Ethical Responsibility of Art
 

i am writing a paper on this subject and wondered if any of yall could point me towards some essays/philosophers/treatises or even poems/novels that address this issue. i am of course finding these things on my own as well, but anything you guys happen to know of that could inform my thesis would be appreciated.

(cardboard...you've got to have something for me, right?)

Well that's a very wide swath. Do you have any direction you'd like to move in?

the paper i am writing is sort of sparked by chinua achebe's famous essay on heart of darkness, "an image of africa" where he argues that conrad is a racist and heart of darkness is racist and therefore heart of darkness should not be considered art nor conrad an artist. i disagree with this on the most basic level because i do not believe that something is any-less art because it comes from a racist perspective. and i don't believe that art has any ethical or moral responsibility--so essentially i am arguing for aestheticism (which achebe has called a "piece of deodorized dog shit").

Ha, well then.

As for authors, I'll do some research. However what you'd probably find more favorable is the battle we've had in America is overall censorship. Anytime an "N" word was asked to be removed, editing out things like cigarettes, and booze.

For what my opinions worth, to assume Art has any ethical responsibility is in many respects an attack on expression. And there has been nothing more fascist, nor has there been a road steeper toward it, than imposing any standard on expression.

I'll get back to you.

I think "What is Art?" by Tolstoy would be a good reference point, although he's offering the exact opposite argument you are. Clive Bell in his writing talks about the purpose of art being to offer the "peculiar emotion" which can only be delivered by art, so that might be closer to the aestheticism argument you're going for. Andre Breton talks about art as a gateway to a higher experience of reality, and Hans Hoffman believes similarly but in more spiritual terms. Then you have people like Ad Reinhardt who believe that "art is art and everything else is everything else," which is to say, the only point of art is to be art, or rather, to not be anything else that isn't art... :p: Sol LeWitt talks about art as the manufacturing of ideas, but not just any idea... art ideas. Robert Motherwell and Sartre are good sources for talking about art as the expression of individuality, which Foucault and Derrida will then tear to pieces.

I personally do believe that art has an ethical responsibility, otherwise, what's the point? That doesn't mean I think there should be a limit on the feelings and situations art can express or simulate, but I think they should be placed in an ethical context. For example, I think there is a place for angry music, and anger can be a good driving force behind music, but I don't think the purpose of a song should ever be to provoke anger, but rather to show music as an outlet for sublimating anger.

Also, the idea of not imposing any standards on expression seems pretty silly. Don't you impose standards on your expression? I mostly try to say things I think will help other people or which they will at least appreciate in some way. If I just talked for the sake of talking all the time I'd probably get on peoples' nerves and I would feel bad about that.

I'm pretty much one of those uncultured aestheticists. That is how I rate everything.

People who expect the meaning of life from art are miserable twats, as there is no meaning to life and even if there was, how lazy it must be to demand that artists point it out for you instead of trying to figure it out youself.

Really? You've always seemed to project the exact opposite viewpoint.

you're going to need to define "art" in order to pull this off. as long as you provide a working definition that is absolutely independent of whatever values an individual places on an art object, then you can easily debunk any idiot who says offensive art should not be called art.

this would a very good place to start:

Alfred Gell, 1998, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory

it's oop and damned expensive, but your uni library will surely have a copy...

Is that what he's saying? I was pretty sure by ethical responsibility he meant should it promote good social values. I don't think anyone condemned an artists right to have an emotional response. I would think saying that art did have an ethical responsibility would do more to curb things like anger and emotion than it would do to promote that ethos.

I'm a little confused by your post, but from what I understand Achebe's problem with Heart of Darkness is that he doesn't believe that a work that perpetuates negative (and untrue) stereotypes about black people should be considered a (great) work of art. However, I think Conrad's descriptions of Africa and black people are mostly based in ignorance, and his work does have the ethical imperative of confronting the darkness humanity is capable of rather than remaining asleep in a state of dazed naivite. Kurtz dies crying "the horror! the horror!" not "heart of darkness fuck yeah!" if you see what I'm getting at. So from my perspective it does take on an ethical responsibility, even if it falls short of fulfilling it, and that responsibility in turn leads it into dark territories (of the soul). The book isn't about "look at how evil Africa and black people are" but "look at how evil we all have the potential to be, better stay wary and aware..."

I think I get what you're saying here, but if I'm reading you correctly this would open a massive world of variables.

Who's to say the author grasps the moral issues at hand? Or has the compass to give him the ability to by empathetic to a given moral situation? Are we ready to punish the person for genuine lack of knowledge? If what you're saying about Achebe's position is true, it puts the onus on the writer not the reader. My problem with that is, its essentially asking authors to be a guiding compass to any given read and furthermore assumes that we should listen.

It also starts carving into the path of the writer. I remember sitting in a fiction workshop and some kid wrote a story about 4 townie kids sitting around and calling each other "fags" because they wouldn't man-up and talk to women or drink beer fast enough. The author of that piece was ripped to shreds, likely for the same reason Achebe is attempting to take on Conrad - its not terribly PC. The problem I have with that is that for better or worse, thats how townie people talk.

I hope you understand I'm not arguing with you, CA. But whats being proposed here is that we're so enamored with social justice, that we aren't even allowed to write about social injustice. We can no longer put a face on it.

What confuses me about your latest response is that it seems to contradict the first one in this thread that you've made. To clarify let me ask you this - should Conrad write the way he did, or do you think he was a failed writer for doing so?