From: kwhyte@dent.uchicago.edu (Kevin Whyte)
Subject: Re: Responsibilities of Artists (was Re: Pornography and Playboy)
Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, U. of Chicago
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 00:47:05 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.232450.14901@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Jul26.214129.12173@midway.uchicago.edu> kwhyte@dent.uchicago.edu (Kevin Whyte) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul26.192840.8432@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>	"Then it's quite possible that we do disagree.  There are lots
>of things I'd consider it wrong to attempt to convince someone else
>of.  Things one knows to be falsehoods, for example.  If I were to
>attempt to convince you that, say, Jews are a subhuman race conspiring
>to enslave everyone else, and back this up with made-up facts and
>distortions, knowing that they're made up facts and distortions, then
>I think I would be doing something wrong.  If you disagree, then we've
>found the point at which we diverge, and there's probably not much
>else to say.  It might be interesting to determine why we each believe
>as we do, but we're unlikely to convince one another."

  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.


>>There were many things worth honoring and remembering in societies that
>>weren't perfect:  the old South, medival Europe, the USSR, etc.  Even
>>positive portrayals of things I find abhorrant are useful. If the artist
>>can get me to find whatever it is appealing, then I have learned something
>>about myself, and what sort of things I might do to hurt people without
>>thinking about it.  It is really very easy to watch a violent rape scene
>>and be disgusted, but it is unlikely to change my behavior.  Watching a
>>character I otherwise like is a borderline date-rape scene is much more
>>likely to convince me that I COULD do something like that, so I have 
>>to make sure I don't.  Of course, it is possible someone else will walk
>>away with the idea that the date-rape was wrong never crossing their mind.
>>This is not the artist's fault, but the reader/viewer/etc'er 's.
>
>	"Again, it depends on the artists intent and how much the
>artist recognized what she was doing.  It's a very personal thing--
>there is _no_ way to prove that an artist "really" intended to glorify
>date rape or that she simply assumed that everyone would realize that
>this was supposed to be showing how awful it was.  That's something
>for the artist herself to live with.  (A friend of mine mentioned a
>routine in which two rock singers are being interviewed about a song.
>[Begin bad Cockneyesque accents]: One: "It's a stirring tribute."  The
>other:"Wait-- I thought it was a stinging indictment!")  I think that
>deliberately and with knowledge attempting to foster a point of view
>which one finds repugnant is wrong, but one is not responsible for
>unreasonable misinterpretations.  (Yes, I know, what's "reasonable"?
>Another thing for the artist to ask himself-- there isn't going to be
>a trial or anything, after all.)"

  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.  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.


>  We
>>embrace the idea that seeing both sides of a case argued as well as 
>>possible is a good route to the truth ( look at our legal system ),
>
>
>	"Which is not to say that I don't believe that everyone should
>be allowed to advocate their ideas in any ways they choose.  I just
>think that advocating ideas which you, personally, believe are wrong
>is wrong, because ultimately it's lying.  (Is lying wrong?  Yet
>another question.)  It's doing something which will, in direct
>proportion to one's skill as an artist, encourage people to believe
>something which one does not believe to be true, and is thus wrong for
>the same reason that it would be wrong to forge historical evidence,
>or fake scientific data.  In these cases, one is saying something
>about the world which one believes to be untrue, and art is simply
>another way to say something about the world."

   That assumes the point of art is to advocate something, or to
assert an accurate picture of the world.  Often it is used as a
vehicle to explore or shed light on a warped, or at least different
way of seeing things.

> and
>>no one expects lawyer's to believe that the case is a black and white 
>>as they will try to make it seem.  Why should artists be any different?
>
>	"An interesting question.  And, to be honest, I'm don't think
>that a lawyer _should_ take a case in which he believes he is lying
>(though choosing what to say to portray his client in the best
>possible light is another matter; he can certainly say only what seems
>positive, and leave the negative for his opponent to bring out).  But
>regardless, an attorney is representing a person or a group of people,
>while an artist represents only an idea.  People can be hurt, and thus
>have a right to a defense even if we believe they're guilty, because
>we have procedures which our society has defined, before which we
>maintain the pretense that everyone is innocent, and that every case
>is uncertain-- so we give them the resources that we would to innocent
>people caught in a chain of circumstance, or to parties who are,
>through no fault of their own, believed to have wronged someone.
>
>	"Ideas aren't people, and ideas don't have rights.  _People_
>have the right to hold ideas, but that isn't the same thing.  The idea
>that the Earth is round and the idea that it's flat do not have a
>right to equal time in my mind as citizens of the community of ideas,
>and I'm free to exile the latter to mental Siberia, never to allow it
>to return unless it brings truly extraordinary evidence of its
>innocence of the crime of falsehood.  To weigh every idea in the
>balance of one's judgment is one thing.  But, to stretch a metaphor to
>the breaking point, it's quite another to take an idea which one has
>convicted of falsehood, drag it back, dress it in elegant clothing,
>and attempt to insinuate it into other peoples' mental communities.
>The wise may recognize the blackguard for what he is, but might justly
>consider it the equivalent of your recommending a known thief to their
>service without suggesting that they lock up the good silver first.
>(Note that if one believed that the idea was on the up and up, and was
>simply using poor judgement, that would be another matter.)"


  Fortunately, ideas are not necessarily guilty or innocent.  In some
sense they even do have rights (or rather, people who enforce these
"rights").  Look at the PC issue:  people who basically believe the PC
platform saw other people believing it just because it was PC, and 
argued the other side.  I think it comes down to the fact that I consider
any well thought out opinion better than any randomly instilled one.
It is more important to me that I, and others, think clearly about issues
than it is that we end up believing anything in particular.  To that
end, thought provocing art is more valuable to be that art whose positions
I agree with. 

  This debate shows up in many places.  Consider the movie 9 1/2 Weeks.
Very few people enjoy the movie in the narrow sense of being made happy by
it.  People seem to fall into two groups:  those who hate the movie because
of what it portrayed, and those who enjoyed it because it gave them insight
into something different ( if still unpleasant ).




A great many people think they are thinking       | Kevin Whyte 
when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.| kwhyte@math.uchicago.edu 
--William James                                   | (312) 702-6045