On guilt

It is an interesting notion that guil somehow plays a part in our moral framework, or a facet in helping us find meaning in our lives. The connotation to guilt is that it is often a feeling inspired by a lack of action taken on the part of the indiviudal or the reaction to do performing an immoral act. While this is true and guilt could be a means of internally regulating our behaviors by means of negative reinforcement, it could also be a sign of an inclination towards empathy in the human condition. As we discussed today a person is capable of feeling guilt in situations which may conflict with an already adopted moral code or societal norm, this could be evidence that human beings can develop the capacity to have an emotive response to a state of affairs and recognize the unjust conditions of a given experience. I am unsure if guilt calls us to action as more often it seems to be a state where we reflexively evaluate our moral character and hope to change our behavior in future experiences as to replace the feeling of guilt with one of pleasure we receive from performing a moral act.

Good and Bad boundaries

I was thinking about the notion of our moral actions transgressing boundaries and it occurred to me that it does so in a number of ways. Not only are certain actions morally contentious based on context, but we have overlapping degrees of desired good and bad. We typically do what is good for ourselves, we also try to keep in mind what may be good for someone else. Ideally we do what is good for our families or loved ones, which may conflict our abilities to do what is best for ourselves. It is clear that in a given circumstance depending on our setting that we desire a particular good in that moment, making the distinction of one objective good even more difficult to defend. The binary between good and bad becomes blurred as we realize that our actions may at the same time produce both an evil and benevolent consequence.

Whats appropriate

I am unsure of why I am so hung up on the term appropriate as it is used in the reading for this week, but for some reason I find it bothersome. Perhaps it is because I am erroneoulsy equating the word appropriate for correct, meaning an appropriate response to a concept in a literary work would be the correct or right response. The example I used in class I think still works here, besides the graphic detail of how children suffer, if I do not feel a particular empathy or sorrow at the notion of children dying, did I respond appropriately? It goes without saying that we would prefer people to react with horror and disgust at such a notion, but unfortunately that may not be the response of all readers. I am not trying to justify the act, but if we believe that a teacher is only guiding a student to be able to draw conclusions on their own, then we may have students who come to the conclusion that it is not as immoral as dictated in the text. But again we find that the correct/appropriate response would be the moral obversation that children suffering is wrong, so again it seems that there is one objective response in which we are supposed to have to particular concepts we encounter in literary texts.

The moral vehicle of literature

One insight we have not discussed in terms of literature and its relationship to morality is that the very medium of litertaure is a vehicle for moral agency. Persons who have largely been left out of the conversaion about ethics throughout history, have overcome their social marginalization by expressing their persepctives and experiences through narratives. This list includes but is ceratinly not limited to: African Americans, women, gays/lesbians/transgender persons, the disables, indigenous and other colonized peoples globally, immigrants, laborers etc. The medium itself provides a moral good, it becomes a means of expression in which particular groups of people or advocates of specific ideals can use, where they are specifially prohibited from other forms of cultural participation. Perhaps we may have discussed this in brief at some point this semester but it was an insight I wanted to explore further, but what do you guys think?

The postulated author

Our conversation reminded me today of the previous discussion we had about whether a writer is always a great writer or simply when they produced the work. If I understood the distinction we made today between author and writer, was that the writer is all the features of the person including their biographical information. The author is the intentional agent who at the time of writing the work, has the motive of communicating something specific through the literary work. In that sense it seems like the postulated author is a state of mind in which the writer enters when producing the text. The difficulty then in trying to use the retrieval process would be that we would have to guess what the writer was intending in that one specific state, facts about the previous and remaining events and experiences of their lives would only serve to supplement our understanding of the writer and not the author. These are some points I believed were raised in our converstaion today but if there is anything I am unclear of comments, opinions, and clarifications are always welcome.

Textual meaning

The link provided is a short essay on interpreting literature which I found interesting. One claim made by the author which drew my attention specifically was

"An important feature of literary texts which distinguishes them from other kinds of persuasive discourse is the fact that they operate not through direct statement and explicit revelation of their contents but instead through indirect allusion, understatement, implication, and even concealment. Literary texts in effect often veil the 'truth' which they seek to convey in an attempt at enhancing its attractiveness and endowing it with a sense of mystery and transcendental value. "


http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/teaching/Miscellan/understand.htm

Who owns art?

The link provided is an article in the New York Times about the contentious issue of who owns pieces and artifacts displayed in museums, as many pieces were illegally excavated or pillaged from their nation of origin. Reminded me of our discussion about who if anyone owns a work of literature, is it the author, the reader, etc?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/arts/artsspecial/29treasures.html?pagewanted=all