Morality in Literature

[Belacqua]

adapted from On Difficulty and Other Essays, by George Steiner:


In 1857 Gustave Flaubert was put on trial for his novel Madame Bovary. The prosecution argued that the book was an “outrage to public morality and religion.”

At the trial, Flaubert argued that artistic excellence, the high seriousness of the true artist, carries its own complete moral justification. Even though the work of art lies in a sphere strangely between truth and falsehood, it lies outside any current ethical code. In fact a work of art is meant to influence that code, to qualify and re-shape it towards a more universal response to human diversity. But the work of art itself is outside of the ethical code; its true morality is internal.

The justification of a work of literature is technical — in the wealth, difficulty, and suggestive force of the medium. 

Trashy writing, even if it is intended for a good and moral purpose, should be censored. 

Because the methods of trashy writing are inferior, it decreases the range of a reader’s sensibility. It lies by substituting false simplicity for the true intricacy of human fact. Serious fiction or poetry cannot be immoral, even if it describes sexual or immoral acts. The guarantee of a work’s morality is in the text itself — in the resources of metaphor used, in the carefulness and originality of its linguistic statement. No “content” can corrupt a serious reader’s mind. Whatever enriches the adult imagination, whatever complicates consciousness and thus breaks down the cliches of daily habit, is a high moral act. Art is privileged, indeed obligated, to perform this act. It is the live electric current which smashes and then reassembles the frozen units of conventional feeling.

This is the meaning of “art for art’s sake,” not a fashionable pose of escape.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

adapted from On Difficulty and Other Essays, by George Steiner:


In 1857 Gustave Flaubert was put on trial for his novel Madame Bovary. The prosecution argued that the book was an “outrage to public morality and religion.”

At the trial, Flaubert argued that artistic excellence, the high seriousness of the true artist, carries its own complete moral justification. Even though the work of art lies in a sphere strangely between truth and falsehood, it lies outside any current ethical code. In fact a work of art is meant to influence that code, to qualify and re-shape it towards a more universal response to human diversity. But the work of art itself is outside of the ethical code; its true morality is internal.

The justification of a work of literature is technical — in the wealth, difficulty, and suggestive force of the medium. 

Trashy writing, even if it is intended for a good and moral purpose, should be censored. 

Because the methods of trashy writing are inferior, it decreases the range of a reader’s sensibility. It lies by substituting false simplicity for the true intricacy of human fact. Serious fiction or poetry cannot be immoral, even if it describes sexual or immoral acts. The guarantee of a work’s morality is in the text itself — in the resources of metaphor used, in the carefulness and originality of its linguistic statement. No “content” can corrupt a serious reader’s mind. Whatever enriches the adult imagination, whatever complicates consciousness and thus breaks down the cliches of daily habit, is a high moral act. Art is privileged, indeed obligated, to perform this act. It is the live electric current which smashes and then reassembles the frozen units of conventional feeling.

This is the meaning of “art for art’s sake,” not a fashionable pose of escape.

The bolded bit - is that you or Steiner?

Boru

[Belacqua]

adapted from On Difficulty and Other Essays, by George Steiner:


In 1857 Gustave Flaubert was put on trial for his novel Madame Bovary. The prosecution argued that the book was an “outrage to public morality and religion.”

At the trial, Flaubert argued that artistic excellence, the high seriousness of the true artist, carries its own complete moral justification. Even though the work of art lies in a sphere strangely between truth and falsehood, it lies outside any current ethical code. In fact a work of art is meant to influence that code, to qualify and re-shape it towards a more universal response to human diversity. But the work of art itself is outside of the ethical code; its true morality is internal.

The justification of a work of literature is technical — in the wealth, difficulty, and suggestive force of the medium. 

Trashy writing, even if it is intended for a good and moral purpose, should be censored. 

Because the methods of trashy writing are inferior, it decreases the range of a reader’s sensibility. It lies by substituting false simplicity for the true intricacy of human fact. Serious fiction or poetry cannot be immoral, even if it describes sexual or immoral acts. The guarantee of a work’s morality is in the text itself — in the resources of metaphor used, in the carefulness and originality of its linguistic statement. No “content” can corrupt a serious reader’s mind. Whatever enriches the adult imagination, whatever complicates consciousness and thus breaks down the cliches of daily habit, is a high moral act. Art is privileged, indeed obligated, to perform this act. It is the live electric current which smashes and then reassembles the frozen units of conventional feeling.

This is the meaning of “art for art’s sake,” not a fashionable pose of escape.

The bolded bit - is that you or Steiner?

Boru

It is Steiner explaining Flaubert's position. It wasn't in bold in the original, but I have mostly paraphrased for simplicity's sake.

[Apollo]

I believe that art, literature, and music etc are ways our brain hones its abilities for problem solving. It’s constantly at work thinking up imaginative problems and their solutions.

Music for example has underlying mathematical structure or patterns that allows the brain to hone pattern resolving skills. We evolutionarily enjoy it because it’s useful and rewarding in the long run.

Literature allows to imaginatively think up various social scenarios and weigh different moral theories in response and contemplate their pros an cons—it also allows to explore those possible scenarios without actually having the opportunity to to have experience them in real life as there is quite a likelihood not every individual may face them. It creative endeavor and prepares us for unexpected situations and how to quickly deal with them.

[Belacqua]

it also allows to explore those possible scenarios without actually having the opportunity to to have experience them in real life as there is quite a likelihood not every individual may face them.

Yes, this makes sense to me. And I think it puts you, on this aspect, in agreement with Flaubert's argument. Literature allows us to experience things in imagination which we don't in life. And even if that imaginative experience is something immoral, it may (at best) improve our sensibility rather than influencing us to be evil. This means that the work which describes something immoral is not itself immoral.

I'm guessing that most of us agree with this, these days. The headlong increase in what it's OK to depict, after Flaubert's time, means that what we see in prime time is far more immoral than anything in Madame Bovary. And I don't think anyone here would argue that it's immoral for TV to show these things. 

(I'm still not sure, myself. But I think this is the general consensus.) 

This of course is only half of what Flaubert argues. He wants license to depict whatever he wants, but he also insists that the art must be of high quality. While most of us agree that any subject matter is moral to depict, I doubt that many of us would be in favor of censoring trashy depictions. Again, prime time TV is about as trashy as it gets, and popular literature isn't any better. 

It may even be that our contemporaries question the ability to differentiate high quality from trashy quality.

(I don't necessarily agree with you that the benefit of reading about experiences we haven't had is so that we can prepare for them when we confront them. I mean, I doubt very much that I will be in the position of Humbert Humbert, and don't think that reading Lolita helped prepare me for being in that position.)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Censorship is always wrong. Any time a government says to people, ‘This you may not see, this you may not read, this you are forbidden to know’, the end result is always tyranny and oppression.

Anything that prevents an artist from presenting art in the way s/he feels is best is ALWAYS more immoral than the art itself.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

So-called reality TV should definitely be censored. That shit is insulting to watch.

*said halfjokingly*

[Belacqua]

Censorship is always wrong. Any time a government says to people, ‘This you may not see, this you may not read, this you are forbidden to know’, the end result is always tyranny and oppression.

Anything that prevents an artist from presenting art in the way s/he feels is best is ALWAYS more immoral than the art itself.

Boru

I wish I knew the original French passage that Steiner is referring to. It would be interesting to see what word Flaubert used, and if in the context he seems to be calling seriously for real censorship. As a stylist, he would often exaggerate or use irony, particularly in private letters where he could express himself freely.

To us, of course, the word calls up images of government ideologues or moralists. And I agree that this is not desirable. 

In regard to trashy books, though, I don't think we have to worry about Republican evangelicals demanding higher literary standards. They are likely to prefer the trash.

In the old days I think trashy literature was likely to be prevented from publication, when it was, not by censorship but by what has come to be known as "gatekeeping." This term, too, has a bad nuance, because these days it's used to refer to the old boys club which formerly limited publishing to white men. But at its best, in fortunate times, it did keep the quality high. Trash wasn't officially censored but no one was interested in publishing it. I'm sure that since the printing press was invented there have been companies providing one-handed novels for lonely men. But this was under the counter stuff, not in the main stream, and not something a company would market proudly. 

In particularly fortunate times, high quality is also high profit. But these are probably rare. Not even Aldus Manutius got really rich.

In our own time nearly all publishers have given up on standards of quality in favor of profitability. There is a lot of trash, both fiction and non. This leaves us in a situation which Flaubert didn't advocate: immoral scenes are freely depicted, but there is no check on the trashiness of the depiction.

---

So-called reality TV should definitely be censored. That shit is insulting to watch.

*said halfjokingly*

I'm not proud of this, but....

I often do certain kinds of hand work, like preparing a canvas or making a picture frame from scratch. This requires mental focus but you're not really thinking about anything. You just have to pay attention and not mess up. But since it doesn't occupy the mind conceptually, I tend to daydream and distract myself. But if I listen to something interesting, like a history podcast, I can't focus on the work.

So while I'm doing work like that, it really helps me to have on an episode of "Hoarders" or "My 600 lb Life" or some similar horror. Each episode is 99% the same, so you don't even have to look at the screen.

Granted, I sort of feel dirty afterwards.