(no subject)
Well, that discussion is back again.
You know, the one which asks whether a fic should be rated-up if it involves discussion of a subject that is Bad or Negative or involves Evil, like Discrimination or Smoking or Nazis.
To paraphrase, a relative newbie-to-FA asked whether it would be "a bad influence on readers" and thus merit a high rating if a character stated that he believed women and gays should have less rights than others, and that he was antirace mixing (like, not mixed-marriage, but separate continents). And she wanted to know if the higher-rating presumption should be mitigated by her intent to make it clear that she didn't *agree* with said character's rantings.
Obviously, on FA, we don't require a fic be "rated-up" just because there's discrimination in it. As the American Library Association says, and FA adopted years ago,
Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated. Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought.
I just don't understand what makes people think that you have to agree with every idea you're writing about, and if you don't, you need to condemn it within the fic or at the very least in the disclaimer or the author's note, like you need to say. Maybe that's the question I'll submit to ask at the reading in August - what does it take to be a Bad Influence On Readers? I mean, there's a degree of imitatable instruction that perhaps shouldn't be in fics - a step-by-step on hacking into federal government computers or how to make crystal meth. But does anyone decide, "Hey! I've been completely unbiased all my life, but the idea of different continents for different races sounds *groovy*! Sign me up!" just from reading a fanfic?
And if they did, is it the writer's responsibility to write differently, or the reader's responsibility to Not Be Galactically Stupid?
You know, the one which asks whether a fic should be rated-up if it involves discussion of a subject that is Bad or Negative or involves Evil, like Discrimination or Smoking or Nazis.
To paraphrase, a relative newbie-to-FA asked whether it would be "a bad influence on readers" and thus merit a high rating if a character stated that he believed women and gays should have less rights than others, and that he was antirace mixing (like, not mixed-marriage, but separate continents). And she wanted to know if the higher-rating presumption should be mitigated by her intent to make it clear that she didn't *agree* with said character's rantings.
Obviously, on FA, we don't require a fic be "rated-up" just because there's discrimination in it. As the American Library Association says, and FA adopted years ago,
Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated. Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought.
I just don't understand what makes people think that you have to agree with every idea you're writing about, and if you don't, you need to condemn it within the fic or at the very least in the disclaimer or the author's note, like you need to say. Maybe that's the question I'll submit to ask at the reading in August - what does it take to be a Bad Influence On Readers? I mean, there's a degree of imitatable instruction that perhaps shouldn't be in fics - a step-by-step on hacking into federal government computers or how to make crystal meth. But does anyone decide, "Hey! I've been completely unbiased all my life, but the idea of different continents for different races sounds *groovy*! Sign me up!" just from reading a fanfic?
And if they did, is it the writer's responsibility to write differently, or the reader's responsibility to Not Be Galactically Stupid?