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 20:41:37 GMT

In article <02lmm2-.aahz@netcom.com> aahz@netcom.com (Aahzmandius) writes:
>In article <1992Jul27.030034.20562@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu 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.  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?"

>You are overstating -- and losing -- your case by your use of the word
>'lying'.  By your standard, an SF story that included the use of FTL is
>also 'lying'.  Does the word 'fiction' mean anything to you?

	"Sigh.  That quote was taken out of context.  The context was
the claim that even fictional works assert certain things as true.
Not that everything fictional works say must be true.  I have tried
giving examples and analogies to explain this, (e.g. the difference
between ftl used as a plot device and audible explosions in space used
as background in an allegedly realistic space scene) but it's becoming
clear that my powers of communication aren't up to the task.  Since
what people think I'm saying is not, in fact, what I'm trying to say,
it appears that _I_ am (inadvertantly) misleading people about what I
think about the world.  Which I find rather ironic, somehow, though
I'd class what I'm doing as being unintentionally unclear, rather than
lying.  But I'm beginning to wonder if I have the language to say what
it is I'm trying to say.

	"I don't think I have any responses to this that I haven't
already covered (at too great a length) in other posts.  But I suspect
I've already failed, as I don't really think that I've said anything
that different in my more recent posts, despite my lengthy attempts at
clarification.   Anyone think they understand my madness well enough
to translate?  To _explain_, even if they do not _agree_ with, the
distinction I'm making, or the claims I'm making about fiction?  I'm
willing to defend what I'm saying, or to agree to disagree, and it's
not that I'm _unwilling_ to clarify myself... but I'm really beginning
to wonder if I'm capable of it.

	"`Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, three times is
enemy action.'  Or, in this case, failing to make myself clear once
may just be a matter of reiterating and explaining in more detail,
twice a matter of elaborating and correcting misapprehensions-- but a
third time suggests a fundamental gulf in communications, and since
I'm the one attempting to communicate, I can only blame my own lack of
clarity.  For that I apologize, but I'm really not sure how else to
rephrase what I'm saying to get it across accurately.  If anyone else
feels like trying, I'd be grateful, and I'll try again if I think I
can meaningfully answer an objection, but the gulf may just be too
wide on this one even for understanding, still less agreement."

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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