fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2539 ]

[ SECRET POST #2539 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2539 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 066 secrets from Secret Submission Post #363.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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We should and must evaluate it and judge it in our own terms - especially since (a) it's not been two centuries since the British empire ceased to be - it's only been a century since Doyle wrote, and the empire lasted after him, into living memory and (b) the empire, its actions and the effects of its policies have shaped the world we have right now, and still affect things today.

I agree that SJW analyses tend to be limited and kinda shitty, but we shouldn't blame them for trying. But the idea that the British empire is immune from judgment because it was a different culture and it was all a long time ago absolutely does not wash for me.

It is not that I think that the British empire or its citizens are "immune from judgement", or that the history of the colonial period did not shape the modern world. But "we must evaluate it in our own terms"? We must evaluate a Sherlock Holmes novel on our own terms in regards to the colonial imperialist elements it contains? To what end, may I enquire? Unless you are writing something about the relationship between extractive political institutions in the colonies and the Victorian imperialist mentality as seen in works of fiction, I fail to see how it's of any use to anyone.

To the end of how we respond to things in this life in general, I think. It's who we are.

I don't mean, by the way, that we need to dismiss it, and I don't think that the result of a judgment that is critical of elements of it is that we shouldn't read it. This isn't really an argument contra Holmes. It's simply that we ought to analyze things as best we can and understand them as fully as we can. It's of use because it allows us to understand the work more fully (and understand our world more fully). But even if it wasn't of use, it's how we operate as human beings.

OP of this sub-thread

Which is fine, so far as it goes, but the SJWs would much rather brand the whole thing as evil, and burn/ban all of ACD's books and stories forever.

Which, when you think about it, is a really unhealthy attitude (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings).

I agree, partially. It is true that one should not completely dismiss one's own moral perspective for the sake of period morality.

But at the same time mental flexibility may be a legitimate part of a system of values. Sometimes one becomes so convinced of the righteousness of their judgement that they fail to perceive what the motivations and emotions of that or other historical figure/character are; their criteria of what is right and what is wrong are too narrow, too time-specific to see that kindness, fairness, and other laudable qualities may all manifest themselves in different forms (at different times).

To judge, for example, the university students who were hostile towards their female co-students is fine, because they were bigots towards other living human beings (a universal value).

But to judge folks who were more or less accepting of women as students and yet held misogynistic prejudices characteristic of the time period? By our standards, they may well be seen as bigots; but in truth their beliefs were those of decent, fair people. It seems all but incorrect to say that they were as bad as somebody who behaves the same way nowadays.

Similarly, Doyle's (Holmes's, Watson's) treatment of Tonga was not born out of hatred or active dislike for the Andamanese (as one can see from the positive descriptions).

Hrmmm I (like you) partly agree, partly disagree - I think perhaps we're not so far apart after all.

Doyle/Holmes/Watson's attitude towards Tonga and the Andamanese may not have come out of malice, but it was a dehumanizing attitude and it did arise out of, and contribute towards, a system of political exploitation and conquest which was unjust and oppressive. It's definitely not malice or hatred, but that doesn't mean that the attitude was morally acceptable or something of which we should approve. You can be more or less completely lacking in malice and still do morally objectionable things, even awful and horrifying things, and you can certainly be lacking in malice and still have beliefs that contribute to and justify morally objectionable things. And I think that's what's happening here, and I think we should recognize it.

More broadly - I agree that it's complex, and I'm in favor of treating it as complex, and I think that's what a lot of this does. You can acknowledge that it's complex and still end up judging it, or parts of it. You can look at it in the context of the place and the time, and still judge it. And I think you have to do so. Again, let me reiterate that I'm not trying to denounce anyone or anything, and when I talk about making a judgment I don't mean something that's dismissive or simplistic. But I think you can try to examine those things and still make a moral judgment - we may be forced into judgments that are complex and nuanced and many-sided, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make those judgments.

And, yeah, like I said, I think our positions are pretty close at this point.

My wording was sort of imprecise - I wasn't saying that one should judge people based merely on their intentions (that sounds... menacingly Kantian). Rather, I meant to say that, whilst the values of kindness, fairness, compassion, etc. may remain the same for all time periods, one ought to be able to recognize different manifestations of these virtues.

But as to the moral acceptability of Victorian attitudes, I do think that it is fair to say that something is "morally unacceptable" only insofar as we are discussing some abstract, ideal moral environment. When we get to practicalities, think of it thus - just how much sense does it make to say that the moral values of some historical figure were unacceptable when one knows that for a person in that time period to hold 'better' beliefs was quite probably perfectly impossible? What does it mean, exactly, that these attitudes are "something of which we should not approve"? It literally means that we cannot approve of the behaviour of any person Victorian.

And that I refuse to do, because I know there were awesome folks back then, and because I think it is very important for us to recognize that particularities change but the overall picture is the same. We are not that different from the Victorians.

As somebody who's been reading period stuff from a very young age, at this point I am incapable of viewing it from the "modern" point of view. I automatically translate what is happening into the cultural language I understand, and apply to it the appropriate moral judgement (if any). So, while

But I think you can try to examine those things and still make a moral judgment - we may be forced into judgments that are complex and nuanced and many-sided, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make those judgments.

- it may not mean that "we shouldn't make those judgements", but it does mean that some of us can't, because their moral perspective is too general for that. And I think that such broad general perspective facilitates a better understanding of the Victorians and the period morality as such than judgements such as "these attitudes are morally unacceptable".

Again, I don't think making a judgment about someone means making a judgment that they're evil or morally irredeemable - it's a judgment of one aspect of their character, one part of who they are, and I accept and agree with the idea that there's usually greater moral complexity, that this one idea or attitude is not the sum of their person. But I think we can judge those ideas and we can judge them for subscribing to those ideas. I do think it's a good point about what is possible for someone within a given time and culture to think (but, in this specific context, I think it was possible for someone to come to at least a more nuanced understanding of how colonialism operated - and, in general, I'm very leery about giving people passes on those grounds). I completely agree that there were tons of awesome folk back then (and I've also been reading period fiction for a long time), and I also think that a lot of them had flaws. Really, I think all awesome folk, all folk in general, have flaws - we're human beings, we are all flawed. I just want to recognize those flaws for what they are, especially when they lead to harmful political and moral policies in general. There's hardly anyone who you can't judge in some ways - and I'm okay with that.

I mean, to give an example (that I know you'll have some familiarity with) - there's very little doubt in my mind that GK Chesterton, later in his life, was an anti-Semite - at the very least, he wrote some things that are undeniably anti-Semitic after the war. I also admire him, I love his writing, and I think that he was a good person. He was a good person, who was also an anti-Semite, and I judge him for that. It doesn't mean dismissing him - it's a nuanced understanding and acknowledgment of his flaws. And I don't approve of those flaws, any more than I approve other English people supporting imperialism merely because it was the consensus at the time. But I still love him as a writer.

This shit is complicated. But that doesn't mean we can't come to some kind of conclusion about it, altho one always tempered by our own humility and knowledge of our limits.

dmw ought to go to sleep so shall try to keep it brief.

IA that judging an aspect of somebody's character!=judging them as a person, and that awesome people always have flaws. But there are flaws that it makes sense to judge an individual person for (e.g. Chesterton's anti-Semitism - because anti-Semitism wasn't a given in his time, it was already a pretty dodgy belief to hold), and then there are flaws it makes sense to judge the person's time period for. And it's not like a person is not a part of a time period and does not take part in shaping its morality, but the responsibility they hold is infinitely smaller than that of somebody with similar beliefs who lives a couple of centuries later.

That is to say, in my opinion, an average decent Victorian is roughly translatable to an average decent modern person in terms of how morally justifiable their attitudes are (even when we're talking about racial prejudices). Which is why I judge 'racist' Victorians no more than 'neutral' modern folks, though my opinion of the colonial imperialist attitude in general is pretty bad.

It is like taking a particular part of a spectrum and viewing it as a spectrum on its own, really. Whilst in theory I know that it ranges from "sort of blah" to "godawfully horrible", the "sort of blah" shade is essentially equivalent to that of "decent" from the other part of the spectrum I am currently in.

Idk if that made sense. Why do I always invade all the Sherlock Holmes threads ever to have discussions on history and ethics :D I love Chesterton both as a person and as a writer, btw, so <33

yes I'll be posting these everywhere now why are you asking.

That is to say, in my opinion, an average decent Victorian is roughly translatable to an average decent modern person in terms of how morally justifiable their attitudes are (even when we're talking about racial prejudices). Which is why I judge 'racist' Victorians no more than 'neutral' modern folks, though my opinion of the colonial imperialist attitude in general is pretty bad.

I certainly agree that people are pretty much the same in different times - I definitely don't think that we're more moral now (although part of that is that I think there's still plenty of massive problems in our culture). But yeah, it's complicated. I just don't think that you can give people that much of a pass for their culture - you certainly have to take into account the circumstances and the surrounding context and the different possibilities - no one, after all, acts entirely freely and in the way that they would choose - but I don't think it's ultimately an entirely different spectrum of morality. We're not that far apart though.

It might also be the case that I think it's different for the Victorians than it might be for a different time period - at the end of the day I just don't think the gap between us and the Victorians is that great & it's much harder for me to give them credit for the difference of time than for, you know, the Renaissance or whatever. Maybe that's the other side of the historical fiction thing.

Idk if that made sense. Why do I always invade all the Sherlock Holmes threads ever to have discussions on history and ethics :D I love Chesterton both as a person and as a writer, btw, so <33

Haha, I don't know why but I'm definitely down with it as well!

I see what you're saying, but I don't quite agree that interrogating Victorian literature from a modern viewpoint is disingenuous. I get the sense that you're seeing meta on the racial attitudes of Doyle's characters as unfair criticism of a group of people raised with entirely different values, but (speaking for myself; I don't know what the secret OP has in mind) the point isn't to criticize, but to explore the effect of culture on individuals, the definition of progressivism, and the way that art (including literature) influences and is influenced by its time. In other words, its value ultimately comes not from what we know about Doyle or Victorians in general; it comes from how we can use the knowledge gained from analyzing them to learn about ourselves - how we can use literature to gauge the attitudes of our time and use that knowledge to interpret our own reality and challenge our personal values.

^This comment is perfect and I agree with everything it says. Like, yes, judging period literature makes perfect sense if we are talking "understanding how this culture works and influences people" rather than "lol all the Victorians would be such arseholes by the modern standards" (not that I think this is what the anon upthread is saying). It's "cultural flaws", not "individual flaws" - or rather, "individual flaws inspired by culture", maybe.

To what end, may I enquire?

Why wouldn't you want to explore racism and its effects?

AYRT

So, does this one "wash" for you? It's a FICTIONAL STORY written by a guy who has been dead for a very long time, and lived in an era that had nothing even approaching the concept of "political correctness" (which, is SJW terms, is just societally-acceptable mandated racism anyway).

I absolutely blame the SJWs for "trying" garbage like the troll OP is trying to stir up. If they have their way, the world will be Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World, all rolled into one.

aye "wash for you" tbh
why am I loling at this

AYRT

IKR? "HOW IS IRONY MADE?"

*which, in SJW terms,

So, does this one "wash" for you? It's a FICTIONAL STORY written by a guy who has been dead for a very long time, and lived in an era that had nothing even approaching the concept of "political correctness" (which, is SJW terms, is just societally-acceptable mandated racism anyway).

I don't even know what your point is. Everything you're saying is true, and yet still, I think it's okay for us to judge it. That doesn't mean castigating the author, or denouncing the book; it means evaluating it and judging it. I don't think that the SJW analysis is a very good one, but when you go beyond critiquing the specifics of their analysis, and say that we can't analyze it at all, that 's not something I agree with. So it's a fictional story, so the guy has been dead, we can still judge it.

And political correctness, by the way, is not something that I think is really applicable here. That's one faulty rubric for right or wrong, and not one that I have much interest in. But whether political correctness existed when Doyle was writing, and whether political correctness is justified or not, there was still right and wrong, and people at the time argued in terms of better and worse. Political correctness might not have existed, but political principles did, and that's what we're talking about. I'm not judging him for not being politically correct; that has nothing to do with anything I'm saying.

I absolutely blame the SJWs for "trying" garbage like the troll OP is trying to stir up. If they have their way, the world will be Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World, all rolled into one.

I'm sorry, but there's just no way for me to take this seriously

Their point is precisely that they don't want to think critically about it. You can analyse the reasons for that, seeing as they're not fictional and still alive.

which, is SJW terms, is just societally-acceptable mandated racism anyway

Well yeah, usually. I've never heard anyone use the phrase unless they actually mean racism, sexism etc, or are just making something up, such as you saying there are SJW who want to burn Holmes books. (Or any books.)

It's a FICTIONAL STORY

Oh boy. Yes, art exists and is created in a vacuum, obviously.

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[ SECRET POST #2539 ]

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