i composed this rather than do my spanish hw. aren't you proud?
I've been reading a lot of meta from LJ in the past two weeks.
Last night and today, I read this discussion on "Morality and Art" that I was linked to from Fandom Wank. I originally began reading this discussion because a.)-- oh, you know I'm in argu-mode when I pull out the enumeration tactic--I had previously come across jennyo in my massive reading of meta posts and generally liked what I had read and b.) had read in comments that she had been slammed for being academically elitist in the past. I was curious about what was considered to be academically elitist (and I'm not entirely clear if this post is a an example of her "elitism" in the minds of other fans (I didn't find anything in any of what I've read so far that couldn't be understood by anyone with either a reasonable amount of education and/or a dictionary to look up unfamilar words/terms) as I have not read any of the wankers comments yet as I a.) didn't finish reading all the comments in this post and b.) got sidetracked by reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment).
The Art and Morality argument (this discussion went off on a lot of interesting tangents so I'm just responding to the idea of the relationship between Art and Morality in general and not specifically to what anyone said):
Generally, I like to give the reader/viewer/fan a lot of credit for being able to a.) distinguish between reality/actions and fatansy/thoughts/ideas and b.) decide for her/himself what is morally acceptable to him/herself. I ackowledge that this opinion gets muddled when dealing with children, who do not possess an adult's (ideal) capacity for reasoning, but I'm a firm believer in the idea that fiction (lit/films/vid games) cannot either significantly fix or damage the moral education (or lack of) recieved in the home or immediate social context of the child's life.
Read: If the parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you are doing their job and teaching you right from wrong in a meaningful way, then reading/viewing/playing/listen to a few morally questionable stories/films/vid games/music is not going to damage your morals in such a way as to turn you into some sort of criminal. Conversely, if your parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you are failing you by not providing you with a solid moral background, you cannot read/view/play/listen to enough lit/films/vid games/music in the world to give you the moral compass you need. You'll just have to wing it, which is really all anyone does anyway.
Backing off from my hard line (because I'm not really an absolutest), I will admit that I do prefer my fiction to be generally morally responsible. I go from annoyed to getting into a snitty-snit-snit over morally irresponsible fiction (wholly depending on how deeply my moral/political buttons are pushed). However, it's not because I think the artist owes it to me to have a "this is the moral of my art" moment/line, but because most of the time the moral irresponsibility, or when I see a piece as being morally irresponsible, plays out as an example of either a lack of realism (divorcing consequences from actions) or an inconsistency in the moral framework of the text *coughHarryPottercough* which is bad writing and therefore something I don't enjoy since it ruins my ability to be entertained by the fiction which is what is really owed to me by the artist.
This is all really subjective though because imho there are very few situations or works of art that come out as either black or white under examination. And personally, I find the discussion of where to personally draw the line really beneficial to everyone because line b of my first statement is really truly where I'm at on the subject.
Now, I do have a specific response to something said in the comments.
In response to ms_manna stating:
I think it would be sensible to establish that fictional depictions of Bad Things *does* in fact have an adverse effect on the audience before investing a great deal of time and engery in debating the finer points of exactly what is acceptable
leadensky said:
On Killing by David Grossman is the book most commonly referenced re: video games and violence. The point he makes is not that the images (blood and gore) are the culprit, but that the physical exercise of holding a gun-like object and shooting at people-like figures lowers the mental/behavior barriers that social upbringing instills in a person. 'First Person Shooter' games are, in Grossman's arguement, dangerous not because of the violence, but because they habitualate the game player to the mental exercise of shooting at people.
His arguement is particularly effective because the military and police use training tech/procedures similar to FPS to increase the reaction time and effective action of soldiers and police officers.
Now, I've not read this book, but having read similar books I can imagine how Grossman gets away with this comparison because to the average reader of this type of book, specifically parents and/or teachers who are prone to being worried about the darling children and do not play FPS games, this makes sense because if you consistently practice at anything you will get better at it.
However, this argument fails to take into account two very important facts that reveal this comparison to be totally irrelevant and most likely purposely inflamatory.
1.) "Killing" people/aliens/animals in a FPS game is not at all like killing a person/alien/animal in real life because you are in fact not killing one damn thing in a FPS game. There is no blood, no body, no moral crisis over the rightfulness of "the kill" because you didn't kill anything! If you are too young/mentally ill/stupid to realize this then your parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you ought to tear you away from the game, talk to you about the difference between reality and fantasy, and/or get you counseling and medication for your illness.
2.) Soldiers and police officers are morally sanctioned by the societies that employ them to kill. We give them the right to kill. No, they cannot kill indiscriminately, but if they are killing in order to defend and uphold the laws of society then society deems it the price of freedom. (Whether or not you individually agree with this "price" is another argument all together.)
A person who goes out and decides to murder someone has no such moral backing and that's important. Unlike studies trying to connect video game violence to real violence, there are studies that prove that people are more willing to commit acts they know to be wrong if they believe that they will not be held responsible for them. Hence, "I was only following orders."
Therefore, Grossman citing that the police and military use FPS games to decrease the willingness of police and soldiers to shoot other people has nothing to do with regular gamers. The "willingness to shoot to kill" is an intrinsic part of a soldier/police officers role in society. (In fact, I wonder if the FPS games designed or used by the military/police aren't used to imporove overall shooting not just willingness to shoot, which I don't think it'd really help with, because I know my problem in a lot of FSP's is that my reaction is too quick and accurate (around 80% most of the time and I only play at arcades once or twice a year) leading me to shoot the feel friendlies that pop out from time to time which would be a bad thing for a soldier/cop to do... eh, but that's neither here nor there.)
Oh, Also:
This, from the SPE site, reminded me of the tactics used by patriarchy to divide women:
The rebellion had been temporarily crushed, but now a new problem faced the guards. Sure, nine guards with clubs could put down a rebellion by nine prisoners, but you couldn't have nine guards on duty at all times. It's obvious that our prison budget could not support such a ratio of staff to inmates. So what were they going to do? One of the guards came up a solution. "Let's use psychological tactics instead of physical ones." Psychological tactics amounted to setting up a privilege cell.
One of the three cells was designated as a "privilege cell." The three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were given special privileges. They got their uniforms back, got their beds back, and were allowed to wash and brush their teeth. The others were not. Privileged prisoners also got to eat special food in the presence of the other prisoners who had temporarily lost the privilege of eating. The effect was to break the solidarity among prisoners.
Word.
Some women are ladies, others are whores... um, except you're all still second class citizens and subject to being labeled a whore at any time... still, you cling to your "privlieges."
Last night and today, I read this discussion on "Morality and Art" that I was linked to from Fandom Wank. I originally began reading this discussion because a.)-- oh, you know I'm in argu-mode when I pull out the enumeration tactic--I had previously come across jennyo in my massive reading of meta posts and generally liked what I had read and b.) had read in comments that she had been slammed for being academically elitist in the past. I was curious about what was considered to be academically elitist (and I'm not entirely clear if this post is a an example of her "elitism" in the minds of other fans (I didn't find anything in any of what I've read so far that couldn't be understood by anyone with either a reasonable amount of education and/or a dictionary to look up unfamilar words/terms) as I have not read any of the wankers comments yet as I a.) didn't finish reading all the comments in this post and b.) got sidetracked by reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment).
The Art and Morality argument (this discussion went off on a lot of interesting tangents so I'm just responding to the idea of the relationship between Art and Morality in general and not specifically to what anyone said):
Generally, I like to give the reader/viewer/fan a lot of credit for being able to a.) distinguish between reality/actions and fatansy/thoughts/ideas and b.) decide for her/himself what is morally acceptable to him/herself. I ackowledge that this opinion gets muddled when dealing with children, who do not possess an adult's (ideal) capacity for reasoning, but I'm a firm believer in the idea that fiction (lit/films/vid games) cannot either significantly fix or damage the moral education (or lack of) recieved in the home or immediate social context of the child's life.
Read: If the parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you are doing their job and teaching you right from wrong in a meaningful way, then reading/viewing/playing/listen to a few morally questionable stories/films/vid games/music is not going to damage your morals in such a way as to turn you into some sort of criminal. Conversely, if your parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you are failing you by not providing you with a solid moral background, you cannot read/view/play/listen to enough lit/films/vid games/music in the world to give you the moral compass you need. You'll just have to wing it, which is really all anyone does anyway.
Backing off from my hard line (because I'm not really an absolutest), I will admit that I do prefer my fiction to be generally morally responsible. I go from annoyed to getting into a snitty-snit-snit over morally irresponsible fiction (wholly depending on how deeply my moral/political buttons are pushed). However, it's not because I think the artist owes it to me to have a "this is the moral of my art" moment/line, but because most of the time the moral irresponsibility, or when I see a piece as being morally irresponsible, plays out as an example of either a lack of realism (divorcing consequences from actions) or an inconsistency in the moral framework of the text *coughHarryPottercough* which is bad writing and therefore something I don't enjoy since it ruins my ability to be entertained by the fiction which is what is really owed to me by the artist.
This is all really subjective though because imho there are very few situations or works of art that come out as either black or white under examination. And personally, I find the discussion of where to personally draw the line really beneficial to everyone because line b of my first statement is really truly where I'm at on the subject.
Now, I do have a specific response to something said in the comments.
In response to ms_manna stating:
I think it would be sensible to establish that fictional depictions of Bad Things *does* in fact have an adverse effect on the audience before investing a great deal of time and engery in debating the finer points of exactly what is acceptable
leadensky said:
On Killing by David Grossman is the book most commonly referenced re: video games and violence. The point he makes is not that the images (blood and gore) are the culprit, but that the physical exercise of holding a gun-like object and shooting at people-like figures lowers the mental/behavior barriers that social upbringing instills in a person. 'First Person Shooter' games are, in Grossman's arguement, dangerous not because of the violence, but because they habitualate the game player to the mental exercise of shooting at people.
His arguement is particularly effective because the military and police use training tech/procedures similar to FPS to increase the reaction time and effective action of soldiers and police officers.
Now, I've not read this book, but having read similar books I can imagine how Grossman gets away with this comparison because to the average reader of this type of book, specifically parents and/or teachers who are prone to being worried about the darling children and do not play FPS games, this makes sense because if you consistently practice at anything you will get better at it.
However, this argument fails to take into account two very important facts that reveal this comparison to be totally irrelevant and most likely purposely inflamatory.
1.) "Killing" people/aliens/animals in a FPS game is not at all like killing a person/alien/animal in real life because you are in fact not killing one damn thing in a FPS game. There is no blood, no body, no moral crisis over the rightfulness of "the kill" because you didn't kill anything! If you are too young/mentally ill/stupid to realize this then your parents/teachers/adults immediately responsible for you ought to tear you away from the game, talk to you about the difference between reality and fantasy, and/or get you counseling and medication for your illness.
2.) Soldiers and police officers are morally sanctioned by the societies that employ them to kill. We give them the right to kill. No, they cannot kill indiscriminately, but if they are killing in order to defend and uphold the laws of society then society deems it the price of freedom. (Whether or not you individually agree with this "price" is another argument all together.)
A person who goes out and decides to murder someone has no such moral backing and that's important. Unlike studies trying to connect video game violence to real violence, there are studies that prove that people are more willing to commit acts they know to be wrong if they believe that they will not be held responsible for them. Hence, "I was only following orders."
Therefore, Grossman citing that the police and military use FPS games to decrease the willingness of police and soldiers to shoot other people has nothing to do with regular gamers. The "willingness to shoot to kill" is an intrinsic part of a soldier/police officers role in society. (In fact, I wonder if the FPS games designed or used by the military/police aren't used to imporove overall shooting not just willingness to shoot, which I don't think it'd really help with, because I know my problem in a lot of FSP's is that my reaction is too quick and accurate (around 80% most of the time and I only play at arcades once or twice a year) leading me to shoot the feel friendlies that pop out from time to time which would be a bad thing for a soldier/cop to do... eh, but that's neither here nor there.)
Oh, Also:
This, from the SPE site, reminded me of the tactics used by patriarchy to divide women:
The rebellion had been temporarily crushed, but now a new problem faced the guards. Sure, nine guards with clubs could put down a rebellion by nine prisoners, but you couldn't have nine guards on duty at all times. It's obvious that our prison budget could not support such a ratio of staff to inmates. So what were they going to do? One of the guards came up a solution. "Let's use psychological tactics instead of physical ones." Psychological tactics amounted to setting up a privilege cell.
One of the three cells was designated as a "privilege cell." The three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were given special privileges. They got their uniforms back, got their beds back, and were allowed to wash and brush their teeth. The others were not. Privileged prisoners also got to eat special food in the presence of the other prisoners who had temporarily lost the privilege of eating. The effect was to break the solidarity among prisoners.
Word.
Some women are ladies, others are whores... um, except you're all still second class citizens and subject to being labeled a whore at any time... still, you cling to your "privlieges."