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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 8524383" data-attributes="member: 57112">So, a little known aspect of the concept of "The Death of the Author" is that the only thing that matters is the text... but the text exists both within and without the work. "The Death of the Author" doesn't mean that we ignore the artist and only focus on the work; nor does it mean that we only take the author's word for gospel as to the meaning of the work. It means that what the author says is only a part of the text itself.A minor quibble to point out, but Lovecraft was considered extraordinarily xenophobic even by his fairly-racist-in-their-own-right contemporaries. I'm not a huge fan of "product of their time" arguments in general. For any given "time" there were plenty of voices calling out racism/sexism/etc. At my most charitable, I would say that nobody born in a time during or after the works of Stephen Douglas or W.E.B. DuBois has any excuse for racism. Especially if they're literate.Not that I don't understand the appeal. I imagine many of us would wish for the same generosity from future generations. But I don't imagine that actually does us any good. Or them. It's okay to be critical of the people of the past. That's part of how we learn, and grow.Going back to the point re: The Good Place. Yes, there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. Everything under the sun that we can consume contributes in some way to some form of human misery somewhere in the world. That's depressing but it's also somewhat freeing. There are of course ways we can minimize harm through our consumption, but at a certain point, it's not really about individual responsibility. We can only do so much, research so much, go so far out of our own way without contributing to our own misery. My point is that we, as human beings, should be able to enjoy things. We deserve nice things. But as hard as it is to avoid causing any sort of harm, there are still things we can and should do. Contributing to the financial and social capital of someone who uses that capital directly to cause harm to innocent people is an easy thing to avoid. As it relates to TTRPGs, there are easy ways to do this. There are plenty of easily identifiable bad actors within the tabletop scene. Don't purchase their work, don't give them a platform, etc. Legacy content is another thing entirely. Old modules with one of two moments that haven't aged well should probably be fine with a disclaimer (a specific disclaimer; content warnings are meaningless if they don't describe the type of content). I don't, however, think that a company should continue to profit from the sales of a product that is fundamentally harmful (racist orc jokes, *riental adventures, etc.). Again, not because I don't think such things don't have value or should be locked in a vault. but it is sketchy to actively profit from stuff like that.It's not censorship, it's ethical business, as much of an oxymoron as that it is. Besides, it's not like we're talking about the greatest works of human fiction here; these aren't exactly Hamlet or Citizen Kane or Bluey</blockquote>

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