More Meta on the Morality of Mimetic Monsters

[alixtii]

So nemo_gravis replied to my previous post with a thoughtful and intelligent post on the way that morality functions in fictional worlds the same way it does in the actual world. (Okay, that paraphrase is pretty heavy in my philosopher-speak, but that was the main thrust of Nemo's argument.) I agree with Nemo insofar as talk of the "attraction" we feel towards evil characters was opened up to allow for more than just sexual desire, but thinking about things there helped me to clarify my ideas here.

The voice of a fic is not the author's, but that does not mean the fic does not speak with a moral voice. This voice is instead rooted in the dialogue between the reader and the text, a dialogue over which the author has little control but which nonetheless exists. Furthermore, there are parameters within the sociolinguistic context which provide (predictable) boundaries for that dialogue; this is what separates "good" readings from "bad" ones. I find it difficult, as someone skilled (not by any fancy education, although I have that too, but simply by living in the culture and speaking the language) in various relevant narrative conventions, and even with imaginative resistance and assuming that the same moral rules apply in the fictional world as in this one, to interpret Buffy as not endorsing the actions of Buffy (even when she's clearly wrong, like late season 7) or Giles, or Battlestar Galactica as not endorsing the actions of Roslin. The narrative conventions make it clear who is in the right and who is in the wrong. Faith, for example, is hit by a bomb in "End of Days" as a punishment for refusing to agree to Buffy's insanely stupid but nonetheless ultimately correct (through sheer interference of luck and/or the authors) plan. Furthermore, I can see people finding this message communicated via the aesthetic work persuasive--after all, half the country doesn't seem to care that the President doesn't seem to feel he is required to obey the law in wartime, due to some magical Article Four powers--even when a logical argument would not be able to accomplish this end. (Anyone remember the article "Also Sprach Faith" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy?)

So what is my response--what am I morally required to do? Well, I expose the dynamics of the text which I find problematic. This is what feminist criticism is about: one reveals the ways in which, say, Jane Eyre works within the patriarchy, perpetuating modes of thought which are deeply patriarchal, and is thus damaging and disempowering to women in various ways. And then one looks to the way that, say, Wide Sargasso Sea responds to some of these issues and cheers at the ways in which it is empowering to women, but then examines the ways in which it still falls short and is still problematic and disempowering (because there is no ideal feminist text, at least not within the patriarchy--is there something in the basic structure of conflict, crisis, and resolution which is anti-feminist?).

But this entire discussion I just laid out completely ignores all consideration of aesthetic quality. (Because those involved in the discussion are all aesthetic relativists?) Nobody seems to be doubting that Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea are great literary works despite being sexist (in whatever way); indeed, the tacit implication might just be that they are great works because they are sexist. But shouldn't our political commitments influence what we think is aesthetically valuable?

In addition to my feminist politics, I subscribe to feminist theologies, feminist metaphysics, feminist epistemologies, and so forth. I positively revel in what might be seen by intellectual conservatives as the oxymoronic nature of their backwards-seeming approach (putting political commitments before the search for "Truth"--whatever that is). But I hit a brick wall when I consider feminist aesthetics. Part of this is because, as I noted in my previous post, that when I put on my writer hat I become more of a Platonist/Moorean. Anyone who writes fiction so as to speak to the contingent aesthetic standards of a specific spatiotemporal location rather than enduring truths is, in my mind, at worst a propagandist and at best a hack. This is despite my philosophical conviction that said enduring truths don't actually exist--when engaged in aesthetic creation, we must believe in them. (I've nicknamed this phenomenon the "artist's antinomy"--which explains how a group as bright as the Bloomsbury authors could have fallen for Moore's quack metaphysics.) When I write, I have to write what I feel, not what I believe--even though what I feel is often deeply influenced by my socialization as a white het male in a patriarchal society.

(That aesthetics resists my radical feminism in this way implies to me that a retheorization of the way in which I concieve of the relations between these disciplines is necessary. Perhaps ethics and aesthetics are co-primitive? Still the quasi-foundationalism here is disturbing and in some senses deeply anti-feminist.)

But then, once I have produced a text, what am I to do with it? My own moral beliefs are irrelevant to an interpretation of the text; to take them into account would be to commit the intentional fallacy. But when I construct an author-function based solely on the fanfic, I find that his moral views are at places diametrically opposed to me; in "his" glorification of the will to power, "he" seems to be expressing the belief that it is acceptable to sacrifice freedom for liberty, that a betrayal of our principles is in some way justified when there are vampires at the gates. (But if vampires, then why not terrorists?) So, pursuant to the process of feminist criticism I described above, I speak out about the ways in which the texts perpetuate patriarchal modes of thought--the sort of feminist speaking out which I supppose I am doing now. But isn't there something vaguely hypocritical about denouncing the moral dynamics of a text which I have written? Am I hiding behind the intentional fallacy to ignore the fact that I am disseminating modes of thought which I find distasteful?

Does my commitment to my art trump even my feminist commitments? (My heart seems to say yes; my head says no.) Would it be best to hide my fic under a bushel (or not write them at all), as it would (perhaps) be politically expedient to do? To never let anyone see the works of beauty (or not) that my tortured soul has created? ("Soul"? Wow, I'm really slipping into the Platonism here, aren't I?) But my convictions are so strongly against censorship of all kinds that I find these ideas almost unthinkable.

The best solution is pragmatic, I suppose. (Isn't it always?) A radical feminist like me can problematize anything. The question that needs to be asked isn't what would be the ideal text in the feminist utopia but what is empowering to these people at this time on the ground? (Turning to praxis is always a good idea when one has become bogged down by theory.) Empirical questions like these tend to bore me (I am much more the abstract theorist), but I share with much of fandom the conviction that fandom as a community of women writing is empowering to them (laugh of the Medusa, anyone?)--and perhaps the segment of fandom with which I am involved, in which women write about women is even more so. (In any case, I write for an audience which is more predominately queer, and thus ius more radically disempowered by our patriarchal society even compared to an audience of heterosexual women.)

I can't control who will read my fic (unless I flock it, as I have done in a couple of instances), but I can have a pretty good sense of the sociolinguistic parameters within which it will be interpreted by the community for which it is written, and I know none of you, flist, are going to decided that the president's actions are acceptable because Dawn treats herself as above the law when she sends Slayers to kill vampires. (Indeed, the very fact that I as a het male were am women as objects of desire in the way I do would be somewhat problematic were it not for the fact that I do it as a member of this community and for this audience.) But what if that weren't the case, and the interpretative lens which I knew would be brought to my fic might engender disseminating disempowering modes of thought?

Well, I suppose that is a moral dilemma for another day.

Comments

[m-phoenix.livejournal.com]

(Anyone remember the article "Also Sprach Faith" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy?)

Yep, I do. Faith the Nietzschian Vampire Slayer, right? I wish I had that book with me, now I want to go and re-read that.

You make a lot of interesting points. Damn, now I'm going to be stuck with meaningful thoughts all day *g*

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think I already packed my copy to go home.

My two main problems with that essay was a) it was written prior to season and thus misses a significant portion of Faith's arc, and b) it misinterpretes Nietzsche. That said, I think I've become more receptive to its argument that works of literature can make ethical arguments.

Meaningful thoughts can be inconvenient, can't they? I really need to clean my room and finish packing.

[gloss]

Anyone who writes fiction so as to speak to the contingent aesthetic standards of a specific spatiotemporal location rather than enduring truths is, in my mind, at worst a propagandist and at best a hack.
Translate, pls?

Am I hiding behind the intentional fallacy to ignore the fact that I am disseminating modes of thought which I find distasteful?
Well, I'd say there's a distinct difference between, on one hand, *depiction* of modes of thought & actions that are reprehensible, and, on the other, *endorsing* such things in the text.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Translate, pls?

Well, I'd say there's a distinct difference between, on one hand, *depiction* of modes of thought & actions that are reprehensible, and, on the other, *endorsing* such things in the text.

But the depiction is in itself a mode of thought. If I have a story depicting a character doing something morally distasteful, then going to sleep in her beloved's arms, that can be interpreted as a condoning of the actions, no? Unless her action is universally distasteful, in which case the story might be interpreted as satire (e.g. 1984--my mind's still somewhat on my thesis). Whether that's what the story "really" means is more or less irrelevant, because it can be reliably predicted that a number of readers will be reading the story as making that moral statement.

Or to put it another way--it's not that Mrs. Rochester is mad in Jane Eyre (to continue to use that as my example despite never having read it) that is problematic from a feminist perspective, but the way Charlotte Bronte depicts her. Her depiction of the madwoman in the attic represents a mode of thought which is sexist, heterosexist (probably), and patriarchal.

When one reads a story (or watches a TV show), one is invited to frame moral issues in certain ways in which one might not if the only method of persuasion was rational argument. I read my stories and see them as framing moral issues in these ways, and am not always fond of the way in which these framings work.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

But the depiction is in itself a mode of thought. If I have a story depicting a character doing something morally distasteful, then going to sleep in her beloved's arms, that can be interpreted as a condoning of the actions, no?

No. Most emphatically. Maybe I read (and write) more stories from the point of view of out-and-out bad guys than you do, but I think there is a definite separation between wanting the protagonist to be happy and agreeing with their actions if the story was taking place in reality. I like Harry Starks in The Long Firm, and wanted him to get one over on the police (not read any other Jake Arnott books, so can't comment on later stories), but I apply completely different rules to the Krays et al (in my case the jury's still out on having reformed gangsters in as experts when reporting on major crime for current affairs programmes as happened recently).

A story needs to play by the rules of that world and the main characters, which is why I also take issue with your reading of Jane Eyre.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Hmm, but the morality of the novel isn't always that of the protagonist--there is satire, after all. Are you denying that fiction speaks with a moral voice, or that it can have within it damaging modes of thought? Because if it can't, what is feminist criticism for?

Now if you're saying it's more important to make good art than morally good art, then I agree, but I'm not sure why I agree. Having aesthetics be more primitive than ethics seems weird to me, somehow.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Because if it can't, what is feminist criticism for?

To keep a certain class of academics off street corners? ;-)

The point of fiction (in so much as it needs to have a point) is to tell a story, surely? Some classes of storytelling may have other purposes also, but that shouldn't detract from the entertainment value.

And 'damaging modes of thought' is a very subjective opinion. An anti-war comic such as Charlie's War could be seen as damaging if one wanted to use the magazine in which it was first published to inspire young boys to become good soldiers, but is more widely regarded as a well-researched and though-provoking tale of WWI from the point of view of the common man.

A very good story will provoke thought, but not always in the way the creator might have intended. I see the Chronicles of Narnia as inspiring pagan literature, no matter what CS Lewis was thinking when he wrote them.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

But the depiction is in itself a mode of thought. If I have a story depicting a character doing something morally distasteful, then going to sleep in her beloved's arms, that can be interpreted as a condoning of the actions, no?

But people who do morally distateful things are still people. It is entirely possible and very believable that someone would do exactly that. It seems that you're asking to sacrifice realism for the sake of moralising. Like, can we only show people doing bad things if they get punished? Can only perfectly good people be happy? (Never mind that perfectly good people don't exist.)

Two of my favorite films in recent years are Closer and Match Point, both of which are basically tales of people being extremely selfish and making morally questionable decisions. I love them because to me they feel very real. People are fucked up. (I would say more about Match Point in particular, but I don't want to spoil the ending.) One of my current favorite manga series is Death Note, which has a protagonist who is essentially the bad guy, yet you want to root for him. I don't for a minute think the author wants me to see Light as being good. He's a cold-hearted murderer. But I think it's making the series a lot more interesting than it would be if it were told from the POV of the people trying to catch him.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

My problem isn't with an illusion of realism--with nihilistic absurdism, say, as in the case of Closer. My problem is with fictions that seem to be arrange in an unreaslistic manner so as to convey meaning. The text seems to be saying something meaningful.

Now as I say in the original post, I don't think moralizing fiction is often good literature (except in cases where the author's skill overrides the moral message she is trying to convey, as in Bernard Shaw's plays which aren't nearly as pro-socialist as he likes to pretend). But that makes me ask whose aesthetic standards I'm using, and why theirs?

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Why isn't moralising good literature, you mean? Well, no one wants to be preached at, do they?

In the end, I guess, if it makes you uncomfortable, don't write it. I don't really think there's any solution beyond that. Me, I don't feel any sense of responsibility for the reader's interpretation.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to actually translate. Hmm.

Anyone who writes fiction so as to speak to the contingent aesthetic standards of a specific spatiotemporal location rather than enduring truths is, in my mind, at worst a propagandist and at best a hack.

If someone looks at what people like and makes a calculated choice in writing so that those people will like what they are writing, then they are a hack. If they do so to elicit a particular response, they are a propaganist. Art is created from the heart, I am arguing here, in an appeal to eternal truths--even if, as in my case, the artist would admit under rational reflection that those enduring truths don't exist. Artistic creation requires the artist to act as if they did.