From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Pornography and Playboy
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 07:15:46 GMT

In article <9207240347.AA02215@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> dgil@IPSAINT.IPSA.REUTER.COM (Gillett, David) writes:
>     But I *think* that your argument comes back basically to the "convenient
>myth" that men aren't responsibile because they can't control themselves.  To
>which I say:
>     (a) Bull.  Men *can* be responsible; most of them are, most of the time.
>         It's entirely likely that a few men have organic conditions which make
>         them unable to control themselves, but I firmly believe, based on my
>         own experiences, that most men who claim they can't control themselves
>         are just being dangerously irresponsible.
>     (b) If men aren't responsible, then it makes perfect sense to blame the
>         women who "make" them lose control; to blame models for pornography,
>         just as you have learned to do.  You didn't invent this system, but
>         your attitude -- as far as I think I understand it -- perpetuates it.

	"Let me start by making clear that defining a particular form
of communication as harmful or potentially harmful is _not_ the same
thing as advocating its suppression.  I don't think Marie was doing
so, and I'm certainly not-- my feeling is that the _reason_ for having
a principle of freedom of speech is to protect potentially dangerous
speech, whether dangerous to individuals or to institutions.

	"That said, I might compare the point Mentor made to the
principle that `Incitement to riot is no excuse for riot.'  In other
words, the fact that someone gets in front of an angry crowd and
shouts, `Lynch the bastard!' does not absolve those who actually did
the deed from responsibility.  But conversely, the instigator is not,
himself, free from blame.  If an actress sends a harmful message (e.g.
that if a man can just get past a woman's protests, she can lie back and
enjoy a rape), certainly she doesn't decrease by one iota the blame to
be laid upon anyone who takes that message seriously, but neither is
she entirely free from blame herself.

	"Art, even bad art, does affect people's thoughts and
emotions.  That's what it's _for_-- even the cheapest melodrama has to
touch the audience's emotions for the duration of the show, or it
fails, and people won't come to see it.  The extent of a work of art's
effect on a person depends heavily on a multiplicity of variables, and
something which can't reach one person even for the duration of the
performance can stay with another permanently.  And thus an artist is
responsible for the messages she sends.  This is not to say that every
work of art should be a morality play, with good rewarded and evil
punished.  But nonetheless, an artist should not, I think, create a
narrative unless the underlying theme is one she would feel
comfortable expressing directly.  (Comfortable with her conscience, I
mean-- there's nothing wrong with using subtlety to express a theme
that might be dangerous to espouse openly.)

	"Of course, I'm not really sure what I mean by `should'.  It's
certainly not a legal precept, as I'd oppose any attempt to codify
this into law.  And I certainly don't claim to know so much about
morals as to be able to pronounce it as a Universal Truth(tm)-- and
even if it were, I'm the only one whose actions I can control under
such a rule, and I'm not a good enough artist for it to matter.  Nor,
after all, would it affect much of the art produced.  After all, there
are plenty of people whose consciences are silent on subjects which
might trouble any given person.

	"Not to mention the fact that meanings can change: when "Gone
With the Wind" was made, doubtless no one's conscience would have
fluttered at the idea that Rhett, madly in love with Scarlett, would
force his way into his wife's bedroom against her protests-- nor that
Scarlett would be seen the next morning singing happily, as if this
were just what she had needed.  Yet when I watched that scene with a
couple of friends, we exchanged slightly queasy expressions.  If I
could go back in time and ask the artists if they thought they were
encouraging rape, they would have looked at me as if I were speaking
Martian.  "How can a husband rape his wife?"  The concept hardly
existed-- the "I do" was taken to be consent forevermore, regardless
of the wife's later preferences.  And can there be any doubt that that
scene reinforced men's convictions that such a right existed?
Certainly, one movie does not create a social climate, and art
reflects society more than it shapes it.  But if art can cause us to
question our beliefs, it can also reassure us in them, and make us
less likely to question them later.

	"Neither the questioning nor the reassurance is in itself good
or bad.  It depends what's being questioned, what's being reassured.
Propaganda (which is the most unadulterated example, being created
_entirely_ to affect people, and not for any other purpose) can
reassure those whom one agrees with (e.g. _Triumph of the Will_) or to
put questions into the mind of one's opponents (e.g. Tokyo Rose-- "do
you boys _really_ think it's worth getting shot over a bunch of
worthless islands?")  (Note that I choose my examples because they're
relatively unambiguous, not because I think that good causes have
never made use of propaganda.)  More complex artworks will do both--
and, moreover, will have a primary purpose other than influencing
behavior, whether entertainment, or the evocation of certain emotions,
or the exploration of certain themes.  If a writer _is_ primarily
trying to influence behavior with her work, then she's writing
propaganda, however subtly.

	"I'm rambling, and this is going on too long, anyway.  And
because it's not all that well thought out, it's due to be torn to
pieces, so I might as well lower it into the tank, hm?  :-)"

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)