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: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 23:24:50 GMT

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:

>>	"Sure, critical thought allows me to reassert my original
>>views later, and recognize what was really being portrayed in the
>>scene-- but I'm no _more_ likely to be convinced by a KKK tract.  Less
>>so, in fact, since a KKK tract doesn't even penetrate my first level
>>defenses; if I know something is from the KKK, I'll treat it with less
>>credibility because of that.  So, if it's wrong to write a pamphlet
>>which directly calls for secret meetings, night raids, and lynchings,
>>why is it less wrong to make those actions to seem heroic in fiction?
>>(You could, of course, chop my question with the "if" clause, but I'd
>>say knowingly encouraging wrongful behavior is wrong itself, and that
>>was implicit [and possibly explicit] in my original formulation.)  In
>>short, I support the right to create whatever art one wishes just as I
>>support the _right_ to say whatever one wishes on political, social,
>>or ethical subjects in non-fiction.  But one is always _responsible_
>>for what one says, and simply making something "art" does not absolve
>>one of responsibility for the creation.

>   I think we just flat out disagree here ( no problem, happens all
>the time ).  I consider the ability to see something I would normally
>disagree with from the point of view of someone who agrees with it an
>opportunity not to be missed.  Even if I still disagree afterwards, it
>has given me an insight into life, and certainly makes me more tolerant.
>Everybody has the responsibilty for what they believe.  I don't consider
>it wrong to try to convince anybody of anything.

	"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."

  Society seems to have
>given up the idea that people can think for themselves; it is just taken
>as given that a good ad campaign can convince people of anything.

	"I don't think I've said anything like that.  I hope that I've
made it clear in other discussions that I consider the liberty of the
individual to think for himself to be one of the most important
considerations in building a society.  I believe people can think for
themselves.  I also think they can be influenced by what they see and
do.  I don't know where environment stops and free will begins, but I
believe that both exercise influences-- after all, most people can
identify reasons for believing as they do, and those reasons generally
go back to something they read, something they experienced, something
they were told, someone who was important to them.  They then, one
hopes, used their own judgment and made their own decisions, which I
think _does_ include more than the sum total of previous experiences,
but I don't think that previous experiences are irrelevant."

  Why?
>Are you suggesting that we limit exposure to ideas we find distasteful?

	"Not at all.  Not in the slightest.  I was discussing what I
thought were the responsibilities of an artist-- _not_ that of society
or government or individuals viewing art.  I think that Nazi
propagandists did evil in manufacturing lies to sell a lie-- I do
_not_ think that someone does evil by watching a Nazi propaganda film,
as it may well help to understand what propaganda can do to people to
realize how effective it is, even when the viewer knows what it stands
for.  And if I don't think that individuals should shield themselves
from distasteful ideas, you can imagine what I think of the concept of
government doing the shielding."

>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.)"

  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 ),

	"Do we?  We accept that it's the best route one can manage
when there are two committed sides which we have no earlier
information on.  But we don't use that method much where something
better exists.  If I hear that a good friend of mine did something out
of character, I don't find two disinterested people to argue that he
did or that he didn't, I simply ask him.  If I think there's some
reason he might not be honest, perhaps I ask someone else who knows
him.  If I have a difficult decision to make, I don't ask one friend
to try to convince me one way and one to convince me the other, I
simply ask my friends' honest opinions and try to decide as best I
can.

	"Besides, the general esteem in which lawyers are held I think
reflects the fact that people _don't_ think that it's particularly
fair to let important questions hinge on the debating skill of a
professional advocate.  It's simply that no one's managed to convince
most of society that any other particular method would be more
successful.

	"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."

 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.)"

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)