More thoughts about Art and responsibility

[sqbr]

I've decided to do a bit of a summary to get my thoughts re the last couple of posts in order since I was confusing myself in the comments.

In summary, I think my argument boils down to the answers to these questions:

• Q: Does art sometimes have a negative social effect?
  A: Yes. Certainly I don't think anyone would disagree that it can sometimes have a negative effect on an individual person.
  
• Q: Can the artist predict this effect in advance?
  A: Not perfectly, but to some extent.
  
• Can the artist fix this by just working on making the piece better?
  A: No. At least not unless they make the piece perfect, which they never will. So this approach isn't very effective. Also not all artists hold themselves to very high standards, which is fine as an artistic choice, but that doesn't let them off the hook consequences wise. (That argument comes up a lot with fanfic. It's just a hobby!)
  
• Q: Should the artist worry about these consequences if it means the art will suffer?
  A: Worry? Yes, at least a little bit. It's part of every person's responsibility to worry about the consequences of any of their actions. Let it stop them making or sharing that piece of art? That depends, and is a personal decision. Be censored by outside forces beyond negative peer pressure? No.
  

I think I have relatively unromantic notion of Art. I grew up watching my parents go through art school and completely fail to make a career of their panting, and while I guess perhaps not everyone works this way, from what I've seen of them and other Artist Types art the creation of good art is not just some unfettered unselfconscious release of Inner Truth. It requires making lots and lots of mistakes and redoing things over and over, worrying about being derivative, having your perspective off, making your twists too obvious, making them too obscure, what will sell, what's too populist, etc etc.

Certainly there are stages of the creative process where you just let your muse go and don't think about what you're doing, but once that is done you have to take a good look at what you've done and either decide it's as good as it's going to get or make it better. And once you can't improve it any more you have to decide if it's worth sharing with the world as is, if you want someone else's opinion on making it better, or if it's best seen as a learning exercise and left in obscurity. Repeat. You do NOT share everything you make with the world and let the critics decide, unless you are so incredibly talented that everything you make is good, and most people aren't.

So given my view of the situation: I don't think that worrying about whether your work has a racist subtext or something is that onerous a task or stifling a worry. Even if it has one you might choose to share it, same way as one might (but might not) choose to share something which is kind of derivative or cliched or has it's perspective off etc. Or a public sculpture which might trip people up, or a children's film which could encourage people to buy up endangered fish.

I do think art should be given some benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't preclude a strong debate about it's merit, both inside the author's head, with an editor friends etc, and in society at large once it's released.

Now we may disagree on where the line should be drawn, and that's ok. I'm just saying where I think people should draw the line, people are free to disagree with me and the worst I'll do is disagree back. Where I think there is a serious issue though is where people are either unaware of, or refuse to acknowledge, that their works are a lot further past the line than they might appear at first glance, or that the line exists at all.

The situation where this came up was a POC saying 'This book tied into so many offensive racist stereotypes that I found it unreadable' which is a particularly valid complaint since the author had just written a post giving advice on how not to write stories which use offensive racist stereotypes. So the problem here was the author not being sufficiently aware of the subtext of her writing especially given that she considers subtext a valid thing to worry about.

Cue a lot of fans of the author saying "But that's not offensive!", "Why should she care!" "The best way to combat this is to just try to write good characters!" etc (it devolved into a whole world of fail). It was in this context that my post was written.

Comments

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be here all day reading this drama.

[alias_sqbr]

rydra_wong has been summarising it all if you're interested.

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Her post is eighth out of the nine tabs I have!

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I just flitted momentarily to the two links at the end of this post, and I've given up. It's a good example of the medium derailing proper dialogue -- too many speakers, all speaking at once in different venues at cross purposes.

I didn't read much of substance in which I found nothing to agree with or much in which I found nothing to agree with. I'm certainly not going to expand 300+comment threads and wade through them, and it's evident that relatively few of the participants are doing that either. And those that are reading everything can't possibly be processing it all (and nor would they want to).

Also, the constant humming background noise of validations such as "I don't know what to say but yes, yes and YES." and "Yes. This." become intolerable after a while.

I can imagine contributing to a debate like this and experiencing the joy of having just as many people with whom I felt I didn't agree citing their enthusiastic agreement with me, as people with whom I felt I did agree missing my point and calling me out.

[alias_sqbr]

I think the only reason I read much of it was because I happened to be a in a "reading a lot of stuff on the internet" sort of mood (came long at just the right time really :))

I can imagine contributing to a debate like this and experiencing the joy of having just as many people with whom I felt I didn't agree citing their enthusiastic agreement with me, as people with whom I felt I did agree missing my point and calling me out.

Yes, that sort of thing is bad enough on the internet in general without wading into a polarised discussion like this, especially where people on both sides are taking it very personally. And thus I discuss my own take over here on my lj where noone cares what I say :)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's safer here where no one more rabid than me is listening! :-)

Unrelated

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

I keep looking at this post on my friends page and thinking "Why yes, I do want to read Sophie's kinky thoughts"

[alias_sqbr]

Exactly! :)

Re: Unrelated

[alias_sqbr]

Sorry to disappoint you :)

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be here all day reading this drama.

[alias_sqbr]

rydra_wong has been summarising it all if you're interested.

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Her post is eighth out of the nine tabs I have!

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I just flitted momentarily to the two links at the end of this post, and I've given up. It's a good example of the medium derailing proper dialogue -- too many speakers, all speaking at once in different venues at cross purposes.

I didn't read much of substance in which I found nothing to agree with or much in which I found nothing to agree with. I'm certainly not going to expand 300+comment threads and wade through them, and it's evident that relatively few of the participants are doing that either. And those that are reading everything can't possibly be processing it all (and nor would they want to).

Also, the constant humming background noise of validations such as "I don't know what to say but yes, yes and YES." and "Yes. This." become intolerable after a while.

I can imagine contributing to a debate like this and experiencing the joy of having just as many people with whom I felt I didn't agree citing their enthusiastic agreement with me, as people with whom I felt I did agree missing my point and calling me out.

[alias_sqbr]

I think the only reason I read much of it was because I happened to be a in a "reading a lot of stuff on the internet" sort of mood (came long at just the right time really :))

I can imagine contributing to a debate like this and experiencing the joy of having just as many people with whom I felt I didn't agree citing their enthusiastic agreement with me, as people with whom I felt I did agree missing my point and calling me out.

Yes, that sort of thing is bad enough on the internet in general without wading into a polarised discussion like this, especially where people on both sides are taking it very personally. And thus I discuss my own take over here on my lj where noone cares what I say :)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's safer here where no one more rabid than me is listening! :-)

Unrelated

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

I keep looking at this post on my friends page and thinking "Why yes, I do want to read Sophie's kinky thoughts"

[alias_sqbr]

Exactly! :)

Re: Unrelated

[alias_sqbr]

Sorry to disappoint you :)