From: eeb1@panix.com (Elizabeth Bartley)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Responsibilities of Artists (was Re: Pornography and Playboy)
Date: 28 Jul 92 03:06:12 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <1992Jul27.204137.22549@midway.uchicago.edu>
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <02lmm2-.aahz@netcom.com> aahz@netcom.com (Aahzmandius) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul27.030034.20562@midway.uchicago.edu>
>>mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>>In article <1992Jul27.004705.17211@midway.uchicago.edu>
>>>kwhyte@dent.uchicago.edu (Kevin Whyte) writes:

>>>>  I didn't really mean to include delibrate lying, I was mostly 
>>>>responding to your statement about writing KKK propaganda being 
>>>>evil.  Much as with anything else, it is possible to cause harm
>>>>by trying to convince people of something, if harm is your intent.

>>>	"But my point is that portraying something one disbelieves as
>>>true _is_ lying.  What's the difference between making up facts and
>>>making up other truths?  Is it any less a lie to write a story which
>>>states that unprovoked cruelty is honorable (assuming the writer
>>>doesn't believe this to be true) than to write a work which states, as
>>>fact, that Beethoven was actually a Buddhist monk?"

>>You are overstating -- and losing -- your case by your use of the word
>>'lying'.  By your standard, an SF story that included the use of FTL is
>>also 'lying'.  Does the word 'fiction' mean anything to you?

>	"Sigh.  That quote was taken out of context.  The context was
>the claim that even fictional works assert certain things as true.
>Not that everything fictional works say must be true.  I have tried
>giving examples and analogies to explain this, (e.g. the difference
>between ftl used as a plot device and audible explosions in space used
>as background in an allegedly realistic space scene) but it's becoming
>clear that my powers of communication aren't up to the task.  Since
>what people think I'm saying is not, in fact, what I'm trying to say,
>it appears that _I_ am (inadvertantly) misleading people about what I
>think about the world.  Which I find rather ironic, somehow, though
>I'd class what I'm doing as being unintentionally unclear, rather than
>lying.  But I'm beginning to wonder if I have the language to say what
>it is I'm trying to say.

"It seems that the distinction you're making here is one between
fiction that says, 'The world is such that <x,y,z> are true' and
fiction that says, 'If <x,y,z> were true, the world would be like
this.'"

"Now, this is a very fine line, and one mostly determined by the
author's intentions (which we can't know), but you've already
stipulated that."

"Nevertheless, it seems to me that you're right in that there is 
a very important difference between the Harry Turtledove science
fiction stories in which (if I recall correctly) Africa is
populated by Homo sapiens neanderthalis, and a historical fiction
story in which Negros in the South were portrayed as inferior.
Basically, I suppose it's because of the obviousness of the
"falsehood" -- hopefully nobody is going to think that the people
in Africa in *this* world are Neanderthals because Harry Turtle-
dove writes a story about a world in which they are, whereas one
ordinarily thinks that the background of a historical fiction
novel is accurate."

"Basically it all comes down to 'is the author trying to make the
readers / viewers / whatever believe the premise itself, or only
believe that his conclusions (in the form of his work) derive
logically from the premise."

"Gah, that sounds stuffy.  Oh, well -- I'll just hope it's clear
to people besides me."

--
                       - E. Elizabeth Bartley
aka Beth (occasionally aka Bess on Flux once and now Holomuck)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans