From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Responsibilities of Artists (was Re: Pornography and Playboy)
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 18:36:56 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.095116.1837@cco.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Jul27.030034.20562@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) 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.
>
>But is lying in that sense always bad.  Remember Harlan Ellison's (I think it
>was H.E., though I'm not sure) description of science fiction writers: 
>Professional liars.  It's the job of writers of fiction to do their best to
>portray something they disbelieve as true, to the best of their
ability.

	"I tried, in three rather overlong articles, to establish a
distinction between those things which are assumed for the purposes of
fiction, and those things which a work is asserting _as_ truth.  To
take a more concrete example, hasn't anyone here ever been annoyed as
`sf' movies which portray explosions in space as communicating sound,
or showing apparent gravity in environments which should be in free
fall, in cases where it is impossible to assume the existence of an
artificial gravity generator?  Why?  It's just a work of fiction,
isn't it?  Maybe the story takes place in a universe in which space is
filled with air, or gravity is an intrinsic property of being next to
a large flat surface regardless of mass.  Of course, the story doesn't
suggest anything of the sort...  So what's wrong with it?

	"It's fair to argue that the distinction I tried to identify
doesn't exist, or that I'm extending it in directions that it doesn't
belong.  But to dismiss all art as equally `lies' is to simply ignore
my argument-- to assume it's not true from the start, and then prove
the conclusion from the premise."

  They
>assume, of course, that the context in which their work appears will allow any
>reader with any sense at all to figure out that it's a work of fiction; but to
>the extent that a work of fiction is OBVIOUSLY a work of fiction, the writer
>has failed

	"Depends what is meant by "obvious"-- there's a difference
between a work having verisimilitude and the audience actually
thinking it's real.  Would _Romeo and Juliet_ really be enhanced if
the audience supposed two teenagers were really killing themselves on
stage, or would their sorrow at the tragedy be overwhelmed by the
horror of being forced to witness real death?  Would the latter
reaction be more "real" somehow?  Do I lose something because I think
that _The Lord of the Rings_ does not describe real people and beings,
which someone else, more credulous, would have gained from the work?
Can I not think Frodo's sacrifice tragic and noble without thinking
that Frodo is real?"

 (for the most part;  there are [relatively rare] circumstances in
>which the work of fiction's effect depends heavily upon the fact that the
>reader is acutely aware throughout that he's reading a work of fiction.  For
>examples, see the work of [if I remember correctly] C.L. Moore and Henry
>Cutler).
>
>>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?"

>Is it any less a lie to make up a story which states that there is (or was [or
>will be]) a planet called Trantor which is entirely covered by man-made
>artifacts?

	"Depends.  If the writer indicated that such a planet existed
as part of establishing the character of an intelligent, 1992
scientist, in a non-sf tale, to indicate that the scientist was more
aware of the latest scientific developments than the protagonist (and
not to establish that said scientist was a bit dotty, or pulling the
protagonist's leg) then yes, it would be a lie.  Just as it would be a
lie for such a scientist to say, `Well, yes, 273 below zero centigrade
is the coldest things get on _Earth_, but out in space it can get
hundreds of degrees colder than that.'  Particularly, say, in a murder
mystery where the scientist's competence and intelligence is
important, but the actual fact given is not crucial, and rather simply
meant to send the message, `Isn't he smart?'"

>>>  Mostly I'm trying to say that I see nothing wrong with art which
>>>conveys/explores ideas that the artist finds distasteful.  Art 
>>>which allows you to understand, sympathize with, and (temporarily) believe
>>>someone foreign to you is, I think, a good thing.
>>
>>	"Conveying and exploring are two different things, while
>>portraying something as praiseworthy is still a third.  And I
>>think there's a significant difference between a work which bears the
>>theme "Had I been subjected to the influences depicted, I too might
>>have become a Nazi camp guard" and one which suggests, "It would have
>>been glorious to have been a Nazi camp guard, had I only lived at the
>>right time."
>
>But to the extent that the latter is distinguishable from either of the former,
>it loses a lot of its effectiveness.  A reader of a work of fiction per force
>experiences whatever's portrayed at least second-hand.  By restricting the
>fiction to the first two categories, you're relegating the closest possible
>experience to third-hand.


>>>A character study
>>>which allowed people to understand at a gut level how and why people 
>>>can commit acts that seem unimaginable is a powerful tool for understanding.
>>>People (hopefully) are capable of thinking about what they see, rather
>>>than just believing it.  If the audience is small children then I might
>>>feel differently.
>>
>>	"Again, I don't think that it's necessary to convey particular
>>_acts_ with approval to make it possible to understand how someone
>>else can reach that conclusion.

>But it IS necessary.  How much distance can you put between a reader and a
>character before what you're writing is simply a commentary rather than a work
>of art?

	"Plenty, actually.  Consider how stylized and formalized
certain cultures have let their art get, without turning it into
commentary.  We're currently in a phase in which naturalism and
realism are considered virtues, and I admit my tastes run that way as
well.  But one can write powerful works of art using other
conventions-- no one supposes that Shakespeare's audiences _really_
thought that nobility spoke in iambic pentameter.  Or consider the use
of masks in Greek theatre, or alliteration and kennings in Norse
poetry-- no one _really_ looked or talked the way people do in the
poetry and drama of most cultures.  That's a fair amount of distance
between the audience and the characters-- here are people who talk and
act quite differently from themselves.  Often they even act on
different moral planes: Greek gods engage in behavior which is, in the
same myths, condemned and accursed in humans.  Even more distance.

	"I'd say a work which builds a bridge between the reader's
point of view and the character's is more useful in fostering
understanding than simply pretending the characters' world view is
correct if the author believes it is not.  If the Nazi camp guard is
_right_ in the story, the story hasn't made it easier to understand
Nazi camp guards in _our_ world, except for those who don't see the
difference between his world (with its universally villainous Jewry)
and our own, and even they have a false understanding (if we assume
that the idea of a universally villainous Jewry is false).
Conversely, if we can be made to see why the Nazi camp guard is
persecuting innocents, we _have_ been made to understand something
better than we did."

>>It's very dependent on context.  For
>>a crude example, if one's main character is a pre-Civil War
>>Southerner, and he launches into a defense of slavery on the basis of
>>black inferiority, that's one thing.  It's another thing, though, if
>>all the black characters in the tale _are_ clearly mentally inferior,
>
>You're right.  The former isn't very effective at giving the reader an
>understanding of the mindset of some southernors, while the latter is.

	"No it isn't.  At best, it conveys that the Southerner's
mindset _would_ have been right if the conditions _were_ true.  What
has that to do with real Southerners in our real history?  Or real
prejudice anywhere?  If the tale were "what would be appropriate in
the presence of a truly inferior race" (as Harry Turtledove's "Sim"
stories have addressed) that would be one thing.  But what insight
does this give about slaveowners who own human slaves?  Remember, in
the latter story, it's the background, not the characterization, which
has been specified.  And the background is untrue, and hence gives a
false picture of what slaveowners were like, since it purports to take
place in a "realistic" Old South (basic premise of historical fiction,
that the history is as accurate as the author was able to make it, not
that any discrepancies can be chalked up to alternate history and
biology), and it doesn't."

>The former conveys, at best, the mindset of a Yankee who's got some insight
>into the mindset of some southernors.  The latter, if done well, gives the
>reader a second-hand rather than a third-hand experience.

	"How?  No one ever lived in a world with _actually_
universally inferior blacks.  So the story doesn't tell us anything
about anyone's mindset except people who never existed: Southerners
living in a fantastic world.  Which would be fine for a fantasy, but
this was supposed to be historical fiction."

>>if an attempt at schooling black children fails miserably because the
>>children are all too stupid to learn, if all the sympathetic black
>>characters express love for their master's discipline, while all black
>>characters who oppose slavery are little better than wild animals.
>>Now, if these events were presented as happening thus, but the whole
>>novel were from the slaveowner's point of view (such that _he_ is
>>shown to suppose that the school failed because of black inferiority,
>>and we see the school only through his eyes) that's quite another
>>thing.

>What if it's from the point of view of another southernor who doesn't own any
>slaves?

	"That would still be reasonable, since it's quite likely that
a non-slaveowner, or even an abolitionist, would believe in black
inferiority.  (Lincoln did, after all.)  The author is making an
assertion about people, not about the real world of the 19th century."

>>In the first instance (assuming that this isn't an alternate
>>history in which Africa held an inferior subspecies of hominids), the
>>author is using his omniscience to say something about blacks-- in the
>>other he's using it to say something about slaveowners and slavery."

>I claim that it's impossible to distinguish the two (unless, of course, the
>opus was a work of propaganda rather than a work of art [OK, now everyone gets
>to make penguin puns]).

	"I disagree.  I think it's generally not difficult to
distinguish the two.  So now what?  Do we read books and try to
determine what truths the author's trying to assert?  We'd never agree
anyway?."

>>	"Not that _the_ point of art is to advocate something, but
>>that art, by its nature, _does_ say something about the world.  It
>>can't avoid it.  Thus, it is not that the "point" of _Romeo and
>>Juliet_ was that there is nobility in facing death with bitter mirth,
>>but nonetheless, that is what one feels on seeing the death of
>>Mercutio-- or the play has failed, in that respect, to have its
>>intended effect upon the watcher.  If Shakespeare believed that facing
>>death with anything but pious repentence was _wrong_, then he was
>>lying to his audience by making Mercutio so likeable and worthy of
>>respect."

>It sounds to me like you're advocating art as propaganda.  Could Shakespeare
>not have believed that facing death with anything but pious repentance was
>_wrong_, but beeh honest enough to admit that he, himself, might be in error?

	"Then he believes that the possibility of his error in this
matter is a truth.  Propaganda is art where _the_ purpose of the
artwork is to convey a viewpoint, to the point of excluding
contradictory truths and possibly including falsehoods.  Propaganda,
by its nature, is not true, because it treats other truths as
dispensible in order to convey its primary `truth'.  That's not at all
what I'm talking about.  As I said, I think art has many purposes,
just as speech has many purposes.  The `purpose' of speech is not
solely to convey truth-- it is to express emotions, convey
information, create beauty (an oral reading of poetry, say), and so on
ad infinitum.  But it is nonetheless possible to lie when speaking,
even when the primary purpose of one's speech is not to convey
information but to console or cajole.  Similarly, it is possible to
lie in art even though the primary purpose of the art is not to
convince, but to entertain, or raise the spirits, or inspire fear or
pity."

>>(Note that in this context, normal is used to denote
>>"typical" rather than "good".)

>That's the only reasonable use of the word normal.

	"Why Speaker!  The "only reasonable use"?  How absolutist and
dogmatic of you.  :-)"


Michael
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Workers of the world, forgive me.
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 You had more to lose than I thought."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Karl Marx (1990) as imagined by
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Jim Koncz (konc@midway.uchicago.edu)
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