Re: RARA-AVIS: Moral or Immoral?

From: Doug Bassett ( dj_bassett@yahoo.com)
Date: 23 Feb 2007


All art is "moral", if by that you mean "the imposition of a point of view". Maybe that's the only really workable definition of "art", "an imposition of a point of view". Unfortunately such a definition is so vague as to be meaningless, which is usually a sign one's off on the wrong track.

After all, that's not the *interesting* thing about art. Readers aren't drawn to POSTMAN because of it's playing around with Christian themes of Sin and Damnation, or it's prefiguring of existentialism, or it's misogyny, or whatever. Well, I guess some are, in a student kind of way, but that wasn't the intent of the book -- to be studied -- and I think we're drifting off the reservation again if we start borrowing that artificial, odd system of reading we all learned in English 101.

Ultimately the point of the book...is the book. POSTMAN is about...POSTMAN. Art is experiential, it only has meaning within itself, and if this or that artwork fails -- and most do -- they fail within themselves, they present incoherent experiences.

So I side with "it's an uninteresting question".

doug

>
> My point is that once we have established that we
> oppose censorship
> of writing and a sanctimonious imposition of the
> "correct" moral view
> on writers, we need to proceed to the more
> interesting point: What
> the writer is trying to say about the human
> condition, what that
> writer thinks about that condition, and how this
> changes in changing
> times.
>
> Tim
>
> On Feb 23, 2007, at 2:04 PM, Robert Elkin wrote:
>
> > There is no morality, good, bad, or ugly, in the
> > book--the morality occurs only when someone with a
> > specific set of beliefs about right & wrong
> perceives
> > & judges the book according to those beliefs.
> > (IMHO, of course.)
> > Rob
> > --- DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote:
> >
> > > Enough with the abstract discussion, if art is
> moral
> > > or immoral, what
> > > makes it so? Where is the morality or immorality
> > > found? Is, say,
> > > Postman Always Rings Twice moral or immoral? Do
> we
> > > look at all of the
> > > actions in the book and judge it immoral, or do
> we
> > > look at the ending
> > > and call it moral? Does a moral lesson at the
> end
> > > overpower all of the
> > > sin that came before? Related, which do we read
> it
> > > for? Do we immerse
> > > ourselves in, and possibly enjoy vicariously,
> the
> > > immorality? Or do we
> > > side with the morality lesson at the end? Do we
> > > have to choose between
> > > the two?
> > >
> > > And what do you do with something like the book
> > > Postman is said to have
> > > inspired, Camus's The Stranger? Moral or
> immoral?
> > > Is it real that
> > > simple?
> > >
> > > Mark

Doug Bassett dj_bassett@yahoo.com

 
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