Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Art and Morality

From: Kerry J. Schooley ( gsp.schoo@murderoutthere.com)
Date: 27 Feb 2007


At 10:56 PM 26/02/2007, you wrote:

>Kerry J. Schooley wrote:
>
>Much as I'd like to think that these things are
>intrinsically wrong, I have to recognize that there
>are entire structures with their moral supports that
>suggest it's okay to bomb an entire city in order to
>kill one person considered to be evil...
>
>*************
>Thought I'd give this another go.
>
>So are you saying that because a significant number of
>people do not recognize certain actions as wrong and
>subsequently avoid doing them, then intrinsic right
>and wrong simply don't exist?

I am saying precisely that, or at least if there is an intrinsic right and wrong nobody human has been smart enough to figure out which is which. I know it's comforting to believe in an absolute, and I won't claim to have avoided the temptation, but Einstein posited that all things are relative, that it's all a matter of perspective and I think that noir fiction deals with the application of relativity to our ideas of moral behaviour. The early writers of noir
(but not necessarily hardboil) were writing for an audience that believed the generally agreed upon ideas of morality, or at least that the institutions of western civilization, the keepers of our morals if you like, had failed to avoid the hell of twentieth-century technological mass warfare. Further, according to my own observations the desire to act upon moral principles, partially due to the application of absolute moralities in a complex world, has generally worsened the human condition rather than improved it, and is itself usually immoral according to at least widely held principles of morality.

Yep, I'm one of those hated, moral relativists. It's a tough a slippery row to how, I admit, but that's no reason not to roll up one's sleeves. Morality is more an aspiration than an accomplishment so far as I've ever been able to tell.

Fear not. I've no desire to erase those who believe in moral absolutes from the face of the earth, or even from this list, but I have to admit I don't understand what such people could possibly enjoy about noir fiction, unless it's to titter about the other half- the losers. Still, there's much I don't understand about this world.

There. I hope that bores you all. Kerry

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