From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Subject: Re: What is Love? _The Story of O_
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 04:36:26 GMT
Organization: The Instrumentality
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In article <7757.9209141654@zen.sys.uea.ac.uk> jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) writes:
...

>cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
>>What does consent have to do with [the morality of O]?
>>Some people are self-destructive, and
>>consent in--or even initiate--all sorts of activities that damage them.
>>Does that make it right for me to assist them in their own destruction?

>Your labelling "self-destructive" suggests you have in mind a consent
that is not rationally given.  

I don't think that it's as easy as you imply to tell valid consent--i.e.,
consent that entitles you to act in a way that may be damaging to another--
from consent that does not convey this sort of entitlement. What do you
mean by "rational" consent?

I know what a self-destructive action is, and I can think of examples of
such actions. I'm not nearly so clear about what is meant by "rational".
This word has many possible uses. I could imagine someone who gives a
self-destructive consent, yet still falls within the bounds of legal or
even psychological definitions of "rationality". It would not follow that
you are free to act on such consent.

>Perhaps I spoke too briefly, but by
>consent I mean informed and rational consent.  Now you may consider the
>extremity of O's treatment to imply that her consent was ipso facto
>irrational, but fiction is inadequate to pursuing that question further.
>There is nothing to O other than the words on the page; neither she nor
>the author (of whom next to nothing is known) is available to be
>interviewed further.

This is something of a let-down, isn't it? We start discussing the moral
implications of a novel, and now you tell me that fiction won't do for this
purpose. Indeed, this seems a bit counterintuitive--haven't many literary
and academic careers been built on long-winded discussions about the
motivations of fictional characters? Do we always know everything there is
to know about the motivations of _real_ people? It seems to me that we
often know a good deal _less_ about the motivations of real people than we
do about fictional characters.

In any case, the question of O's "rationality" doesn't interest me, for the
reasons I've given above.  

>  We are all free to extrapolate from those words
>according to our own prejudices, but it does not advance the argument.
>(I have been guilty of this myself in describing the events of O as
>consensual, and therefore not involving wrongdoing; I should instead have
>said that if they are consensual then there is no wrongdoing.)

And I said that even if they are consensual, then there was wrongdoing. As
far as I can tell, you didn't address that issue.

>>I believe she's
>>tortured to death in the end--or at least this is implied

>Not quite.  The first book has two endings.  In one she dies, in the other
>she lives.  There is a second book, at the end of which O (still alive,
>obviously) is free to go or to stay.  (The epigraph to the second book,
>however, suggests a more complex relationship between the two parts of the
>story.)  If one is going to discuss the story at all, one should first
>familiarise oneself with it.

Oh very well, I'll bow to your superior scholarship--she wasn't killed in
one of two endings for the first book, and seems to have lived through the
(possibly non-canonical) sequel. Doesn't really matter, does it?
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
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