Hate my work, hate me...possibly

[tocryabout]

the_epic asked me if, as a writer, I worry about being judged as a person for my writing (and subject matter, by extension).

Answer: Yes, I do. Why? Because writing is a moral act.

Does that mean there are things that we just SHOULD NOT write, if we are decent people? I think so. I think we SHOULD NOT write erotic stories about raping children. We SHOULD NOT write the equivalent of blood libel stories.^* We just should not use words to dehumanise other people. We might also have a positive moral duty to use literature in life-affirming ways.

Or not. If you don't buy that, try this: writing requires empathy and a working conscience. Morality may not impose any restrictions on what we write, but the act of writing is not going to produce anything worth reading unless the writer is capable of moral thought. We need an understanding of how real people actually feel (both the strong and the weak, the victims and the oppressors) and a sense of justice, the fitness of things.

A story contains a moral world. In the world of Hannibal (the movie), it is okay for Hannibal to murder whoever he wants to. He doesn't receive comeuppance, and it is never implied that he is in the wrong. Morality is a part of the willing suspension of disbelief; what is right or wrong in the story is under the control of the writer/narrator. We feel betrayed when a writer uses this control to create a moral world that we find repugnant. It makes us feel all ooky.

Can we judge an author based on the work? It would be difficult and probably doomed to failure, but I don't think it's an entirely stupid idea. Most bad stories are just technically bad -- the author is immature, incompetent, or too lazy to do a good job. Some horrible abortions of fiction are more clearly the result of narcissism and other personality disorders; a few are actually offensive. Morally offensive books are memorable; you probably remember the very first book you ever read that really pissed you off and gave you the creeps.

I also think an author can WRITE perfectly decent stories and still LIVE an immoral life. The reverse is not true, I don't think. Anyone who wrote truly horrible things would not be invited to my dinner parties or allowed to pet-sit my cats. Because of the ookiness.

So that is my answer, and that is what I think of people who write Family Guy darkfic for non-ironic reasons.

_____________
^* Blah blah disclaimer. Yes, Lolita is a good book, yes I'm sure there are good books written around the blood libels. I'm talking about writing that fails to problematise morally repugnant things, and you know it.

Comments

[youngest-one.livejournal.com]

Interesting post. I've yet to come to a conclusion regarding the morality of art, but this post gave me a lot to think about.

Am I correct in surmising from this that you do not object to morally offensive persons or situations as long as the author writes them that way, and makes such actions repugnant?

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

Correct. It's not the content, but the tone, which is why I think ratings based on content (particularly with fanfic, where there probably aren't any prepubescent kids reading) are of very limited value.

[youngest-one.livejournal.com]

At what age do you think the average person would be sufficiently mature to make moral judgments concerning works of art?

Also, what kind of rating system would you like to see, if any?

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

With the general caveat of IT DEPENDS, I'd say that people basically know what's what at thirteen or fourteen (maybe fifteen for some). A young teenager can tell Schindler's List from Triumph of the Will.

I think the ratings system we have does an acceptable job of sorting movies and television into rough age-appropriate groups. But it works because a board of trained human beings makes the decision. They're able to watch a movie and say, "Yeah, okay, people get shot in the head, and you wouldn't want to bring a toddler to see it, but it's still different from a horror movie."

Things are less sophisticated in fandom, and on top of that there are a bunch of weepy types who will always read a story and go "I AM SQUICKED THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WARNINGS" no matter how well a difficult subject is dealt with.

Books don't have a ratings system. I don't think fanfic needs one either, although some content-sorting system would be useful; subject keywords in books work okay for this. I wouldn't mind seeing something like:

1. Cyclops -- Angst. 2. Sexual assault -- Hurt, Comfort. 3. Fiction.

This would let people avoid stuff they don't like, and it wouldn't have the moralistic overtones of a "rating", which always makes everyone puff up and bluster nicely. HOW DARE YOU SAY MPREG IS DEVIANT! IT SHOULDN'T BE NC-17 JUST BECAUSE THERE'S CANNIBALISM AND PEDOPHILIA! WHY I WHY I