilege usually crops up is the little perks and extra grace and "let it slide" that one group gets. Speeding, no prob, here's a warning. Murder somebody, how about a couple years, you still got a future. Write a racist scene where Tommy Lee Jones plays a FBI guy who swats the wrong house and callously shoots the owner when he runs out of his bedroom with a pistol? It's OK, nobody's gonna point that out.

Yeah, nobody thought twice about that scene in The Fugitive back in 1993. But today? That scene's problematic in how it presents law enforcement with zero consequences except for the black lives affected by it.

So, you raise a great example of what I'm talking about, in terms of art having an impact.

These days being what they are, my wife and I are on the lookout for TV shows to watch, because there's a bunch of hours we used to spend out and about hat we don't now. And not all of it has been filled with crafts projects and all.

And the sheer volume of police procedural out there is staggering. And I don't mean just the CSI and Law and Order shows. Even in genre: Lucifer? Police procedural. iZombie? Police procedural. Person of Interest? Police procedural. There was Grimm. Warehouse 13. X-Files. And so on.

And in almost all of these shows, there's this idea that violent murders are happeing all the time. And, however many characters you have, there's an entire homicide department above and beyond that, all busy with murders. Meanwhile, in reality, Seattle sees all of 20 to 30 murders a year, in total.

And, in every one of these, at some point (or often nearly constantly), some cop or cops break the rules or just bust some heads in ways that they'll skate by, because, well gosh darn it, the rules are too stringent, and if some skulls get cracked, and people die without so much as a trial, well, that's what's needed to keep people safe!

How does that look, in the light of what really happens when cops don't follow rules in our world? Where did we all get the idea that cops breaking the rules was healthy and justified? Hm?