Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I remember learning about cultural relativism in a sociology course in college; the idea that we should judge a culture on it's own terms and not on our own. I think that's exactly what we should do in the case of old novels. I like historical novels and one of the things I want from them is that they be true to their times.
Mark Twain made liberal use of the N word in his novels. And I just pretended not to type it and instead typed "the N word". Does that make Mark Twain a racist or does it make me a wimp and a coward? Actually there's good reason to think Mark Twain wasn't much of a racist so where does that leave me? 
A writer naturally includes the attitudes of their time and by reading their books we learn something about their time and it's pretty good practice at being open minded and that's a good thing.
If we blind ourselves to the world that used to be then we're cutting off a major source of understanding of the world today. And who are we to say we're better now than they were then? Watch the news before you answer that.
Barry |
I agree that novels of the past weren't written in a vacuum. Their author's were men and women of their time. I also don't think that we really have more or less sexism or racism today than there was back then. I think it's more a matter of being more aware of it is all. Back 100 yrs ago it was normal for there to be seperate water fountains, restrooms, etc. depending on if a person was white or black for example. Today we find the idea to be wrong, but back then it was the norm. Caucasian people probably often didn't
think about it and black people had to put up with it. It's just the way the world was back then. Likewise women normally worked within the home and it was a scandal if a woman did make her own way in the world. Attitudes changed.