Quote:
Originally Posted by Rbneader
There are an awful lot of people talking past each other in this thread. Guys, why are you all insisting on there only be one right way to measure or talk about any of this? Having a debate about the definition of evil or conscience really isn't useful when it comes to talking about how we interact with fiction from previous eras.
Works of fiction can be racist/sexist/cruel/whatever for their own time.
They can be acceptable for their time and unacceptable by modern standards.
They can be amazingly progressive for their time and line up with modern standards, which frankly aren't all that off from what was considered good for the past few centuries.
They can be amazingly progressive for their time and come off as incredibly strange by modern standards.
They can completely sidestep these issues in any time frame.
For my part, I think a multi-axis approach is the most helpful: looking how the work meshed with the morals of the time it was written and how it meshes with what we now know about people and with my moral beliefs.
I'm fine reading something that depicts things I don't agree with, but I draw the line at works that support those things or present them in a positive light. They're probably useful for understanding the mindset of the person writing them and the people they were written for, but I'm not an anthropologist or historian so I have no interest in them.
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We did manage to have several pages of relevant discussion before things went somewhat off track, which is pretty good for this forum
As the OP, I must say I really like your post.