I've been following the discussion at Dear Author which was started by Robin, who posed the question "Do authors have ethical responsibilities beyond beyond the book?" She began by askingStraight off the top of your head, do you think that authors have any ethical or moral responsibilities beyond the book?Janine, one of her co-bloggers at Dear Author, responded
I’m guessing that the vast majority of you answered this question the same way I did for a long time, with a fully articulated, deeply resounding NO.
Wow. I have to say these opening paragraphs took me aback, because my answer would have been a deeply resounding YES. Authors have the same ethical and moral responsibilities that all other human beings have, no more, no less, so why on earth would their moral and ethical responsiblities begin and end with their books? I can’t see why they should get a free pass from the responsibility to treat others fairly.and Laura Kinsale stated that "I do think hard about the things I believe are important, but I don’t owe it to anyone but myself."
By coincidence, Rosy Thornton's just posted about the topic too:
freedom of expression means that an author is free to write about whatever characters she chooses, and to endow them with whatever views and attitudes she wishes. Besides which, we have to be true to our characters, don’t we? We have to reflect the world as it exists. A novel is not a soapbox.That's just an excerpt of her post, and if you're interested in the issue, I'd encourage you to read it in full.
But my personal version of the ‘ethics of care’ tells me that the flipside of freedom of expression is responsibility for what we choose to express; that as writers we have a duty to think about the potential impact of our work on those who read it. Societal attitudes are influenced not only by upbringing, family, friends and workmates, and by the news media, but also by the ambient culture: by film and television, and by the books we read.
Rosy mentions that "I would not write a moody 'alpha' hero who is mean and even cruel but whose meanness is portrayed in a sexy light," but they're the subject of a panel that Eric will be chairing at the 2010 Film & History Conference: Representations of Love in Film and Television, November 11-14, 2010. The Calls for Papers are out, and the deadline for submissions is 1 March 2010. The full list of panels can be found here. Eric's panel is on Sons of the Sheik: Global Perspectives on the Alpha Male in Love. Here's a bit more about it [I've added the links. Where there was more than one film with the same title, the link is to a list]:
Masterful, confident, erotically charged, the “Alpha Male” has been a cinematic icon from Rudolph Valentino’s Sheik Ahmed ben Hassan (The Sheik, 1921) to Pierce Brosnan’s Thomas Crown (1999) and Hritik Roshan’s elusive criminal, “Mr. A” (Dhoom 2, 2006). As the hero in romantic films, this ideal of masculinity has proven enduringly popular with both male and female viewers, even as successive waves of feminism, in the West and around the globe, have challenged the sexual politics he implies.----
How do representations of the Alpha Male in love differ across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries? How have they changed across the past century, responding to historically- and regionally-specific shifts in gender roles and ideals? What happens to the Alpha Male hero when he stars in a romantic comedy, as opposed to a drama or melodrama? How much can we use this iconic figure to track the power of the female gaze or women’s desires, as has been done with the Alpha Male hero of popular romance fiction, given the fact that men continue to predominate in the writing and direction of the films (as opposed to the overwhelmingly female authorship and audience for romance novels)?
This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers and panel proposals that examine all forms and genres of films featuring “Alpha” protagonists in love, as well as films which challenge, revise, or subvert the conventions surrounding this character. Possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
• Sheiks, Captains, Emperors, (The Sheik, Persuasion, Jodhaa Akbar)
• Alpha Male meets Alpha Female (The Thomas Crown Affair [1999], Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
• Austen’s Alpha: Darcy and his Descendants (Pride and Prejudice)
• Sink Me! He’s an Alpha in Disguise! (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro)
• Alpha / Beta Reversals and Alter-Egos (Rab Ne Bana di Jodi, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)
• Suspicious Minds: the Alpha Criminal and Detective (Devil in a Blue Dress, The Big Sleep, Breathless)
• Athlete Alphas (Love & Basketball, Bull Durham)
• Alpha Lovers in Space (Han Solo, James T. Kirk)
• You’ve Got Male: Alphas in “Chick Flicks”
Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:
Eric Murphy Selinger
Associate Professor
Dept. of English
DePaul University
802 West Belden Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
eselinge@depaul.edu (email submissions preferred) Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal.
The photo of the cover of Marquis W. Child and Douglass Cater's Ethics in a Business Society was taken by cdrummbks and was made available at Flickr under a Creative Commons licence.
Definitely a No. Even within the book. you owe your reader nothing. If that reader chooses not to buy, that's their power - but the author has no "duty" to the reader at all.
ReplyDeletehttp://c-smith-author.livejournal.com/58824.html
You're answering "No" but I'm not entirely sure which question you're answering.
ReplyDeleteI can understand that the concept of a "duty" to the readers might make it sound as though the author was the equivalent of a teacher with a duty of care to their pupils. I'm not sure how many authors or readers would like that idea. That said, when Rosy writes that "we have a duty to think about the potential impact of our work on those who read it" it's probably worth bearing in mind that Rosy is a lecturer (in law), so in other aspects of her life she does have some sort of "duty" to her students. I wonder if that background is shaping her choice of words?
Janine, though, used rather different language and posed a different question:
"Authors have the same ethical and moral responsibilities that all other human beings have, no more, no less, so why on earth would their moral and ethical responsiblities begin and end with their books?"
Not having read the discussion over at Dear Author and not having the time to, I'm a little at a disadvantage. Then again having seen plenty of these over the years, I can pretty much guess at some of the responses. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI suppose I'm with Erastes on this one. The author doesn't owe anyone anything. The reader doesn't have to read the book.
With major one caveat to that.
If they want to sell their work, then there are contractual obligations that may come into things and there is such a thing as making "art" marketable to the audience one is attempting to sell to.
And audiences change over time. I've been doing a lot of thinking about that while working on the series of posts I'm putting up now on my site about my reading history (http://bevsbooks.com/notes/?p=933). Yeah, readers do react to attitudes found in the books, but that doesn't mean the authors were right or wrong for having them there in the first place.
It may only mean that we all have different perspectives and not all of them agree. Or that somebody's perspective has changed at some point. Is that ethics or is it about keeping up with the market?
Will it surprise anyone if I disagree with Erastes? No, it won't. Does it surprise me that people who yelled so loudly and offensively during Lambda fail still don't get it? No, it doesn't, even if I find it depressing at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIf an author is writing about *any* marginalised group from *outside* that group, they immediately take on a duty of care towards readers and that group not to hurt that group, endanger its rights or belittle its struggles.
I don't care if you are talking about some tiny tribe in the Amazon, gay people, Holocaust survivors - or women.
And it's the authors who don't get that, don't accept it, who are screwing it up for those who *do*. They are hurting marginalised people *and* they are making authors who do care, look bad. So knock it off, you lot. Some of us actually want to be ethical. If you don't, don't presume for a minute that you speak for anyone but yourself and your own self interest.
Sorry for the strong words, Laura, but I've just read a very angry, upset post by a dear friend expressing how much all this is hurting him, and I just want to *shake* some individuals.
I haven't read the full discussion either, but there are two points that strike me.
ReplyDeleteThe first is that no work of art is complete until it is 'received' by someone, reacted to by someone other than its creator. The picture that stays wrapped in a cloth in an attic, or the book manuscript that lives in a file box and is never published; these relate only to their progenitors. But the moment they are out in the world and other people respond to them, they take on a life of their own, independent of those progenitors. They influence, and are influenced by, their audience.
To that extent, the creators of the works must think of the ultimate audience that will complete their work. They do, therefore, have the same kind of duty to those viewers/readers that they have to the rest of humanity in every other way. That duty certainly includes courtesy and tact at the very least, though it does not, I think, include any didactic responsibility. Artists (in the widest sense) are members of the human species, and the gift of their Muse does not excuse them from proper respect for their fellow-humans.
At the same time, I am a little disturbed by some of Ann Somerville's comments (and I have often seen the same kind of comments over the last 10-15 years), as they could be taken to suggest that only people within a given 'group' should be allowed to comment on members of that group. If we are allowed to opine only on the other people who happen to belong to exactly the same minorities as we do, then we fly in the face of the very process of inspiration and creative thought; we negate its whole purpose of universal human meaning. We are all similar to one another in more ways than we are different from one another, and we should not forget that.
The whole point of art and creation is that it should not be bound by the sex, age, race, age or personal proclivities of its creator, but should be able to get into the minds and emotions of very different people, both at the time of its creation and throughout its later life in relation to those who receive it. If this were not so, we should not be able to appreciate the art of other times, other cultures at all -- and we can. We may sometimes appreciate them in a slightly different way from those within their own cultures, but that different way is no less real. It is a valid part of the independent life of art, which should continue to grow and change after it has left the hands of its maker.
"I am a little disturbed by some of Ann Somerville's comments (and I have often seen the same kind of comments over the last 10-15 years), as they could be taken to suggest that only people within a given 'group' should be allowed to comment on members of that group"
ReplyDeleteAnn does, in fact, write about characters who are rather different from her. I can't speak for her, but she recently linked to a couple of posts by Paul Bens in which he outlined some of the things he thought authors should bear in mind when writing the Other.
It seems to be a very, very hot topic in the m/m writing and reading community at the moment, so I wonder if it might be helpful to take an example from outside the romance genre. Recently Jessica at Racy Romance Reviews reviewed Jose Saramago's Blindness. This was a novel which used blindness as a metaphor. Jessica quoted from a statement by the President of the US National Federation of the Blind:
Saramago wants a world view that serves to offer an allegory for the worst description he can possibly imagine. He selects blindness as his metaphor for all that is bad in human thought and action. He describes the blind as having every negative trait of humanity and none of the positive ones. He argues that this is an allegory for a picture of the reality of the world today. … [...]
We know the reality of blindness, we know the pain it can bring, we know the joy that can come from correcting the misinformation about it, and we are prepared to act on our own behalf. We will not let José Saramago represent us, for he does not speak the truth. He does not write of joy or the optimism of building a society worth calling our own. We do, and we will.
I don't think the objection to Saramago's work was that he was writing about blind people. It was that he was writing about blind people in a way which portrayed them in a relentlessly negative way which reinforced existing stereotypes of, and prejudices against, the blind.
Will it surprise anyone if I disagree with Erastes? No, it won't. Does it surprise me that people who yelled so loudly and offensively during Lambda fail still don't get it? No, it doesn't, even if I find it depressing at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me even though I haven't been following what's apparently the latest controversy online because that's why I included the major caveat I did in my comment above. In looking back just over the romance novels I've read in my life, it's clear how much they've changed the way they approach things.
Because our attitudes as readers change.
And so the market changes.
But sometimes that change happens slowly. Unfortunately.
"our attitudes as readers change.
ReplyDeleteAnd so the market changes"
I do agree with you, but authors are also readers, and they're affected by the same social changes that affect readers in general. Therefore, I'd expect that when social attitudes change, that will directly affect the way authors think about things. In other words, I'd suspect that changes in fiction can be the result of the authors' changing attitudes, as well as the result of authors' trying to adapt to changes in the market caused by alterations in readers' attitudes.
I also think that some authors may be responsible for creating/contributing to some of the changes in social attitudes. They may also create market demand for a new kind of novel. That seems to have been what happened to romance in the 1970s: Kathleen Woodiwiss brought something new to the market, and it led to the "romance revolution." While it could well be argued that she wrote what she did because of changing social values, she couldn't have known how much demand there would be for the kind of novel she had written. She wasn't writing in response to a known demand from the market.
According to Thurston and others, her novels contributed to social change, because readers were affected by reading her books and books by authors who adopted her more explicit depiction of female sexuality.
Well, of course, authors are responsible for creating many of the changes. Or call them fads or trends. Or whatever one wants to call them.
ReplyDeleteThe big shifts, I mean.
But are the bigs ones what we're really talking about when we're talking about ethics? Or are those things much more subtle? Much more subversive? Much harder to define and as such much, much slower to change?
See, I'll give you that, sure, authors can create changes by creating almost instant trends that readers lack onto and crave but I'm just not sure that's the type of thing Ann is actually talking about. Attitude, real attitude, changes take time to evolve.
And here's the reason why I think this. Aren't we still arguing about those bodice ripper attitudes three decades later? Aren't they still impacting romances today? Heck, I still ocassionally run across books that contain scenes and thinking that I'd call worse than what was in some of them. I'm not even sure some of the attitudes have changed.
Shifted, yes. But changed?
Heck if I know.
The only obligation an author has is to entertain me.
ReplyDeletedick
"they could be taken to suggest that only people within a given 'group' should be allowed to comment on members of that group."
ReplyDeleteOnly by someone with an axe to grind, honestly. This is a standard strawman argument which is raised during any discussion about writing minorities. The people talking on C Smith's journal - and those who partipated in Lambda Fail and Race Fail etc - are expert straw people constructors.
I do not support that assessment, and have never said it. But I have said and will say that any treatment of an marginalised group has to be done with respect and education about the people within it. It means not contributing to the 'single story' about the group for a start.
I've posted at considerable length on this issue in my journal, as have many other people over the last year. People in minority groups largely want portrayals of them by outsiders to continue. What they are sick of is the kind of thing Paul Bens talks about here:
http://gwailowrite.livejournal.com/293224.html
and
http://gwailowrite.livejournal.com/292699.html
And these posts made during Race Fail:
http://yeloson.livejournal.com/531043.html
http://ciderpress.livejournal.com/214072.html
Among many, many others - I have a summary here which some have found useful as a round up:
http://logophilos.net/blather/?p=1162
It's way too easy to yell 'but you're censoring meeee!' when a minority pipes up to say, 'excuse me, you are screwing up badly in the portrayal of my cultural and identity.'
Or when victims of crime or oppression say that the way they are being portrayed actively contributes to injury.
If you haven't seen this video Paul links here
http://gwailowrite.livejournal.com/298168.html
You really should. Everyone should. It explains the issue so much better than I've ever seen it done before.
"The only obligation an author has is to entertain me. "
ReplyDeleteThis is one statement regarding authorial responsibility I utterly disagree with.
I have no obligation to entertain. I might want to. Equally, I might want to educate, enrage, or even depress a reader.
And the 'me' is meaningless. You, Dick, are nothing to me. How can I entertain what I don't know, and have no interest in? You're not even my target demographic. If an author aims to entertain everyone's 'me' they are sure to fail.
The only 'me' I aim to entertain is the 'me' in me. The rest is accidental. If my tastes are broad enough, then the rest is also lucrative.
But I have no obligation to be a trained monkey in a circus for anyone.
Being entertaining is not an authorial imperative. Being ethical is.
I am very happy to see your assurance, Ann S.: I just wondered.
ReplyDeleteYou say, "I have said and will say that any treatment of an marginalised group has to be done with respect and education about the people within it." I couldn't agree more.
A novelist always has a duty to do proper research. If an important character in a novel is a palaeontologist, the writer must find out what palaeontologists do, and why, if she doesn't know it already. If an important character is Welsh, she needs to find out about Wales and its people (not invent a load of romantic Celtic crap); if a major character is paralysed or profoundly deaf, she needs to research those particular conditions in detail and come to understand them. This is really not about minority groups per se at all -- we ALL belong to minorities -- but simply about the craft of writing and doing the necessary background work.
The other point is covered by the simple matter of treating other people, all other people, with courtesy. Not being gratuitously rude.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"This is really not about minority groups per se at all "
ReplyDeleteUm, no. Sorry. It *is* about minority groups, and you're avoiding the thorny issue. Accuracy is only one of the matters which matter.
"we ALL belong to minorities"
We don't all belong to an oppressed minority, that's the point. American presidents are in a minority group - they're not exactly unempowered, are they?
"Not being gratuitously rude."
This is really reducing the issue to its most useless point. I can be harmful and perfectly polite. Romance seems to breed people (authors and bloggers) who specialise in that, in fact.
What matters is thoughtfulness, not manners.
I think you are over-simplifying the question of the oppression of minorities. I do not see 'oppressed' as the polar opposite of 'empowered' anyway, and the boundaries of social contexts and the places of numerous minorities within them are not sharply defined. They are hazy and mutable. I also think 'oppression' requires a good deal of qualification. Social oppression arising from personal bigotry, however offensive, is a very different matter from formal legal oppression. I have seen this change take place in my own lifetime in this country in relation to male homosexuality; believe me, it is a very big change. There is oppression, and oppression.
ReplyDeleteIt looks almost as though you are saying that only certain minorities are entitled to consideration; others should just take their chances. Isn't everyone, oppressed, empowered or anything else, entitled to be treated with respect? Even US Presidents?
A few years ago -- around 2000, I think -- I was on a workplace Disability Awareness course designed to inform and instruct staff on the issue. It was in general an excellent course, and there were numerous elements that I found helpful and enlightening. But one thing that came home to me very forcibly was that the three instructors, all of whom were physically disabled in different ways, had a curiously stereotyped and simplified view of the 'able-bodied majority'.
They told us, rightly, that we should not stereotype those with apparent differences, that we should not make unwarranted assumptions about what they could or could not do. Then they went right ahead and assumed that we, the apparently walking, talking, hearing, seeing members of the course, were all in perfect physical and mental condition, that none of us had ever known or helped care for someone with a disability, that none of us had any idea what it was like to be discriminated against, to be bullied, or to have our horizons limited by factors beyond our own control... They were, of course, mistaken. I remember one course member politely making some point about those with Down's Syndrome, and being really slapped down by one of the instructors for expressing a variant view. That course member, a young man in his 30s, had grown up with a brother who had the condition, so he was not speaking as a totally uninformed outsider.
It is surprisingly easy even for those who are crusaders for fairness and consideration to slip into the very prejudices against which they rail, because those prejudices -- for example, stereotyping the 'other' -- are endemic in gregarious species. We all need to examine our consciences regularly, whichever side of a particular minority/majority boundary we stand on.
"It looks almost as though you are saying that only certain minorities are entitled to consideration; others should just take their chances."
ReplyDeleteAnd it looks to me as if you are being somewhat disingenuous. I can't believe any sensible person can't tell the difference between an oppressed minority and a privileged one, or, by using one's own experiences of oppression and marginalisation, why some groups need greater protection than others.
Unless you believe there's a need for protective shelters for ex-American presidents in exactly the same degree as there is for battered women? Or that ex-American presidents are routinely refused mortgages or charged higher interest rates because they are ex-presidents, the way non-white Americans routinely are? Or that ex-American presidents have a life expectancy 20 years less than other American citizens, the way Australian Aboriginals do relative to other Australians?
"Isn't everyone, oppressed, empowered or anything else, entitled to be treated with respect?"
Look at it this way - if I write a story in which a straight white Christian American male is made fun of, it might hurt his feelings, but it hardly contributes to his overall oppression. Nor does it if I make him the villain, if I make him promiscuous, or if I make him die horribly as a result of a sexual attack.
Now if that character isn't straight and I make him promiscuous? If the character is female? If that character is black?
Do we slut shame men or women in the media?
Do we show black men as criminals or heroes more often?
Are disabled people victims or heroes more often?
Can you reasonably tell me that careless/offensive treatment of a character in a story does not have a greater implication depending on whether that character is *also* from an oppressed group?
If you can, then you live in a different world than I do. Because I've just watched three episodes of Bones back to back and a promiscuous woman is the cause of a violent crime being committed - or the criminal - in two of those three episodes (and a loving mother is the criminal in the third). Back to back. And I can tell you, that kind of drip drip really does affect me as a woman.
Same as it affects people of colour when they can know with 99% accuracy when someone who isn't white walks on screen in a TV show or movie, that they will walk off either as a corpse or a criminal.
No doubt the script writers will tell you they are being respectful. They will tell you that hey, women commit crimes, and so do people of colour, and it just 'happened' that the black man and the promiscuous woman were the villains of the piece. Again. And again.
Like they just 'happened' to use little people in that episode for comedic effect - for the second time - but no harm intended, right? And look at all the work for little people those episodes gave them! The writers practically deserve a humanitarian award for that. Right?
Everyone deserves respect. Most people say they give it. Most people have no idea what damage they do with even the best of intentions.
It sounds to me like you haven't actually looked at the links I gave in my previous comment. I urge you to do so. They make the points much better than I could ever do.
Yes, I did look at your links, though not at all the links-within-links.
ReplyDeleteI found the whole debate, and particularly the intense anger on all sides, both profoundly depressing and, at times, baffling. I was therefore not noticeably enlightened. I'm sorry about that, but I did my best.
By all means feel free to attribute this failure to my personal limitations: I am sure you will do so, with or without my permission. The obstacles to understanding might include my intelligence, my fairly advanced age, my cultural conditioning, and certainly, I think, my lack of familiarity with some aspects of the debate. For example, I watch relatively little television and practically no films, and my tastes in written fiction are quite limited.
Obviously, as it turned out, I should have refrained from comment at all. I was concerned chiefly because I thought you might be implying that it should be verboten for anyone to write about a character who was in any significant way different from him/herself, and that seemed to me (and still does) inimical to the very purpose of story-telling. I now know you were not saying that, so that's fine.
I do have to say that, after reading some of those blogs and comments, I am surprised that any novelist has the temerity to create a character who belongs to a different sex, culture, colour, age, class or gender-role preference than himself, since he (or she, of course) is apparently quite certain to arouse somebody's fury.
Like most people, I am well aware of inequality and injustice in this world in both the past and the present, and find it depressing. I also find your evident anger and contempt dispiriting. Let's leave it at that.
@AnnSommerville:
ReplyDeleteBut unless you do entertain me in some way--and I include educating, enraging, and depressing in "entertainment"--then I will not read you, so your efforts will fail regardless that you fulfill your own "me" by being an author. If the only audience an author has is her/himself, being ethical is carrying coals to Newcastle.
dick
"I am surprised that any novelist has the temerity to create a character who belongs to a different sex, culture, colour, age, class or gender-role preference than himself, since he (or she, of course) is apparently quite certain to arouse somebody's fury."
ReplyDeleteIf that's your takeaway message from not only what I've said but so many other people have said, then that's really sad and puzzling.
Being a writer is risky because it opens you up to criticism at every point. But without bravery, then how can we possibly create any art worth reading?
"I also find your evident anger and contempt dispiriting."
I feel neither of those towards you. I feel frustration when someone who obviously is well-intentioned trots out the same straw men which have been decisively debunked over and over.
This isn't about you and your feelings. It's about principles by which artists can ethically write beyond themselves, and yes, it's about responsibility.
It's not an easy topic to discuss and always arouses deep emotions, not least in any author who gives a damn.
Perhaps you might think about it and talk to someone who doesn't upset you, and come to other conclusions. Or not. I don't think anything I can say will elucidate the matter for you.
"If the only audience an author has is her/himself, being ethical is carrying coals to Newcastle. "
ReplyDeleteThat is the most bizarre conclusion you could have drawn from my comments.
Does it not occur to you that an author, like advertising, isn't even interested in more than 10% of the potential audience? Just because I fail to entertain *you* doesn't mean I am a failure.
And I absolutely reject the assertion that being ethical and being entertaining are incompatible. That's a dangerous fallacy
"If that's your takeaway message from not only what I've said but so many other people have said, then that's really sad and puzzling."
ReplyDeleteSad, maybe, but not puzzling.
"Being a writer is risky because it opens you up to criticism at every point."
Of course. I am a published writer (currently 12 books, 13th in progress, around 150 papers), though not, I hasten to add, of fiction. Criticism is not only an integral part of the process, both before and after publication: it is an essential element in refining one's work. But the kind of criticism I expect, and get, is usually a lot calmer and less emotional than what I have seen in this debate.
"I feel frustration when someone who obviously is well-intentioned trots out the same straw men which have been decisively debunked over and over."
As I had been wholly unaware of the debates which have been raging on this topic, and to which you kindly provided some links, I was, of course, also unaware of 'trotting out' arguments that had already been 'decisively debunked'. I realise that to you, this suggests that I have been living under a rock, but there you are. I was busy doing other things. I merely queried something you said that struck me as worrying, and that you clarified. Had I known that my thoughts would stir up such a furore, I should have held my peace.
"This isn't about you and your feelings."
I did not say, or intend to imply, that it was. This is not a matter that is central to my well-being or my life, though it is obviousl an issue of general interest. I am not going to lose any sleep over it. But I just wonder why you (and others) sound so very angry. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your tone?
"I just wonder why you (and others) sound so very angry."
ReplyDeleteBecause Robin's article on DA is in response to a debate which has raged in the online community about m/m since last year about appropriation of gay male sexuality by women, and even further back over matters such as Race. I've been following and/or involved in a number of these discussions and arguments. So have some of the commenters here.
I gave you a link to my summary of RaceFail. If you were to follow all the links there - and there are a lot, I know that - you would see the same discussion you and I are having, being played out over and over. Not just white to white, woman to woman but people of colour trying to explain things to white people, gay people trying to explain to straights etc.
"Perhaps I am misinterpreting your tone?"
As an academic, you presumably are used to picking out the logic and arguments of statements even from people who don't express themselves well. Concentrating on tone is a common pitfall for the well-meaning, and maybe you could set that aside for the moment.
I am not trying to upset or denigrate you and I apologise if I did or came across as trying to do so. But this is indeed a touchy, angering subject - and the first commenter (and the person she links to) on this post has been part of rousing much of that anger in certain parts at least in relation to the m/m genre.
I get very very worked up when authors try and push aside criticism of what they're doing by loudly and ignorantly disclaiming responsibility or by saying they are 'making shit up' (direct quote from someone who triggered some recent angery). Because apart from the arrogance and utter immorality of that position, it makes literature look like a worthless activity. All art shapes and informs our view of the world...but somehow fiction doesn't? Somehow writing is such an unimportant, mindless activity that the reader encounters it and walks away untouched?
I think not. And I know better too, because I get emails every few days from someone telling me how much my writing has moved them, enlightened them often, even empowered them. For me to accept the view that we have no responsibility for what we do would mean all this positive response was purely accidental and I assure you - I work too hard at what I do for it be an 'accident'.
Perhaps at some point you might look at the RaceFail summary and follow some links from those I link. You might think it will bore you, but actually, there are some hugely powerful and lyrical pieces of rhetoric and emotion there. Stuff which is beautiful and important, and very much not boring to read.
Yes, I see. I am clearly in the position of one who enters a room where several people have been passionately arguing for six hours, and utterly infuriates all of them by going back to a question that they had thrashed out, and possibly settled, more than three hours ago.
ReplyDeleteMy only excuse (apart from ignorance, which you may feel is no excuse) is that I was genuinely perplexed and sought enlightenment.
I did not follow all the links within links, as I said. When I finish my present book -- which may not meet my contract deadline the way things are going -- I shall try to catch up.
"I am clearly in the position of one who enters a room where several people have been passionately arguing for six hours, and utterly infuriates all of them by going back to a question that they had thrashed out, and possibly settled, more than three hours ago."
ReplyDeleteYeah exactly :)
I know you were only seeking enlightenment, and I was only trying to explain. But we both started at the wrong end of the stick. When you have time, I'm sure you will read around and find information - and if you need help, you only have to ask.
Good luck with the book!
Ann and Agtigress, I'd like to apologise to both of you. I put up this post as a combination of a call for papers and a set of links to what I thought were some interesting points of view. I hadn't anticipated that those points of view might spark a discussion here, rather than just direct people to the sites they pointed to. I'm sorry. That was rather silly of me.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to find something a bit less controversial to blog about next week, because although I appreciate exchanges of view, I don't want to be responsible for any more threads which make people feel as though they'd entered
a room where several people have been passionately arguing for six hours, and utterly infuriates all of them by going back to a question that they had thrashed out, and possibly settled, more than three hours ago.
It's not comfortable for that person, and, obviously, it's infuriating for the others.
Absolutely nothing to apologise for, Laura. I asked what turned out to be a stupid question. As you know, I am only an occasional contributor here, and clearly I should have gone away and done extensive research before opening my mouth.
ReplyDelete:-)
Ann, thank you for your good wishes for the current book. As I'm sure you know, some of the little suckers fight one harder than others...
ReplyDeleteI am uncomfortable with the suggestion that a writer of fiction can even violate a moral code by writing anything. Perhaps the act of seeking publication of an offensive work can be condemned, but a work of fiction that stays locked in the author's desk is no moral crime.
ReplyDeleteReasonable people can disagree rationally about which works of fiction, if any, are worthy of moral condemnation. Thus, that is perhaps a community standard, and we've all seen some pretty silly examples of censorship and book-banning to know that no community has a lock on moral certainty in this regard.
Publishers (and writers who self-publish) share any blame in the publication of a morally reprehensible work of fiction. Readers cannot always know which aspects of publication are exclusively the publisher's, so it can be unfair to assume the author has more control or influence over the publisher's choices than she may have. Thus, question of how much a writer should be censured is very fact specific.
Writers have greater or complete control over the presentation of their identy as the author of a published work. It is morally reprehensible for an author deliberately to claim a false authenticity in support of a work of fiction. If that writer claims membership in a group that has been historically oppressed or has been victimized by prejudice, that could be seen as a worse crime.
Using a pseudonym to "pass" as a different gender is one to claim a false authenticity. But there can be mitigating circumstances: The writer's name really is Chris, or she has used a gender neutral pseudonym since before writing m/m books, or is completely honest on her website about her gender, etc. These may be mitigating circumstances.
What I'm ending up with is something like the criminal code: there's an underlying principle but it's application is complicated, may be fact-specific, and is often nuanced.
But this doesn't make for a very fun debate, so some people will insist that the moral code is absolute and must be applied universally, while others claim that it's absurd to have a moral code at all.
And some people just like to watch the train wreck.
"I hadn't anticipated that those points of view might spark a discussion here, rather than just direct people to the sites they pointed to."
ReplyDeleteThere would be no harm if you would prefer the conversation took place at the site of origin, in saying that, and that way you could conserve your space for what you do want to talk about.
Though it makes it hard to discuss an external link such as been posted here when the poster has moderated comments to exclude any hint of criticism.
Good luck with finding an uncontroversial subject in Romancelandia because I've yet to see one! :)
I have read this thread with great interest, having followed Laura's link here from my own blog post on the subject over at Strictly Writing.
ReplyDeleteAnn, I couldn't agree with you more when you say, "Being entertaining is not an authorial imperative. Being ethical is."
Access to publication and broad circulation for one's voice has always been a privilege enjoyed by a tiny few. The internet and fora such as this has changed things a little in this respect, but only a very little. With the privilege of being given a voice comes, in my personal opinion, a burden of responsibility for what we write: an awareness of the damage it can do, as well as the potential for positive influence.
Storytelling, from time immemorial, has always had a purpose beyond mere entertainment. It has always held up a mirror to the society which gave it birth, has raised debate and, even when not openly didactic, has put forward suggested moral frameworks to its audience. To pretend that fiction can exist in a moral and political vacuum is a nonsense. Even a book which suggested that sex and shopping were all that mattered (if such a book existed) would be propagating a very particular political and moral message.
As novelists, we simply cannot avoid sending moral messages. So I believe it is our responsibility to think about the messages we send.
@Rosy Thornton:
ReplyDeleteI've been using the word "entertain" in its primary meaning, i.e. to hold the attention. As I commented to Ms. Sommerville, unless a author holds a reader's attention, the author is going to be talking to himself, reinforcing his own ethics. A storyteller can have a remarkably fine moral in whatever story he tells, but unless the audience listens, the moral will never be known.
Some philosophers, from Plato through Nietzsche include ideas in their writings which many consider unethical, yet they hold a readers' attention, and I don't think we would want to do away with them because they have the unethical passages. Sun Tzu's "Art of War," Boccaccio's "Decameron," Machiavelli's "The Prince," "Fanny Hill," have little to no ethical purpose, yet they are widely read, again because they hold the reader's attention.
dick
Dick, my pen name has one 'm' in it.
ReplyDeleteIgnore everything I've said, as you will, but spell my name right while you doing it, please?
Authors have the same ethical and moral responsibilities that all other human beings have, no more, no less, so why on earth would their moral and ethical responsiblities begin and end with their books?
ReplyDelete