Marril96 t1_iy58bo9 wrote on November 28, 2022 at 9:05 PM

...you are aware that writing something doesn't make someone a bad person? You know Stephen King isn't a murderer, for example?

WantToBelieveInMagic OP t1_iy5eowc wrote on November 28, 2022 at 9:47 PM

Hm. If Steven King's characters were written in such a way that murder was honourable and worthy, invoking him in this discussion would be appropriate.

Would it make you happy if I asked if Elinor Lipman's books are a tad antifeminist?

AccomplishedBasil700 t1_iy85rhr wrote on November 29, 2022 at 1:51 PM

Ideology functions differently than Stephen King writing about murder, though.

Writing about an action doesn’t mean you’ve committed that action, of course. But writing about an action that normalizes it or approves of it is different. It has a persuasive power that other forms of writing don’t have as much of.

This is why Stephen King is so criticized for making a teenage gangbang a cathartic moment in It. But in his responses to criticism he still is confused about why he can write about murder and not be criticized.

Marril96 t1_iy86t4d wrote on November 29, 2022 at 2:00 PM

No, it's not different. It's fiction. Not real. Make believe.

By your logic my friend must be a rapist because she's got a rape kink and likes to read books and fanfiction where that contains it. It's complete nonsense.

If somebody writes a work of fiction, and you can't tell that apart from reality, that is a you issue. Not an author issue, or a publisher issue. A you issue. What you believe in and what you decide to act on are your personal responsibility, not the responsibility of the creator who made a fictional work.

AccomplishedBasil700 t1_iy8a5fn wrote on November 29, 2022 at 2:27 PM

No, I explicitly said "Writing about an action doesn’t mean you’ve committed that action, of course." So your friend is not a rapist just because she has a rape kink.

Do you think fiction has persuasive power? I mean, do you think that maybe there could be a discourse surrounding a certain topic, and that discourse contains things that are wrong, morally and/or factually? I do. I think that's a huge problem, in fact, with both television, books, news media, and whatever else.

Here's an example. Suppose all those forms of media have a common rhetorical angle that suggests that white people in the USA are the subjects of an ongoing genocide. That pervasive rhetorical angle in various forms of media is sure to influence some (white Americans') belief that they are in fact suffering from an ongoing genocide. This angle can be expressed in fiction, film, online communities, political speeches, news, and anywhere else where there is language.

I think you are right that it is a "you problem," i.e. a problem with the audience. But it's also a creator's problem and a publisher's problem because the author and publisher are also audiences of other expressions of that discourse.