Wednesday, April 11, 2012
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?
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I agree that literature is a useful medium through which minority groups can communicate their viewpoints. However, due to the optional anonymity of authors, literature (about characters belonging to minority groups) can also be a way for members of majorities to inaccurately portray minority groups and thus actually contribute to their oppressive or marginalised situations. As such, I wonder if one say that an author of books regarding a minority group, who actually belongs to that group, has a moral obligation to inform readers of their affiliation with the group, in order to help legitimatise their work and perhaps discredit the work of authors who portray the group badly.
ReplyDeleteOn reflection, however, I do not think that such information is necessary. Because of the flexibility of authorial personas, authors who wish to portray members of minority groups badly can simply pretend to belong to those groups, rendering the information useless. Also, members of majority groups may sometimes be quite able to portray minority group members accurately, due to acquaintance or research, and invalidating their writings simply because they do not belong to a particular group is, I think, wrong.
P.S. I also posted this on my blog if you'd rather read it there.
Hey Corey, I responded to your post. Excellent thought!
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