# Can you separate an author from his or her work?



## Elf Witch (Aug 2, 2014)

The allegations coming out from Marion Zimmer Bradly's children of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their mother has made me think about this. I am fan of her work though I didn't like her personally I had met her and she rubbed me the wrong way. But I was able to separate that from her work and still buy her books. But this I am not sure about. I don't know if I can ever read her again and enjoy the books. I know many fans are actually getting rid of her books off their shelves. I share my library with my roommate of 35 years and after talking about it she wants to keep them because she can separate the person from the fiction. I am fine with that. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer on this. 

MZB is dead she can't profit from the sales of her books and the estate is donating all sales of her ebooks to charity as are some writers who were published in her many anthologies. 

I can say if she was alive there would be no way I would feel right putting money into her pocket. 

I was wondering how other people feel about things like this? Not just about authors but anyone who creates art, music, literature, film?

I would prefer if we avoid the discussion of is the allegations true I don't think this is the place to debate things like that and that is not the purpose of this thread.


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## delericho (Aug 2, 2014)

Generally, yes, I consider the work differently from the artist. That said, there are limits - it's a big difference between reading a book by someone I disagree with politically, or one who has some unsavory opinions, versus one who is guilty of serious crimes.

That said, I do consider that 'guilty' to be important - a person who is alleged to have done something, but not yet found guilty of that thing is (for me) different from one who has actually done those things. That is, Michael Jackson was always in a different category from Gary Glitter.

(And where the person accused of wrongdoing, that's something else again, since on the one hand there's no real reason for those making the allegations to lie, but on the other there's no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves.)

I don't have any MZR books (I think). If I did, I wouldn't get rid of them. But neither am I likely to pick up anything by her any time soon.


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## Janx (Aug 2, 2014)

interesting question.

One factor is "are the allegations true"

If the allegations are just 'alleged' and not pretty well proven as fact, we're still in a grey area as to whether the author is a bad person.

second factor is how bad was the crime?

I would assume there are some crimes for which a person must be expunged from history.  All of their works deleted, other than record of their wrong-doing.  If Plato was a serial rapist, I'd delete The Republic in a heartbeat.

Hitler for instance, deserves to have every copy of Mein Camf destroyed.

I say that as a guy who doesn't normally like to destroy data.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 3, 2014)

Janx said:


> interesting question.
> 
> One factor is "are the allegations true"
> 
> ...



_Mein Kampf_ needs to be preserved, if for no other reason than as partial proof of the horrors committed by its writer; as evidence of what drove him.

That way, it serves as a warning that will let us recognize those signs in others.


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## Morrus (Aug 3, 2014)

Yeah. MK doesn't exactly benefit Hitler. He's dead.  But it teaches us things about how evil like that rises.  We need to know this stuff.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 3, 2014)

Janx I can understand the desire to wipe someone who is so evil from the face of the earth. But I also question if by doing so if you are  preventing giving the tools for future generations to recognize evil.

I am also not sure if wiping out something that can benefit humanity just because it was created by an evil person is the right thing to do. For example I was watching an episode of Voyager where B'lanna was infected and was going to die the doctor created a hologram of an expert who came up with a treatment that was based on experimentation on the people of Bajor. The debate was was it immoral to use this knowledge to save a life. Some including B'lanna felt yes others felt no.

If a scientist comes up with a cure for cancer and we find out that he is an evil SOB who used innocent people who suffered and died do we say no the cure is tainted and it is unethical to use? I don't know if there is a right answer. On one hand you are in a way taking advantage of the suffering and in a way encouraging unethical scientist to do it again. On the other hand you are saving millions of lives and it could be argued that at least it gave some meaning to the death and the suffering.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 3, 2014)

I have had occasion to ponder that cure for cancer scenario at length.

My take: it is perfectly reasonable and ethical to use the cure- if confirmed as genuine- and condemn the methodology used to make the discovery.  It is highly unlikely that the breakthrough occurred SOLELY because the researcher abandoned the practice of ethical research.  And in a sense, using such a breakthrough at least means that the victims of the unethical researchers did not suffer in vain.

FWIW, we're seeing a bit of this dilemma in the current Ebola outbreak.  There are about 4-5 possible vaccines/cures that have been worked on for years, but are not approved as yet.  The combination of the rarity of Ebola, the particulars of the outbreaks, and the ethical restraints preventing deliberate infection to test antiviral medications have meant no drug has gone through a full set of clinical trials.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 3, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> The allegations coming out from Marion Zimmer Bradly's children of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their mother has made me think about this. I am fan of her work though I didn't like her personally I had met her and she rubbed me the wrong way. But I was able to separate that from her work and still buy her books. But this I am not sure about. I don't know if I can ever read her again and enjoy the books. I know many fans are actually getting rid of her books off their shelves. I share my library with my roommate of 35 years and after talking about it she wants to keep them because she can separate the person from the fiction. I am fine with that. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer on this.
> 
> MZB is dead she can't profit from the sales of her books and the estate is donating all sales of her ebooks to charity as are some writers who were published in her many anthologies.
> 
> ...



You've had a roommate for 35 years!?


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## Elf Witch (Aug 3, 2014)

goldomark said:


> You've had a roommate for 35 years!?




Yes my best friend and I found that we live well together and after my divorce we became roommates and she helped me raise my son. When I became disabled she helped me keep a roof over my head. I never had any desire after awhile to remarry and she has never wanted to marry now as we slide closer to 60 we find that this living arrangement suits us very well. 

I have always found it amusing some people's reaction to two straight woman living together so long. It is like they are not comfertable without being able to put some kind of label on it.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 3, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> Yes my best friend and I found that we live well together and after my divorce we became roommates and she helped me raise my son. When I became disabled she helped me keep a roof over my head. I never had any desire after awhile to remarry and she has never wanted to marry now as we slide closer to 60 we find that this living arrangement suits us very well.
> 
> I have always found it amusing some people's reaction to two straight woman living together so long. It is like they are not comfertable without being able to put some kind of label on it.



I did not know you were a woman. All I thought was that you were a very old teenager.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 3, 2014)

goldomark said:


> I did not know you were a woman. All I thought was that you were a very old teenager.




I see.  A question if I was a straight man leaving with a another straight man basically my situation but the sexes reversed would it be some how less acceptable? I am just curious. 

I do know that some people can't accept that some people have no desire to be married or to live with a romantic partner and that some how it makes you emotionally broken. 

I realize in my case while I enjoy relationships I suck at living with a romantic interest and I would be the same way if I was a lesbian I still would not want to live with a romantic partner. 

Living with my roommate solves several issues there is companionship, help with finances, sharing hobbies, sharing household responsibilities. But since we are not romantically involved there are none of the issues that go with please get out of my face now I need to be alone which can last for days or the other compromises that go with living with a lover/spouse. Not saying that we don't have to make compromises we do but it is different. This works for me and for my roommate because we feel the same way about a lot of this.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 3, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> I see.  A question if I was a straight man leaving with a another straight man basically my situation but the sexes reversed would it be some how less acceptable? I am just curious.



Depends who you ask. There is a lot of pressure on men in Western cultures to be independent. You're seen as a loser/lazy if you still live with roommates passed a certain age/period (generally once you leave school). 

To be a man is to live in a very harsh world. Lots of various pressures and lots of consequences if you do not meet certain standards, social isolation being one of them. There are reasons why the homeless are generally male (but this is changing).


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## Jester David (Aug 3, 2014)

I personally wondered about this after the reminders that Orson Scott Card has questionable politics and my late discovery that Lovecraft's views on race was as horrific as the subject matter of his stories.

I think you have to judge the art separately. What's acceptable changes over time. Shakespeare, Dickens, and others likely had questionable views. So long as the work itself does not preach unacceptable values. 
Art is not inherently corrupted. If Bradley had recanted on her deathbed, begged forgiveness, and and tried to make restitution it would change how we feel but not alter a word of her books.


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## trappedslider (Aug 3, 2014)

Jester Canuck said:


> I personally wondered about this after the reminders that Orson Scott Card has questionable politic.




That's what i was thinking recalling the outcry about Ender's Game and O.S.C's views....I enjoy reading L. Ron. Hubbard' Battlefield Earth and I don't much care for his views, but they don't stop me from enjoying the book.


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## Crothian (Aug 3, 2014)

As long as the viewpoints are not a major part of their work I usually can separate the artist from the work especially when the person is dead and it has been decades since they had these views. I am more likely to stop reading an author over things they say in interview or even worse in their blogs. Their are a couple of writers that I don't support now because of things like that.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 4, 2014)

goldomark said:


> Depends who you ask. There is a lot of pressure on men in Western cultures to be independent. You're seen as a loser/lazy if you still live with roommates passed a certain age/period (generally once you leave school).
> 
> To be a man is to live in a very harsh world. Lots of various pressures and lots of consequences if you do not meet certain standards, social isolation being one of them. There are reasons why the homeless are generally male (but this is changing).






Jester Canuck said:


> I personally wondered about this after the reminders that Orson Scott Card has questionable politics and my late discovery that Lovecraft's views on race was as horrific as the subject matter of his stories.
> 
> I think you have to judge the art separately. What's acceptable changes over time. Shakespeare, Dickens, and others likely had questionable views. So long as the work itself does not preach unacceptable values.
> Art is not inherently corrupted. If Bradley had recanted on her deathbed, begged forgiveness, and and tried to make restitution it would change how we feel but not alter a word of her books.






Crothian said:


> As long as the viewpoints are not a major part of their work I usually can separate the artist from the work especially when the person is dead and it has been decades since they had these views. I am more likely to stop reading an author over things they say in interview or even worse in their blogs. Their are a couple of writers that I don't support now because of things like that.




I agree with you on men being judged more harshly at times by society. I have seen it as a mother of a son. Right now my roommate and I are living with my son and his roommates. He has gotten flack for living with his mom. But the fact is my roommate and I ran into finical problems and my son invited us to move in with his friends and him in a house to help us. Yet the assumption is because he not married and in school in his thirties he is one of those geeks who live in his mom basement. 

If MZB had recanted on her death bed I still would most likely not read her works but that is because I was abused as a child and I am not sure I can that reading her work knowing what I know now that I would not be reminded of my own abuse. I can't be 100% sure on this and I don't even know if I will feel differently down line once the shock has faded.

The issue of it not being in her work is an interesting point because there have been scenes of child rape in at least the Mists of Avalon. I found the scenes distasteful but I didn't think oh this is something she practices. Now in hind site it can change that.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

> Can you separate an author from his work?



Can I? Sure. You can rationalize anything in any way to help you ignore what a person has done. Do I separate an author from his work?? No. Neither fiction nor its creator exist in a vacuum.

In the case of Orson Scott Card, I don't separate him from his work. He earns money from his work which allows him to continue to spew his hateful beliefs and politics. I did not watch the Ender's Game movie as I do not want to give such a hateful person any of my money. Besides, he is overrated.


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Can I? Sure. You can rationalize anything in any way to help you ignore what a person has done. Do I separate an author from his work?? No. Neither fiction nor its creator exist in a vacuum.
> 
> In the case of Orson Scott Card, I don't separate him from his work. He earns money from his work which allows him to continue to spew his hateful beliefs and politics. I did not watch the Ender's Game movie as I do not want to give such a hateful person any of my money. Besides, he is overrated.




Do  you do the same with Lovecraft? I ask because he was also pointed as having different views to put it lightly regarding race.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> Do  you do the same with Lovecraft? I ask because he was also pointed as having different views to put it lightly regarding race.



Can you name a recent movie adaptation of one of Lovecraft's books/stories you've paid money for?


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Can you name a recent Love Craft movie you've paid money for?



I was thinking of his books/stories in his case since Guillermo del Toro hasn't gotten around to making that Mountains of Madness movie


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> I was thinking of his books/stories in his case since Guillermo del Toro hasn't gotten around to making that Mountains of Madness movie



Well, it may surprise you to know that I don't read Lovecraft either. So if you're trying to catch me on the other side of that argument, you're going to have to try far harder than that. As for GdT, he hasn't made the movie, so your point is moot. Mountains of Madness is going to happen, either, so you don't have to worry about that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2014)

I'm sure if you* looked at your collection of art, books music and movies- owned or just dearly beloved- you'd eventually stumble upon a few writers, artists, actors, musicians, etc. whose beliefs or actions are antithetical to your own.  Possibly even abhorrent.

Anyone a Roman Polanski or Woody Allen fan?  Garry Glitter?  Jimmy Page?




* as in the nonspecific, Everyman "you"


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Well, it may surprise you to know that I don't read Lovecraft either. So if you're trying to catch me on the other side of that argument, you're going to have to try far harder than that. As for GdT, he hasn't made the movie, so your point is moot. Mountains of Madness is going to happen, either, so you don't have to worry about that.




Despite your paranoia, I wasn't trying to catch anything, since you only addressed OSC, I simply wondered why you hadn't addressed Lovecraft and I'm also going to go with that you haven't read MZB either in which case nor have I. I'm also going to go with that you disagree with L. Ron Hubbard's views as well (since the majority of folks do).



Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm sure if you* looked at your collection of books and movies- owned or just dearly beloved- you'd eventually stumble upon a few whose beliefs are antithetical to your own. Possibly even abhorrent.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Going with this, if you find out that an author you enjoy does have views that you disagreed with would you stop[ buying books by him or not? 

(you in this case being anyone who wants to answer )


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm sure if you* looked at your collection of books and movies- owned or just dearly beloved- you'd eventually stumble upon a few whose beliefs are antithetical to your own.  Possibly even abhorrent.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sadly, at the moment my book collection consists entirely of psychology books and journals and assessments and a lot of other stuff that isn't for entertainment. I tend not to keep books after I have read them, except for the books I use for work and/or school.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Sadly, at the moment my book collection consists entirely of psychology books and journals and assessments and a lot of other stuff that isn't for entertainment. I tend not to keep books after I have read them, except for the books I use for work and/or school.




My point still holds. Psychologists are not a monolith of perfection akin unto the choirs of angels: if you knew each writer as well as you know yourself, I'm sure there would be some whose views on race, gender or some hot-button issue you'd find radically opposed to your own.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> Despite your paranoia,



There is no need to start hurling insults. If you can't have a calm discussion, you are free to stop conversing with me.


> I wasn't trying to catch anything, since you only addressed OSC, I simply wondered why you hadn't addressed Lovecraft and I'm also going to go with that you haven't read MZB either in which case nor have I.



Lovecraft wasn't brought up until you did. As for MZB, considering the allegations against her, and the conviction of her husband, the allegations are probably true. As I said, neither fiction nor its creator exist in a vacuum. And as someone mentioned, there are child rape scenes in Mists of Avalon, so it should make you wonder.


> I'm also going to go with that you disagree with L. Ron Hubbard's views as well (since the majority of folks do).



Nope. Hubbard was a hack who wanted to be a psychologist, but he had no original ideas nor any real education in the field. 


> Going with this, if you find out that an author you enjoy does have views that you disagreed with would you stop[ buying books by him or not?



Yup. Easily. It's not just books either.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My point still holds. Psychologists are not a monolith of perfection akin unto the choirs of angels: if you knew each writer as well as you know yourself, I'm sure there would be some whose views on race, gender or some hot-button issue you'd find radically opposed to your own.



I'm sure there are, but there is a difference between fiction and scientific findings. It's like saying you'd stop believing in evolution because Darwin was a sexist.


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Lovecraft wasn't brought up until you did.



I didn't bring up lovecraft first that would be Jester Canuck 


> Nope. Hubbard was a hack who wanted to be a psychologist, but he had no original ideas nor any real education in the field.
> Yup. Easily. It's not just books either.



Well as i said I enjoy Battlefield Earth despite his views and the fact that others feel that it's bad writing and the majority of the thread is focusing the book aspect and you are right it's not just books either but that's what the main discussion is focusing on, if you wish to go off on the road about the over all issue then by all means go with it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> I'm sure there are, but there is a difference between fiction and scientific findings. It's like saying you'd stop believing in evolution because Darwin was a sexist.




Which just gets us back to the question upthread about using findings obtained via unethical research.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> Despite your paranoia, I wasn't trying to catch anything, since you only addressed OSC, I simply wondered why you hadn't addressed Lovecraft and I'm also going to go with that you haven't read MZB either in which case nor have I. I'm also going to go with that you disagree with L. Ron Hubbard's views as well (since the majority of folks do).
> 
> 
> 
> ...




This really depends for me. I can tolerate some things. If the person just says things I don't agree with I can over look it and would buy the book though I might try and find used copies. If the person not only says bad things but gives money to things I don't like like Card support of some of the antiLGBT groups then no because I don't want my money going there even if it is only say thirty five cents. But if they have done things to actually hurt people then no I won't.

I would never go to Dragoncon because part of the profits go to  known child rapist Ed Kramer who has used those profits to finance his defense and keep his butt out of jail. 

I will not ever watch or pay for a Woody Allen film. In my eyes he is damned even if he didn't abuse Dylan that means he knew it was a lie and that Mia Farrow was manipulating a child to say and believe that she was abused. But instead of fighting for his children to get them, out of a toxic environment he washed his hands of it and walked away and started a new family. You don't abandon your children especially when you have money to fight for them.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> I didn't bring up lovecraft first that would be Jester Canuck



So it was.


> Well as i said I enjoy Battlefield Earth despite his views and the fact that others feel that it's bad writing and the majority of the thread is focusing the book aspect and you are right it's not just books either but that's what the main discussion is focusing on, if you wish to go off on the road about the over all issue then by all means go with it.



No, I think the current focus is fine.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Which just gets us back to the question upthread about using findings obtained via unethical research.



That would be hard to judge. Were the findings replicated? If so, were they replicated using unethical research methods?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> That would be hard to judge. Were the findings replicated? If so, were they replicated using unethical research methods?




While I am definitely not an "ends justifying the means" kind of guy, there is a certain point at which, even if the methodology is unethical, factual findings have their own merit.

If, for instance, the *early* studies that determined the existence and force of gravity were all done- and replicated- with human

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...and were never repeated in any other way, researchers who went forward from that point using that data but behaving in a way we would not find reprehensible might be criticized for not replicating the results of the earlier experiments with inanimate objects. 

But they could assert the defense that the data gathered- unethical though we deem the earlier methods- was valid, and the only thing gained by repeating the experiments ethically is some vague moral high ground.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm sure if you* looked at your collection of art, books music and movies- owned or just dearly beloved- you'd eventually stumble upon a few writers, artists, actors, musicians, etc. whose beliefs or actions are antithetical to your own.  Possibly even abhorrent.
> 
> Anyone a Roman Polanski or Woody Allen fan?  Garry Glitter?  Jimmy Page?
> 
> ...



Why is Woody Allen dragged into this?


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While I am definitely not an "ends justifying the means" kind of guy, there is a certain point at which, even if the methodology is unethical, factual findings have their own merit.
> 
> If, for instance, the *early* studies that determined the existence and force of gravity were all done- and replicated- with human
> 
> ...



Excellent. We birth agree that there is a difference between fiction and scientific findings.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 4, 2014)

goldomark said:


> Why is Woody Allen dragged into this?




I would think because of the allegations from his daughter Dylan that he sexually abused her.


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## Janx (Aug 4, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While I am definitely not an "ends justifying the means" kind of guy, there is a certain point at which, even if the methodology is unethical, factual findings have their own merit.
> 
> If, for instance, the *early* studies that determined the existence and force of gravity were all done- and replicated- with human
> 
> ...




Not that my idea that we should burn every copy of Mein Kamf is particularly wise or anything, but the difference between Mein Kamf and Newton's Effects of Gravity on Humans is that we can't take back the knowledge on the latter.  Once we all know that stuff falls down, it's kind of a done deal.

We can, however, destroy every copy of the books (well, that's usually pretty hard as some yahoo always hangs on to a copy and starts a cult).  Nobody needs to learn from the originator about gravity.  In effect, Newton can lose credit for it because he used human subjects pushed from trees.

That's revisionist history of course, but sometimes you have to explore the bad ideas to make it more obvious why the good ideas are a better choice.


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## KirayaTiDrekan (Aug 4, 2014)

Regarding Orson Scott Card...

I will never watch Ender's Game or read any of the man's books, because of his associations.  In that regard, I don't differentiate between author and work.  I debated this with some friends who read Ender's Game as kids, before they knew about his problematic views.  Because of the nostalgic association, they didn't want to look too closely at OSC's politics.  I can't do that.  Even if I did have a nostalgia-based fondness for something, I would set it aside if I discovered that the authors were problematic in some way.

Lovecraft is a little harder to deal with... 

 The Cthulhu mythos is everywhere, practically, but especially prevalent in gaming.  Material inspired by it is in Pathfinder, D&D, and just about every other RPG out there that has fantasy or horror elements.  With that in mind, I have an e-book compilation of Lovecraft's works that I plan to read someday to see the source material, so to speak.  As others have noted, authors who are now dead aren't going to profit from the sales of their work any longer, so that makes it slightly easier.  

If an author/artist/creator/whatever is still alive makes all the difference it seems.  Regardless, I will generally do a little research on a person before consuming their work, a background check, so to speak.


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## Mallus (Aug 4, 2014)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> In the case of Orson Scott Card, I don't separate him from his work. He earns money from his work which allows him to continue to spew his hateful beliefs and politics. I did not watch the Ender's Game movie as I do not want to give such a hateful person any of my money.



Serious question: do you subscribe to any media streaming/rental services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Spotify, etc.? 

_Ender's Game_ is on Netflix. So are a lot of Roman Polanski films. I don't even want to countenance the sins of _musicians_. So in some small diffuse way, everyone who subscribes to these services provides financial support to artists who have espoused terrible views and/or committed and been convicted of heinous crimes.

Are you willing to carry your position that far? If not, why?


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## Kramodlog (Aug 4, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> I would think because of the allegations from his daughter Dylan that he sexually abused her.



Exactly, why is he dragged into this? Anyone can make allegations. 

HS touched me when I was a kid.


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## KirayaTiDrekan (Aug 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> Serious question: do you subscribe to any media streaming/rental services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Spotify, etc.?
> 
> _Ender's Game_ is on Netflix. So are a lot of Roman Polanski films. I don't even want to countenance the sins of _musicians_. So in some small diffuse way, everyone who subscribes to these services provides financial support to artists who have espoused terrible views and/or committed and been convicted of heinous crimes.
> 
> Are you willing to carry your position that far? If not, why?




Since I agree with the Squirrel on this, I wanted to offer my perspective (not trying to answer for him, though).

Services like those are just that, services.  In that regard, it would be like associating the movie theater showing Ender's Game alongside The Avengers, some indie flick, and a romcom.  Money has changed hands numerous times before the product ever gets to the consumer.  The message, for me, is sent by not consuming that particular product.  I don't buy a OSC book when I'm at the bookstore.  I don't go to see Ender's Game at the movie theater and I don't watch Ender's Game on Amazon Prime.  The way in which subscription services measure their audience, so to speak, is by how many views a movie or show gets, so the message still gets sent.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 4, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> I was wondering how other people feel about things like this? Not just about authors but anyone who creates art, music, literature, film?



I believe a lot of artists have dark secrets that I rather wouldn't know about.

In the few cases in which I either knew about from the beginning or learned about it later it just becomes another facet of their work that I subconsciously look out for. If anything, it makes me more curious about their works.

A good example is H.P. Lovecraft and the accusation of him having been a racist. (Re)Reading his stories I definitely stumbled upon several instances of rather blatant racism. I'm still not sure how much of it is simply a reflection of his time, though. And all in all it didn't keep me from enjoying his stories.

Orson Scott Card is another favorite author of mine who some people dislike because he's a member of the Mormon Church. I cannot imagine not reading his books because I don't agree with his chosen faith.

There's also several actors that come to my mind who've been accused of racism, but that didn't affect my enjoyment of the movies they participated in. 20 years after his death, Klaus Kinski has been accused by his daughter of sexually abusing her. But what does this say about the movies he was starring in? We have several actors belonging to scientology (Tom Cruise, John Travolta) - does that mean we should avoid every movie they're in?

Or what about Roman Polanski? I consider him one of my favorite directors. I don't know if he's rightfully been accused of sexual assault or not. Frankly, I don't care when watching one of his excellent movies.


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## Zaukrie (Aug 4, 2014)

I try not to buy works by bag people.  If I do,  I try to buy used, so they get no money. That said, it is hard to avoid. Sometimes it comes out after,  but I feel no need to destroy the works I have. It also depends on the label of the wrong.


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## Mallus (Aug 4, 2014)

Jhaelen said:


> Or what about Roman Polanski? I consider him one of my favorite directors. I don't know if he's rightfully been accused of sexual assault or not. Frankly, I don't care when watching one of his excellent movies.



Sometimes bad people make great art. This has been true since forever.

Viewing art does not make you complicit in the crimes or sins of the artist. Ever.

That said, if any particular work of art makes you feel complicit and you don't like it, then it makes sense for you to avoid it. Just be clear that you're "avoiding feeling complicit" and not "striking a blow for justice and goodness".

edit: I like Polanski's films, but Altman's _The Long Goodbye_ is a better neo-noir than _Chinatown_.


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## billd91 (Aug 4, 2014)

Jhaelen said:


> I believe a lot of artists have dark secrets that I rather wouldn't know about.




I believe that's probably true about people in general. We all do things or have done things we don't want people to know about. I do think that people in certain segments of society may experience these sorts of things more than others, though, and artists are probably right in that segment. Great art can come from pretty dark places.




Jhaelen said:


> Or what about Roman Polanski? I consider him one of my favorite directors. I don't know if he's rightfully been accused of sexual assault or not.




I think it has been pretty well established, by his own statements, that he did have sex with the teen.  

In general, I hold myself to particular standards of behavior. I don't look down on anyone who doesn't join me in avoiding certain people's works. Go ahead and see or read Ender's Game or movies by Roman Polanski if *you* want. I'll make my own decision on going to see or read the work and my decision may differ.


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## billd91 (Aug 4, 2014)

MasqueradingVampire said:


> If an author/artist/creator/whatever is still alive makes all the difference it seems.  Regardless, I will generally do a little research on a person before consuming their work, a background check, so to speak.




I agree. I have relatively little problem reading older works by dead people we would rightly call racists today. That applies to a whole lot of people simply because of the times they lived in. My purchase of access to their art, be it a movie ticket, a book, or a work of art itself, can't contribute to their enrichment either direct monetarily or by enhancing their reputation and enabling their enrichment.

Now, if a dead artist's legacy (descendants, foundations, etc) were openly contributing to odious causes, then I probably would continue to avoid buying their works.


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## Mallus (Aug 4, 2014)

MasqueradingVampire said:


> Since I agree with the Squirrel on this, I wanted to offer my perspective (not trying to answer for him, though).



More perspectives are good! 



> Services like those are just that, services.  In that regard, it would be like associating the movie theater showing Ender's Game alongside The Avengers, some indie flick, and a romcom.  Money has changed hands numerous times before the product ever gets to the consumer.



So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit? 



> The message, for me, is sent by not consuming that particular product.  I don't buy a OSC book when I'm at the bookstore.  I don't go to see Ender's Game at the movie theater and I don't watch Ender's Game on Amazon Prime.  The way in which subscription services measure their audience, so to speak, is by how many views a movie or show gets, so the message still gets sent.



So your position is more about "consumption as protest" than "financially supporting certain artists"? 

Who is the protest aimed at? The individual artist(s)? Their publishers/adapters?


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## KirayaTiDrekan (Aug 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> More perspectives are good!
> 
> 
> So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?
> ...




I feel like your questions are a little leading.  Admiral Ackbar's voice is sounding an alarm.  If I'm wrong, please let me know.

The consumer has no control over what publishing companies choose to publish, movie studios choose to produce, game companies choose to put out, etc.  The only control consumers have is what they choose to spend their money on.  Not buying anything affiliated with OSC sends a message to the publishers and movie studios and such that I don't want what OSC makes.  They can draw their own conclusions as to the why or pay attention to the criticisms published online and make decisions about whether to continue publishing OSC's material based on that information.

OSC himself also gets the message and may choose to act or not act accordingly.


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

FYI Regarding Ender's Game the movie..OSC made all of the money he will ever make from the film when he sold the film rights, he doesn't make any off of it..the book on the other hand....




Jhaelen said:


> Orson Scott Card is another favorite author of mine who some people dislike because he's a member of the Mormon Church. I cannot imagine not reading his books because I don't agree with his chosen faith.




Before his other views became more known, this was honestly the only reason i had ever heard of some one not wanting to read the book or they just didn't like Sci-fi.


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## billd91 (Aug 4, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> FYI Regarding Ender's Game the movie..OSC made all of the money he will ever make from the film when he sold the film rights, he doesn't make any off of it..




I would amend that by adding a term "directly" to the end of it. There are other indirect effects of a successful movie, including adding to OSC's reputation which can then be used to negotiate better returns on his other works or strengthen his appearance in the causes he favors that I abhor. I'd like to withhold my support from those indirect effects as well as direct.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> Serious question: do you subscribe to any media streaming/rental services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Spotify, etc.?



 No, I don't. 


> _Ender's Game_ is on Netflix. So are a lot of Roman Polanski films. I don't even want to countenance the sins of _musicians_. So in some small diffuse way, everyone who subscribes to these services provides financial support to artists who have espoused terrible views and/or committed and been convicted of heinous crimes.
> 
> Are you willing to carry your position that far? If not, why?



It's probably been over 10 years since I paid for music.
As for companies that carry products from people I have chosen not to support, it's a bit different. It's not Orson Scott Card's home shopping network. It's amazon or Netflix or whatever. I buy things off of Amazon. I chose what I buy if I find that a company I buy from is doing something as reprehensible as Mr Card, I stop buying from them. If amazon came out in support of me Card, I'd stop buying from that site.


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2014)

Overall, this is a tough one to deal with.

Ultimately, it comes down to one major question - does being a criminal, having beliefs I find problematic, or otherwise being what I think of as a reprehensible person mean that the individual cannot also do or make something of value?  Do we expunge what things of value they may bring into being, for sake of the harm they did?  Or, worse, what if we cannot actually demonstrate that they've actually done harm to anyone?

There is an old saying - do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  There are bad things in the world, yes, and we need to get rid of them.  But, in a world with a paucity of good things, can we really afford to throw out that which is useful and constructive?

This goes rather strongly with things like the Ender's Game movie.  He was apparently paid a one-time fee for the option, and doesn't share in profits.  So, boycotting the movie doesn't directly hurt Card, personally.  And then, we note that beyond his original text, Card's involvement in the production was minimal - the script isn't his.  Meanwhile hundreds of other people were very much involved - actors, costumers, makeup artists, hairdressers, special effects people, and so on.  I daresay that a great many of them are in groups Card now espouses hate for.   Do we throw out all their work, just to spite Card?  Is that right?  

There are folks out there who would cut from history anyone of whom they don't approve.  How do I keep the moral high ground if I do the same?


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## Mallus (Aug 4, 2014)

MasqueradingVampire said:


> I feel like your questions are a little leading.  Admiral Ackbar's voice is sounding an alarm.  If I'm wrong, please let me know.



Short answer: you are wrong, but I admit I'm being unusually a) laconic and b) interrogatory today, because I'm busy at work (but still want to participate in this thread because it's interesting). 



> The only control consumers have is what they choose to spend their money on.



Right. "How to be an ethical consumer?" is an important question. My wife and I think about it a lot. It's also a terrifically complicated question in a contemporary consumer economy. I don't have a good answer for how to do it (merely the answers I'm using _for now_). Which is why I asked you questions. I'm curious how other people answer them. Maybe I can improve/refine my answers, or at least come to a better understanding of how I go about answering the question. 

Let me switch gears and make a statement: participation in a contemporary consumer economy involves an unavoidable amount of complicity in actions I find unethical. Leaving art aside, I own Apple products. I know where they're made, but own them anyway. I still purchase things from Amazon, despite believing many of their labor practices  are atrocious. But I've sworn off Chik-fil-A for good... 

I'm trying to figure out where I draw the line, or perhaps just make peace with the fact the line is arbitrary. 



> Not buying anything affiliated with OSC sends a message to the publishers and movie studios and such that I don't want what OSC makes.



That's fair. 



> OSC himself also gets the message and may choose to act or not act accordingly.



I doubt he will. He's stating, in the most hateful way possible, what sure look like deeply-held religious beliefs. Which raises another troubling question: let's say I boycott Card's books (which I effectively have), on the grounds he supports policies/positions I find immoral, am I also ethically bound to boycott _his church_, which makes far larger monetary contributions to political action groups I think are evil, and, then, by extension, businesses _owned_ by members of his church, whose contributions provide the money?


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2014)

MasqueradingVampire said:


> Not buying anything affiliated with OSC sends a message to the publishers and movie studios and such that I don't want what OSC makes.




Silent boycott, in all likelihood, sends no message at all.  They cannot tell the difference between you not buying because you don't like Card's politics, and you not buying because... you got a copy from the library, or borrowed a friend's, or you just haven't done it yet.  You do not send the message that you don't want it - they cannot tell your wants from silence.


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## billd91 (Aug 4, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Silent boycott, in all likelihood, sends no message at all.  They cannot tell the difference between you not buying because you don't like Card's politics, and you not buying because... you got a copy from the library, or borrowed a friend's, or you just haven't done it yet.  You do not send the message that you don't want it - they cannot tell your wants from silence.




Considering I don't have a ready forum in which to make my stand known, I see it more as a refusal to join the message "More of this, please!" that buying the book/going to the movie sends.


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## Janx (Aug 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> Right. "How to be an ethical consumer?" is an important question. My wife and I think about it a lot. It's also a terrifically complicated question in a contemporary consumer economy. I don't have a good answer for how to do it (merely the answers I'm using _for now_). Which is why I asked you questions. I'm curious how other people answer them. Maybe I can improve/refine my answers, or at least come to a better understanding of how I go about answering the question.




I think it's a complicated problem.  For instance, I have no clue what OSC's deeply held beliefs are that are so bad (not because I agree with him, I am simply unaware of the conflict).

How am I supposed to know who is good and who is bad?

What about companies that directly espouse bad views?

What about evil companies that own everything else?  RJ Reynolds the cigarette company owns Kraft and a bunch of other companies that we all eat with out realizing we are benefiting an evil overlord?

How far should I make effort to impact these people and companies should I go?  is just not buying product enough?  Should I lobby to convince others to join me?  Should I picket?   Should I write my congressman?

Does Activism even work?  Does all this effort to bring down WalMart actually have an impact on WalMart?

Or should I just mind my own business and buy what I want/need and accept that as a matter of society, I will inevitably be doing business with people who do not hold the same values as me?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2014)

> How far should I make effort to impact these people and companies should I go?




There is no one answer, not even for a single person on one issue, because things change. What you know changes.  How the target of your ire reacts changes.

Michael Vick's involvement in dogfighting was deplorable.  However, he did his time and seems to have turned over a new leaf.  But, despite his apparent reformation, some people continue to vilify him.

I'm sure there are people who refuse to buy Volkswagens and Porsches because of their connections to Hitler, but not many do.

So personally, I do what I feel is most consistent with my personal ethics, but I try motto cutoff my nose to spite my face.



> Does Activism even work? Does all this effort to bring down WalMart actually have an impact on WalMart?




Yes, it does work...if there is enough of it.  I was just reading how Cincinatti went from having some of the harshest anti-gay city-ordinances in the countryside having George Takei as the marshal of their Pride Day parade.  Much of the credit for that was given to local pressure.

Wal-Mart is more in trouble due to market forces beyond its control  currently, but make no mistake: grassroots activism was behind many of the lawsuits leveled against the corporate giant by states' attorney generals.  And I know of some small towns that have prevented them from taking root.


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## KirayaTiDrekan (Aug 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> I doubt he will. He's stating, in the most hateful way possible, what sure look like deeply-held religious beliefs. Which raises another troubling question: let's say I boycott Card's books (which I effectively have), on the grounds he supports policies/positions I find immoral, am I also ethically bound to boycott _his church_, which makes far larger monetary contributions to political action groups I think are evil, and, then, by extension, businesses _owned_ by members of his church, whose contributions provide the money?




I do.  I try (to be fair, sometimes I get lazy and I'm trying to be better about that) to research every company I do business with.  Whether its a company that makes something or sells something or provides a service or whatever.  If they support views I don't agree with, I don't shop with them, buy their products, etc.

Sometimes its a moral thing - I don't support any company that openly supports an organized religion (any religion).  I don't support Wal-Mart because of their poor treatment of their employees.  

Sometimes its a progress thing - I don't support cable or network television, at all.  I haven't turned on a television in my house for about six years.  Any and all tv shows I want to watch, I wait for until they are legally available online.  I do this because its my preferred method of watching tv and I want to see the old model become obsolete.

Since I don't have the means (monetary or time) to be politically active as much as I'd like to, this is my main avenue for expressing my political views (besides armchair activism - I talk a pretty good talk on Facebook but that doesn't really amount to much in the grand scheme of things).


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## trappedslider (Aug 4, 2014)

Janx said:


> I think it's a complicated problem.  For instance, I have no clue what OSC's deeply held beliefs are that are so bad (not because I agree with him, I am simply unaware of the conflict).
> 
> How am I supposed to know who is good and who is bad?




Pm sent to answer about OSC..as for the other that gets complicated as time goes on..what's popular now may be bad in the future and what's bad now may be popular in the future.


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Considering I don't have a ready forum in which to make my stand known...




No ready forum Bill?  Really?  By dint of you posting here, you demonstrate that you have the internet at your disposal.

One web search and one click - I discover _Ender's Game_ is published by Tor.

One more search, and two clicks, gets me Tor's "Contact Us" page:  http://us.macmillan.com/torforge/about/contact

Lo and behold, they have a twitter feed for questions and comments, and a good old fashioned mailing address to which you can send a letter.  Similar small efforts will get you contact information about the movie.

So, I have to ask - did you even try?  Because it took me about 45 seconds to find that information.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 5, 2014)

goldomark said:


> Exactly, why is he dragged into this? Anyone can make allegations.
> 
> HS touched me when I was a kid.






Mallus said:


> Serious question: do you subscribe to any media streaming/rental services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Spotify, etc.?
> 
> _Ender's Game_ is on Netflix. So are a lot of Roman Polanski films. I don't even want to countenance the sins of _musicians_. So in some small diffuse way, everyone who subscribes to these services provides financial support to artists who have espoused terrible views and/or committed and been convicted of heinous crimes.
> 
> Are you willing to carry your position that far? If not, why?






Mallus said:


> Sometimes bad people make great art. This has been true since forever.
> 
> Viewing art does not make you complicit in the crimes or sins of the artist. Ever.
> 
> ...






Janx said:


> I think it's a complicated problem.  For instance, I have no clue what OSC's deeply held beliefs are that are so bad (not because I agree with him, I am simply unaware of the conflict).
> 
> How am I supposed to know who is good and who is bad?
> 
> ...




It is not just anyone it his daughter and these allegations have been around since she was a child she is now an adult. You realize often in cases of sexual child abuse there is limited proof. But one thing I do know young child don't make it up on their own. In Dylan case she was either sexually abused by her father or she was emotionally abused by her mother. She is the victim here she was a child and her parents failed her. As I said my issue with Woody Allen is he is either a sexual abuser or he is a father who knew he his child was being abused and did nothing to help her. 

I can't watch his or Mia Farrow movies because when I sit there I think about their children suffering and that hits to close to home for me and I am not going to put myself through it.   

It burns me how people bend over backwards to defend him even to the point of throwing mud at Dylan who was seven years old at the time. 

I don't judge anyone who wants to see his movies but don't try and wash away the fact that his child was abused. 

I was not going to get into the allegations of MZB children but I will say this there is a legal deposition where Elisbeth Waters MZB secretary and maybe partner admitted under oath that Moira as a child told her that both her parents were sexually abusing her. 

As for the streaming thing I will say no I am not going to carry it that far. I just won't watch it. The reason for this is while I choose not to view or purchase things I don't have the right to force my feelings on the matter on other people. 

And I agree with Mallus the fact that I read, bought and enjoyed MZB work has nothing to do with what happened to her children I did not participate in the crime. Right now some are starting to sling mud at the writers who worked with MZB who got their careers started because of her. Diana Paxson is one who was close with her has had some nastiness thrown at her. Right now MZB son lives in her home Moira has spoken out that Diana knew nothing of what was going on and if she had she would have gone to the police like she did when she found out that Walter Breen was sexually abusing boys. 

Those writers are not guilty by association they should not be treated like they did anything wrong and if they don't feel the need they are under no obligation to not take the royalties they make off the sales of the books that MZB co authored or edited with them. That fact some of the writers are turning the money over to charity is admirable but not necessary. 

I think we can know good from bad but we have to decide what we consider bad. For me child abuse, giving money to groups that actively support the oppression of anyone is bad. Having an opinion I don't agree with like  homosexuality is a sin or believing in a religion like Scientology may make think you are wrong and maybe brainwashed but it is not going be label you as bad. 

I try and avoid companies that I think go beyond what I am willing to tolerate but I am logical enough to know that they way corporations work today it can be hard to know everything under there umbrella and I will admit that I am not going to research every company. And sometimes there are practical matters. I am on a fixed income my food budget is tight I go where the sales are and the prices are low and often that is Walmart. 

I think activism can work but even if I think in some cases it might not make a difference except to me then sometimes that has to be enough.


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## Sero (Aug 5, 2014)

I can't claim to have followed the discussion through all seven pages, but the original question interested me and I wanted to chime in on it.

My initial reaction was that I'm quite good at separating a creator from their works. As I thought about it though I realized that I'm actually terrible at it. What I am in fact quite good at is actively distancing myself from any knowledge about the people who create the works I enjoy. I honestly couldn't tell you the names of the authors for a majority of the books I've read. The few I do know I only know because I enjoyed their books enough to do searches on their works to find more by them.

I don't know where this started, perhaps it was all the ridicules drama in my school days between some friends over the antics of various members of bands they liked. Whatever the cause I've made a point of avoiding any unnecessary knowledge about the people that produce the media I consume. Thus far, beyond a few vaguely annoying conversations along the lines of "Is that right? No really, I had no idea, he said all that did he? That is unfortunate." it has served me well. Because in the rare cases I have found out something unpleasant it does risk poisoning my enjoyment of their works.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 5, 2014)

Sero said:


> I can't claim to have followed the discussion through all seven pages, but the original question interested me and I wanted to chime in on it.
> 
> My initial reaction was that I'm quite good at separating a creator from their works. As I thought about it though I realized that I'm actually terrible at it. What I am in fact quite good at is actively distancing myself from any knowledge about the people who create the works I enjoy. I honestly couldn't tell you the names of the authors for a majority of the books I've read. The few I do know I only know because I enjoyed their books enough to do searches on their works to find more by them.
> 
> I don't know where this started, perhaps it was all the ridicules drama in my school days between some friends over the antics of various members of bands they liked. Whatever the cause I've made a point of avoiding any unnecessary knowledge about the people that produce the media I consume. Thus far, beyond a few vaguely annoying conversations along the lines of "Is that right? No really, I had no idea, he said all that did he? That is unfortunate." it has served me well. Because in the rare cases I have found out something unpleasant it does risk poisoning my enjoyment of their works.




Sometimes I think life was better before the internet. Back when I was a young adult it was hard to find information on a favorite author other than what you could find written up on a bio in the library. 

I started attending cons and then working cons and I started meeting and hanging out with a lot of writers and actors. On one hand I have a lot of great memories and had some fantastic conversations. But the down side was sometimes finding out that they were not nice people or had things about them you didn't like. I made a decision back then not to let the bad experience distract from their work and for the most part it doesn't. 

But even back then there were things that someone could do that could make it impossible for me to separate them from their work it was rare but it did happen.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 5, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Michael Vick's involvement in dogfighting was deplorable.  However, he did his time and seems to have turned over a new leaf.  But, despite his apparent reformation, some people continue to vilify him.




A person who would EVER take part in that voluntarily is inherently a very bad person.  I would never knowingly give money to someone who was that deeply evil inside.  He may have "turned over a new leaf" publicly, but whatever lack of humanity he had that led him to think that dogfighting was okay is still there.  Sociopaths don't get better.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 5, 2014)

I can generally separate the author from the work.  When making purchases, though, I refuse to give money to anyone who I think is actively harming others.

I have never read Marion Zimmer Bradley's work.  Knowing what I know about her now, though, I have no interest in ever picking up anything she or her husband wrote.  Child abuse is one of the most horrific crimes there is, and I wouldn't be able to forget or overlook what I know about them while reading their books.

I have always enjoyed Frank Miller's comics.  I dislike him and his views, but I can read his work and forget who wrote them.  He's a blowhard, but that's about it - he doesn't actively work to hurt other people in substantial ways (other than simply being offensive), as far as I know.

I will read some things by Orson Scott Card, but only if purchased used.  I  won't give him any money because he's a homophobic bigot (among other things) who actively  works against gay rights.  I won't help to fund that.

I won't do anything to put a single cent of money into Scientology's hands, because they do a lot of things that hurt a lot of people.  I would never buy an L. Ron Hubbard book that was being sold "new" because they would get the money.  I don't read copies from used bookstores because he's just a terrible writer.

Lovecraft is a very interesting case.  He was racist, but it's really more accurate to say that he was broadly xenophobic, even when it came to things beyond race.  He had some very odd psychological and emotional issues, and desperately wanted to be an 18th century New England wealthy "gentleman."  He was very naive in some ways, and lived his life in books and letters, trying to construct an odd little personal reality for himself.  He freaked out while living (briefly) among the immigrant populations in the Red Hook district of New York, has several nervous breakdowns (starting in his teens), and was extremely eccentric overall.  He tended to be extremely fearful of things that were outside of his idealized existence in New England.   He ranted a lot about "mongrel races" and such in his letters and writings, but doesn't seem to have been mean to people in real life.  He even married a Jewish woman, despite his anti-Semitic rants.  He was just a fascinating, strange person overall.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 5, 2014)

billd91 said:


> I think it has been pretty well established, by his own statements, that he did have sex with the teen.



Well, IANAL, and I don't know how accurate wikipedia is on the issue, but this is what it says:


> In March 1977, film director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with five offenses against Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old girl[1] – rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.[2] At his arraignment Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges,[3] but later accepted a plea bargain whose terms included dismissal of the five initial charges[4] in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse.[4][5]



 (quoted from here.)
So, originally, he pleaded non-guilty on all charges. What made him change his mind? I like to think it was his lawyer arguing he would stand a better chance at court if he admitted to a lesser charge. Maybe I watched too many (bad) movies, but it seems it isn't that uncommon that a laywer recommends his client to admit something he didn't actually do because he believed his client couldn't win the case if he pleaded non-guilty. What happened after that, imho, fits that scenario:


> Polanski underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation,[6] and a report was submitted to the court recommending probation.[7] However, upon learning that he was likely to face imprisonment and deportation,[5][8] Polanski fled to France in February 1978, hours before he was to be formally sentenced.[



I.e. Polanski followed his laywer's recommendations without being entirely aware of the potential degree of penalty. When he became aware of it he panicked, even though it was likely he would have been on probation.

So what did really happen? We cannot know.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2014)

> A person who would EVER take part in that voluntarily is inherently a very bad person.



Even though I find the practice despicable, I can't agree.  Dogfighting, chicken fights, bear baiting, bullfighting and other animal-related blood sports have been around for most of human history, worldwide.  

Even in less obvious arenas, cruelty to animals has been part of society.  It's well documented that _some_ meat producers are quite cruel to their livestock.  But did you know that the old magician's trick of making a bird disappear from a crushed cage originally killed or injured the bird?  (Modern performers use fake birds to avoid that.)

IOW, unless you're a nascent serial killer, animal cruelty is not about the person's inherent moral state, and more about culture, it's a learned behavior.  And while greatly reduced in acceptibility, pockets of popularity still exist and are quite insular.  Vick's own testimony falls squarely within that narrative.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2014)

Jhaelen said:


> So what did really happen? We cannot know.




Polanski's victim has been pretty consistent in her testimony, even into adulthood, but has said she feels he has paid his debt.

Polanski's testimony in his plea deal before the judge is available to read in transcript- all 19 pages of it- on the Internet.  Given the array of penalties he faced, including "indeterminate" involuntary institutionalization in a mental health care facility, pleading guilty when I had the resources to fight the charges would NOT be an option I would choose for myself or a client if I felt they were unjust.  

And make no mistake: the list of punishments were explicitly enumerated by the clerk of court during the plea.  IOW, he was told he could face up to 20 years in prison and/or an open ended institutionalization in court, and had he said he didn't understand, the proceedings would have ceased until he either DID understand or rejected the plea.  So his claim that he didn't figure it out until later (right before he fled) rings kind of false to me.

Interviews while in Europe where he jokingly and guiltlessly comments about how he likes very young women are also telling, IMHO.


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## Dioltach (Aug 5, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> I was wondering how other people feel about things like this? Not just about authors but anyone who creates art, music, literature, film?




I've been an avid reader of the _Flashman Papers_ by George MacDonald Fraser since I was a teenager. I owe most of my understanding of the latter half of the 19th century to the detailed and accurate historical background information that they contain. And _Mr American_ by Fraser is one of my favourite novels ever.

But when I read _The Light's On At Signpost_, GMF's collection of essays recounting his experiences in the movie world and, more importantly for these purposes, his views on politics and society, it left something of a bad taste in my mouth. I don't enjoy reading his novels any less, but there's always this niggling thought in the back of my mind reminding me that the author held some very intolerent views (no matter how justified they might be by his own experiences).


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## Kramodlog (Aug 5, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> It is not just anyone it his daughter and these allegations have been around since she was a child she is now an adult. You realize often in cases of sexual child abuse there is limited proof. But one thing I do know young child don't make it up on their own. In Dylan case she was either sexually abused by her father or she was emotionally abused by her mother. She is the victim here she was a child and her parents failed her. As I said my issue with Woody Allen is he is either a sexual abuser or he is a father who knew he his child was being abused and did nothing to help her.
> 
> I can't watch his or Mia Farrow movies because when I sit there I think about their children suffering and that hits to close to home for me and I am not going to put myself through it.
> 
> ...



Kids are sponges and can pick up stuff in unexpected places. People can also convince themselves of false memories. Farrow can just be a supporting mother to a child who was lying or deluded itself.

The truth is we have no clue what happened and are in no position to take a side.


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

pickin_grinnin said:


> I have never read Marion Zimmer Bradley's work.  Knowing what I know about her now, though, I have no interest in ever picking up anything she or her husband wrote.




Okay, so how about stuff she edited?  MZB was for many years editor of a fantasy magazine that gave voice to loads of good new authors - do we boycott those works too, since she touched them?  Would doing so be fair to the authors who worked with her, who had no idea what was going on at the time?

And how about this - the publisher of MZB's digital backlist is donating all income from sales of her works to Save the Children.  Going forwards, sales of her ebooks are *helping* kids.  The author who is continuing to write in MZB's Darkover universe is similarly donating proceeds to charity.

Hypothetical:  What if the proceeds from those works were going to her estate, and her heirs included those who accuse her of abuse?  Boycotting her works would then be taking financial support from those she allegedly harmed.

These things are often not simple.



> Lovecraft is a very interesting case.  He was racist, but it's really more accurate to say that he was broadly xenophobic, even when it came to things beyond race.




The man was also born in 1890 - he was born, lived his life, and died before what we now think of as the civil rights movement started. You have to work a bit to find authors (or even just people) from that time who *weren't* racist (or sexist) by today's standards.  I think we should give thanks to those who are ahead of the curve, but it is hard to fault someone for failing to be ahead of his or her time.

There is a point where we are no longer avoiding support of a repugnant person's ideals, and stepping into whitewashing history - in the "those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it" sense.  What's better - to avoid the work and forget, or read it and remember?

We can then also apply that thought to Card.  What's better - to not support his work, or to read it and use it as a teaching/learning opportunity?


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> I don't judge anyone who wants to see his movies but don't try and wash away the fact that his child was abused.




Er.  Fact?  "Innocent until proven guilty," is a pretty important cornerstone of our justice system.  It isn't perfect, but the known alternatives are worse.  So, I don't think it is washing away anything to stick by that, recognize how little we in the public at large know as fact about what really happened, and acknowledge there are other possibilities.  Folks may frequently state that position poorly, but not accepting the abuse as "fact" should still be okay.

To be clear - I don't think I've seen a Woody Allen movie in decades.  I really don't care about the guy one way or the other.  I've read little, if any, of MZB's work.  I speak here only in terms of the ethics - MZB and Allen are accused, but not convicted.  It is not unethical to treat them as if they were not guilty.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 5, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Polanski's victim has been pretty consistent in her testimony, even into adulthood, but has said she feels he has paid his debt.
> 
> Polanski's testimony in his plea deal before the judge is available to read in transcript- all 19 pages of it- on the Internet.  Given the array of penalties he faced, including "indeterminate" involuntary institutionalization in a mental health care facility, pleading guilty when I had the resources to fight the charges would NOT be an option I would choose for myself or a client if I felt they were unjust.
> 
> And make no mistake: the list of punishments were explicitly enumerated by the clerk of court during the plea.  IOW, he was told he could face up to 20 years in prison and/or an open ended institutionalization in court, and had he said he didn't understand, the proceedings would have ceased until he either DID understand or rejected the plea.  So his claim that he didn't figure it out until later (right before he fled) rings kind of false to me.



Alright. I believe you may have better information about the case than I do.

From what I've heard and read about it, I don't actually doubt that he had sex with her. Here's two tidbits from the wikipedia article:


> Although Geimer has insisted that the sex was non-consensual, Polanski has disputed this.[22][23] Under California law, a person under 18 cannot legally consent to sexual intercourse with anyone who is not their spouse.



 and 







> The probation report submitted to the court concluded by saying that there was evidence "that the victim was not only physically mature, but willing



.
Looking up the legal terms this seems to mean he engaged in sexual assault or statutory rape - but it's not actually what I as a layman would consider rape.

Imho, what Roman Polanski is mainly guilty of is bad judgement. It's basically exactly what his 'victim' has been saying: 







> Straight up, what he did to me was wrong.



 and 







> She also claimed that the event had been blown "all out of proportion".




He may not have been aware of Californian law and he may not have been aware of her exact age, but he must have been aware that she was very young. That should have stopped him if he'd had better judgement.

Anyway, I don't actually know the guy personally and I'm pretty much out of my depth regarding the topic. What I'm still certain of is that I like (almost all of) his movies. I also like many of Woody Allen's movies (particularly older ones), btw. I had not been aware he'd been accused of child abuse. I hope it's not true. It does leave a bitter taste...


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## billd91 (Aug 5, 2014)

Jhaelen said:


> Well, IANAL, and I don't know how accurate wikipedia is on the issue, but this is what it says:
> (quoted from here.)
> So, originally, he pleaded non-guilty on all charges. What made him change his mind? I like to think it was his lawyer arguing he would stand a better chance at court if he admitted to a lesser charge. Maybe I watched too many (bad) movies, but it seems it isn't that uncommon that a laywer recommends his client to admit something he didn't actually do because he believed his client couldn't win the case if he pleaded non-guilty. What happened after that, imho, fits that scenario:
> 
> ...




I think you're missing these lines from the Wikipedia article:
"Although Geimer has insisted that the sex was non-consensual, Polanski has disputed this.[22][23] Under California law, a person under 18 cannot legally consent to sexual intercourse with anyone who is not their spouse.[24] Describing the event in his autobiography, Polanski stated that he did not drug Geimer, that she "wasn't unresponsive", and that she did not respond negatively when he inquired as to whether or not she was enjoying what he was doing.[25]"

Without going into his own testimony or digging up his autobiography, assuming the citations are correct... it looks like Polanski is admitting to the sex - just asserting that she was a consenting participant. Of course, that still implicates him for statutory rape since she couldn't legally consent. And even if a 13 year old did offer consent, the lack of judgment a 43 year old man would have to exert still boggles my mind.

EDIT: Well - looks like you ninjaed me yourself. Guess I should have gone all the way to the last page before replying...


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## billd91 (Aug 5, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Er.  Fact?  "Innocent until proven guilty," is a pretty important cornerstone of our justice system.  It isn't perfect, but the known alternatives are worse.  So, I don't think it is washing away anything to stick by that, recognize how little we in the public at large know as fact about what really happened, and acknowledge there are other possibilities.  Folks may frequently state that position poorly, but not accepting the abuse as "fact" should still be okay.




In this case "fact" of abuse that Elf Witch is referring to is that either Dylan was molested by Allen... OR she was manipulated into believing so by Farrow - which would also be abusive. The poor kid is in a no-win situation here - she was abused by someone it's just the nature of the abuse and the perpetrator that are in dispute. But even asserting his innocence (and even if he IS innocent), Allen fighting for custody of a girl saying she was molested by him to save her from Farrow's manipulations (if that's what was occurring), would probably have been severely traumatic to the girl as well. There's no winning in that situation either. It was a mess no matter how you looked at it and I wouldn't blame even an innocent Allen from backing away from that particular conflict.


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## WayneLigon (Aug 5, 2014)

It's hard, indeed. I only met MZB once and thought the discussion she led on writing was very well done; I've also enjoyed many of her books, and have every issue of the magazine she edited. It was really hard to hear about these allegations and even harder to hear that many people in the SF and fan community knew this and stayed silent. But I can separate an author from her work. I think Orson Scott Card is person with terrible, terrible beliefs, yet I have enjoyed his Alvin Maker series, and still do.

I guess it depends on the individual. Like you said, MZB is dead and will not profit from it if I purchase some more Darkover books at some point. 

Honestly, ever since find out what OSC was like, I've just tried to never learn anything at all about writers or other creative people that I like.


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## Mallus (Aug 5, 2014)

MasqueradingVampire said:


> I do.  I try (to be fair, sometimes I get lazy and I'm trying to be better about that) to research every company I do business with.  Whether its a company that makes something or sells something or provides a service or whatever.  If they support views I don't agree with, I don't shop with them, buy their products, etc.



We try to, too. We try to buy locally, buy fair trade products, shop at farmer's markets, my wife spends a lot of time researching clothing not made in overseas sweatshops. But we still own Apple products, and I still use Amazon (trying to quit them)...

BTW, I'm sorry for pursuing this commerce tangent. This is supposed to be a thread about artists. I'll leave off with this: I separate supporting artists from supporting business entities. I'll happily boycott a _store_, I rarely boycott an _artist_ (except for making bad art). They're different magisteria.


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## Janx (Aug 5, 2014)

billd91 said:


> did not respond negatively when he inquired as to whether or not she was enjoying what he was doing.[25]"




It's wording like that that further indicates wrong doing.

Take the age of out of the question.  That kind of wording only gets used when the victim did not respond at all.

How hard would it have been to say:
"did respond positively when he inquired as to whether she was enjoying what he was doing"

More direct, and no weasel-words to wiggle out of what was really happening.
If the victim was asked if the original statement was true, and she was silent during the event out of fear, then she would have to answer Yes.  because that's how logic statements work.

The only reason to word the statement in that way, is because the speaker is trying to weasel out of what they did.

At least in Roman's case, there is evidence of their foulness that allow us individuals to judge him outside of a court of law.

Though in Roman's case, we've got documentation from his legal proceedings that he never finished


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

billd91 said:


> It was a mess no matter how you looked at it and I wouldn't blame even an innocent Allen from backing away from that particular conflict.




No argument that it was a mess.  No argument that the kids went through something awful.  

But, in a thread that's talking about what an individual consumer should do about such things, questions of guilt and innocence become pretty important.  My point isn't really about Allen and Farrow, or MZB - they re merely the examples at hand.  The point is about how we are based on, "innocent until proven guilty," in general. 

I say this because I have, in the past, seen fan turn upon fan for not finding someone guilty in the court of public opinion.


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## billd91 (Aug 5, 2014)

Umbran said:


> No argument that it was a mess.  No argument that the kids went through something awful.
> 
> But, in a thread that's talking about what an individual consumer should do about such things, questions of guilt and innocence become pretty important.  My point isn't really about Allen and Farrow, or MZB - they re merely the examples at hand.  The point is about how we are based on, "innocent until proven guilty," in general.
> 
> I say this because I have, in the past, seen fan turn upon fan for not finding someone guilty in the court of public opinion.




It can be tough, but we're ultimately also talking about small-potatoes individual actions and not incarceration. If I were to boycott Woody Allen films, the effect would be negligible to him - unlike being in prison for child molestation. The stakes are low enough that, even if I'm in the wrong and he's innocent, the injury is low. The cost of acting on suspicion never needs to rise to the same level as criminal prosecution.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2014)

1) Polanski's plea includes testimony that he was fully aware she was 13.  

2) individual boycotts may have negligible impacts upon the person/institution boycotted, true, but things CAN snowball.  To me, this means that the less certain I am of the veracity of allegations of wrongdoing, the less likely I am to discuss those supposed wrongdoings with others.  So, if I am unsure of allegations about X, but still feel strongly enough to boycott X, I don't even let people know about my boycott just in case I am wrong.  But as my level of certainty rises, the more willing I am to puclicize my boycott, in order to get others to do likewise.


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## trappedslider (Aug 5, 2014)

What about companies? Do you separate the head of the company and whatever their views maybe from the rest of the company?


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

billd91 said:


> It can be tough, but we're ultimately also talking about small-potatoes individual actions and not incarceration.




Yeah.  That's why I noted the reason for my comment - Allen isn't likely to notice, but I've seen fans go at each other pretty harshly over small-potatoes (like, say, how to pretend to be an elf).  When you're instead talking about not believing in the pain done unto a child... well, stuff can get heated.


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 2) individual boycotts may have negligible impacts upon the person/institution boycotted, true, but things CAN snowball.




Not about reprehensible behavior, or art, but things can snowball.  Look at Market Basket - the supermarket chain is losing an estimated $10 million a day due to boycott reaction to executive business decisions (a favorite exec got fired).  When faced with likely changes in employee policy, and prices, customers and employees have banded together, and they are not doing badly at putting the screws to the chain.


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## Janx (Aug 5, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) Polanski's plea includes testimony that he was fully aware she was 13.
> 
> 2) individual boycotts may have negligible impacts upon the person/institution boycotted, true, but things CAN snowball.  To me, this means that the less certain I am of the veracity of allegations of wrongdoing, the less likely I am to discuss those supposed wrongdoings with others.  So, if I am unsure of allegations about X, but still feel strongly enough to boycott X, I don't even let people know about my boycott just in case I am wrong.  But as my level of certainty rises, the more willing I am to puclicize my boycott, in order to get others to do likewise.




for an informed individual, that seems like a decent plan.

For people who are misinformed, they seem to dial their activism up to 11 over something that may not have actually happened or happened the way they think it did.

It seems like doing nothing, is safer than doing something in these cases.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 5, 2014)

trappedslider said:


> What about companies? Do you separate the head of the company and whatever their views maybe from the rest of the company?




For me, it depends on what the head of the company is doing with my money.  Ten years ago I became aware of where Cathey was spending his profits, so I haven't gone back there since then (even though I love their chicken).  Even though most of the stores are franchises, some amount of money still trickles up, and I don't want any of my money going to Cathey's bigoted causes.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 5, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> IOW, unless you're a nascent serial killer, animal cruelty is not about the person's inherent moral state, and more about culture, it's a learned behavior.  And while greatly reduced in acceptibility, pockets of popularity still exist and are quite insular.  Vick's own testimony falls squarely within that narrative.




We will have to agree to disagree about that.  Deliberate cruelty to any living thing is, to me, a sign of a cruel person.  Though culture plays a strong role, in the end it gets down to what choices an individual makes.  

In Vick's case, he knew it was considered horrific by the vast majority of people in the U.S.  He was a member of a subculture that condoned it, but he got into that by choice.  

To be honest, I think we are a vicious little species.  I don't start out presuming that everyone is a good person.  I think that is defined by their actions.  Deliberate, unnecessary cruelty to other living things is pretty much my definition of "evil."


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Not about reprehensible behavior, or art, but things can snowball.  Look at Market Basket - the supermarket chain is losing an estimated $10 million a day due to boycott reaction to executive business decisions (a favorite exec got fired).  When faced with likely changes in employee policy, and prices, customers and employees have banded together, and they are not doing badly at putting the screws to the chain.




I hadn't heard about that one, but I'm glad to see it.  The usual reactions to executive business decisions like a firing are only seen in the way the stock market behaves.  Its good to see the consumers letting their position be known as well as the shareholders.  If that happens with a bit more regularity, perhaps we'll see more..._considered_...actions from management.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 5, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Okay, so how about stuff she edited?




I have no problem with those.  There is a strong degree of separation between her and the eventual story, unless she was completely rewriting them (as opposed to editing).

I'm not saying that people in general should shun her books.  I'm just saying that if I were reading something by her I would have a hard time enjoying it, because (in that particular case) I would have a hard time separating the author from the content.




> The man was also born in 1890 - he was born, lived his life, and died before what we now think of as the civil rights movement started. You have to work a bit to find authors (or even just people) from that time who *weren't* racist (or sexist) by today's standards.  I think we should give thanks to those who are ahead of the curve, but it is hard to fault someone for failing to be ahead of his or her time.




At various points in his life he sounded more racist than was the norm at that time.  As I said, though, a more accurate word for him would be "xenophobe."  He was often terrified of people who weren't of Western European descent and things that didn't fit into his ideal 18th century New England existence.  A lot of that is reflected in his personal letters, many of which can be read in collections for sale today.  One complicating factor, though, is that his actions didn't always match his words.  Though he ranted a lot in his letters, I have never seen any evidence that he was cruel to people he encountered.  As I said, he was a complicated man.



> There is a point where we are no longer avoiding support of a repugnant person's ideals, and stepping into whitewashing history - in the "those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it" sense.  What's better - to avoid the work and forget, or read it and remember?




I'm a librarian.  I don't support whitewashing history, banning books, or anything like that.  To me, though, child abuse is the most loathsome thing in the world.  I have no desire to read fiction written by a child abuser.   I wasn't making a general statement about what people should do in general.  Ultimately, it doesn't really matter now, anyway, since she and her husband are dead and can't profit from the sales.



> We can then also apply that thought to Card.  What's better - to not support his work, or to read it and use it as a teaching/learning opportunity?




My point is that you can read it without financially supporting him.  That's the beauty of used bookstores and libraries.  Given the things I have read, there really isn't much in his books that would make good teaching/learning opportunities.  "Mein Kampf" gives valuable insight into the mind of a true monster, and helps to point out lines of thought and belief that might eventually lead to someone becoming something like him.  There is nothing in Card's books (that I have read, anyway) to give insight into anything.  Card is a bigoted j@ck@ss, but he's not a monster like Hitler.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2014)

pickin_grinnin said:


> We will have to agree to disagree about that.  Deliberate cruelty to any living thing is, to me, a sign of a cruel person.  Though culture plays a strong role, in the end it gets down to what choices an individual makes.
> 
> In Vick's case, he knew it was considered horrific by the vast majority of people in the U.S.  He was a member of a subculture that condoned it, but he got into that by choice.




Actually, where he was from, that subculture is probably not as small as we would like to believe.  I can't say what age he got into it, but dogfights are not exactly rare, just in the shadows.  In the data at the Animal Legal Defense Fund regarding the case, there was this exchange:



> May 22, 2007 Defenders of Dogfighting
> In a news interview reported by the Associated Press, two other football players defended Vick and ridiculed the idea that dogfighting is a crime:
> 
> …In an interview with WAVY-TV, (Clinton) Portis said that if the Atlanta Falcons quarterback is charged and convicted of being involved in a dog fighting operation, then authorities would be “putting him behind bars for no reason.”
> ...




And from the wiki on the investigation:



> Numerous athletes generated additional controversy by making public comments supporting and defending Vick. Stephon Marbury, a point guard for the Boston Celtics, called dogfighting a sport and compared it to hunting and said that we don't react the same when other animals die.  Roy Jones Jr., a prominent boxer, stated, "really two dogs fighting can happen in anyone's backyard or on the street. It happened in my backyard, two of my dogs fought and one died."  Clinton Portis, a star running back on the Washington Redskins, stated, "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property, it's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it. I think people should mind their own business."  Deion Sanders, a former star football and baseball player and current commentator for CBS Sports, stated, "Why are we indicting him? Was he the ringleader? Is he the big fish? Or is there someone else? The fights allegedly occurred at a property that he purchased for a family member. They apparently found carcasses on the property, but I must ask you again, is he the ringleader? This situation reminds me of a scene in the movie New Jack City when drug dealer Nino Brown is on the witness stand and eloquently says, 'This thing is bigger than me.' Are we using Vick to get to the ringleader? Are we using him to bring an end to dogfighting in the United States? The only thing I can gather from this situation is that we're using Vick."


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2014)

pickin_grinnin said:


> At various points in his life he sounded more racist than was the norm at that time.




Um... 1890s.  American South?  Jim Crow laws?  Lynchings?  I think the norm was not very un-racist at all.  He was born only 25 years after the 13th Amendment passed!


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## Elf Witch (Aug 5, 2014)

goldomark said:


> Kids are sponges and can pick up stuff in unexpected places. People can also convince themselves of false memories. Farrow can just be a supporting mother to a child who was lying or deluded itself.
> 
> The truth is we have no clue what happened and are in no position to take a side.






Umbran said:


> Okay, so how about stuff she edited?  MZB was for many years editor of a fantasy magazine that gave voice to loads of good new authors - do we boycott those works too, since she touched them?  Would doing so be fair to the authors who worked with her, who had no idea what was going on at the time?
> 
> And how about this - the publisher of MZB's digital backlist is donating all income from sales of her works to Save the Children.  Going forwards, sales of her ebooks are *helping* kids.  The author who is continuing to write in MZB's Darkover universe is similarly donating proceeds to charity.
> 
> ...






Umbran said:


> Er.  Fact?  "Innocent until proven guilty," is a pretty important cornerstone of our justice system.  It isn't perfect, but the known alternatives are worse.  So, I don't think it is washing away anything to stick by that, recognize how little we in the public at large know as fact about what really happened, and acknowledge there are other possibilities.  Folks may frequently state that position poorly, but not accepting the abuse as "fact" should still be okay.
> 
> To be clear - I don't think I've seen a Woody Allen movie in decades.  I really don't care about the guy one way or the other.  I've read little, if any, of MZB's work.  I speak here only in terms of the ethics - MZB and Allen are accused, but not convicted.  It is not unethical to treat them as if they were not guilty.






billd91 said:


> In this case "fact" of abuse that Elf Witch is referring to is that either Dylan was molested by Allen... OR she was manipulated into believing so by Farrow - which would also be abusive. The poor kid is in a no-win situation here - she was abused by someone it's just the nature of the abuse and the perpetrator that are in dispute. But even asserting his innocence (and even if he IS innocent), Allen fighting for custody of a girl saying she was molested by him to save her from Farrow's manipulations (if that's what was occurring), would probably have been severely traumatic to the girl as well. There's no winning in that situation either. It was a mess no matter how you looked at it and I wouldn't blame even an innocent Allen from backing away from that particular conflict.






Umbran said:


> No argument that it was a mess.  No argument that the kids went through something awful.
> 
> But, in a thread that's talking about what an individual consumer should do about such things, questions of guilt and innocence become pretty important.  My point isn't really about Allen and Farrow, or MZB - they re merely the examples at hand.  The point is about how we are based on, "innocent until proven guilty," in general.
> 
> I say this because I have, in the past, seen fan turn upon fan for not finding someone guilty in the court of public opinion.




In cases of false accusations of child abuse what has been found is that they child has been manipulated  by an adult this can be done accidentally as in the case of the Martin preschool case by the very therapists meant to try and get to the truth or quite deliberately. 

In the case of Dylan Farrow it went to the police and to experts who felt that the child may have been manipulated by her mother to get her to make a false statement of abuse. As an adult Dylan has maintained she was abused and spent many years in therapy. She has a diagnosis of PTSD now because of the circumstances it is hard to say what happened but we can say without a doubt that Dylan Farrow was abused either sexually or emotionally as a child. She has been called a liar and maligned in a horrible fashion by Allen's fans and I think that is wrong.   

As for the cop out that walking away was better for Dylan oh please what a load of hogwash. It was easier for Allen who has admitted he does not like dealing with conflict. When you have a child you take on a responsibility for that child's well being both physically and emotionally.  If he is innocent of sexually abusing her then he knew that Mia had done since she was the one that tapped the girls' testimony. Yes custody cases are traumatic for the child but you know what else is traumatic leaving a child with a parent who is abusing them in some way. If Allen had man up to his responsibility as a father he could have fought for at least shared custody and fought for a court order of mandatory family and individual therapy for his children. Yeah it would have been emotionally draining for everyone involved but it would have been better than basically abandoning your child.


These things are not simple and I can understand not wanting to read her books but I can't understand some of the backlash against things she edited those writers had no complicity in the abuse except for one Elisabeth Waters knew about it and did nothing and she is the heir of MZB estate. I am not sure how much she gets from the new books being written in the Darkover universe by new authors. 

Innocent until proven guilty is certainly a wonderful concept and one I try and live by.  I have watched people jump in the bandwagon to convict a person of wrong doing without having heard the other side of the story or not having all the facts. But I also know we may not always have clear cut facts to make a judgement. Then we just have to go with what we think is right. As a victim of abuse and dealing with the issue of some people in my family not being able to deal with it so instead would rather think I was lying or had some false memory I tend to lean in the direction of giving the benefit of the doubt to the person claiming abuse. I am sure a person who was falsely accused of abuse would lean the other way. I know I would never want to sit on a jury of a case of child abuse because I would be worried my experiences would color my ability to be objective and a juror must strive for objectivity.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 6, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) Polanski's plea includes testimony that he was fully aware she was 13.



(...) - ouch  
Thanks for clearing that one up for me.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 6, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> In cases of false accusations of child abuse what has been found is that they child has been manipulated  by an adult this can be done accidentally as in the case of the Martin preschool case by the very therapists meant to try and get to the truth or quite deliberately.



Not every false accusation by a child comes from manipulation.



> In the case of Dylan Farrow it went to the police and to experts who felt that the child may have been manipulated by her mother to get her to make a false statement of abuse. As an adult Dylan has maintained she was abused and spent many years in therapy. She has a diagnosis of PTSD now because of the circumstances it is hard to say what happened but we can say without a doubt that Dylan Farrow was abused either sexually or emotionally as a child. She has been called a liar and maligned in a horrible fashion by Allen's fans and I think that is wrong.



Actually, I can have doubt that she wasn't abuse by anyone. People can do amazing things to themselves without outside help. The only reproche I could make about Farrow is that feed and fostered these emotions and false memories Dylon had. But I'm not even sure that is the case. 

All I know is that we do not know what happened.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 6, 2014)

goldomark said:


> Not every false accusation by a child comes from manipulation.
> 
> Actually, I can have doubt that she wasn't abuse by anyone. People can do amazing things to themselves without outside help. The only reproche I could make about Farrow is that feed and fostered these emotions and false memories Dylon had. But I'm not even sure that is the case.
> 
> All I know is that we do not know what happened.




Then please tell me how a seven year old knows what sexual abuse is and can describe acts that they would have no knowledge about? Children are not sexual creatures at that young age and don't know how sex works unless it happens to them or they are told. 

In the McMartin case the therapist used dolls and ended up leading the kids with them by putting words in the kids mouths. They thought they were doing the right thing. In Dylan Farrow case she described acts of a abuse taped by her mother before she ever saw an therapist. 

I would like to point out that this happened in 1993 that was before the internet so it is not like the child could look this kind of thing up. And the sexual acts she described was not something any seven year old could come up with. Some of the experts thought she had been couched some thought she had been abused but not one thought that this child was making it up on her own.

The State of Connecticut found probable cause to bring charges but decided because of the fragility of the child not to follow through and since Allen did not fight for custody Mia Farrow chose not to to push for criminal prosecution. 

You are right that we can't know what happened and that has been used so many times to silence victims when they finally speak up.  I can't say how Dylan was abused but I know she was because seven year old's can't make up a story like she did on her own and she has every symptom of a child who went through some kind of abuse from the eating disorders, cutting, to the suicide attempts.


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## Umbran (Aug 6, 2014)

Folks,

This is not a court of law.  Few of us on EN World are mental health professionals, and none of us have spoken to the principles in the case. Please to not try the case of Woody Allen and/or Mia Farrow here.   Agree to disagree, please.  Thanks much.


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## was (Aug 6, 2014)

No, I cannot separate an author from their works.  I would not be comfortable in keeping a book in my home if it was written by an author whom I felt was.......morally suspect.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 6, 2014)

Well, are you proactive?  Do you actually do any biographical research to find out if any of the stuff in your house was made by people of less than stellar histories?  Or do you only take action when you find out about it?

I'm not proactive.  But as I said earlier, I can and do separate author from work.  Which is good for me as a music nut, since- if I couldn't- I'd have to get rid of my Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, James Brown, The Who and a whole bunch of other stuff...


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## Nellisir (Aug 6, 2014)

To skip over this entire thread...it varies, but not in general I don't bother. If I find someone disturbing enough for it to be an issue, I don't want to be reminded of them or go through long justifications.


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## Kramodlog (Aug 6, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> Then please tell me how a seven year old knows what sexual abuse is and can describe acts that they would have no knowledge about?



TV, friends, school yard, listening to adults talking, etc. What she said wasn't very complicated. He put fingers in me. 



> Children are not sexual creatures at that young age and don't know how sex works unless it happens to them or they are told.



We like to think that, but reality is far ore complexe. You even have kids who are sexual predators at that age, kids who were not abused by anyone. 

I remember I was already masturbating at that age and already played doctor with my neighborette. 



> In the McMartin case the therapist used dolls and ended up leading the kids with them by putting words in the kids mouths. They thought they were doing the right thing.



Different case. Doesn't mean much. 



> In Dylan Farrow case she described acts of a abuse taped by her mother before she ever saw an therapist.



Kids can hear that fingers can go into vaginas at that age from a lot of places. 



> I would like to point out that this happened in 1993 that was before the internet so it is not like the child could look this kind of thing up.



False accusation existed before the internet. 



> And the sexual acts she described was not something any seven year old could come up with.



You'd be surprised. 



> Some of the experts thought she had been couched some thought she had been abused but not one thought that this child was making it up on her own.



And some said there wasn't enough evidence against Allen. That means they believed the kid, but lack other evidence to charge him. 

In the end, no one knows what happened. 



> The State of Connecticut found probable cause to bring charges but decided because of the fragility of the child not to follow through and since Allen did not fight for custody Mia Farrow chose not to to push for criminal prosecution.



Not true.



> You are right that we can't know what happened and that has been used so many times to silence victims when they finally speak up.



I didn't say she should shut up. I said I'm not sure why we are talking abut Allen in this thread.  I said that to Danny.



> I can't say how Dylan was abused but I know she was because seven year old's can't make up a story like she did on her own



They can. Kids are smarter than we think they are.   



> and she has every symptom of a child who went through some kind of abuse from the eating disorders, cutting, to the suicide attempts.



I'm not a professional and I never had sessions with her, so I won't make a diagnostic.


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## tomBitonti (Aug 6, 2014)

Well, aren't there really no rules for this?  As a question of whether a particular person can or should modify their view to a work or their behavior with respect to a particular artist and their works, isn't that an individual question?  One is free to make what adjustments one see's fit, with the constraints that particular adjustments may be easier or harder to make.

There is a different matter, of how well an individual's views convey to ones peers, or to society (either in the small or the large), but that is a different matter.

As an extreme example: One might be put off by airport searches, and find them to be an governmental overreach.  Then, one can choose not to fly.  Well within ones prerogative, but with clear consequences.  A person can choose to not patronize Orson Scott Card, Woody Allen, or Roman Polasky, based on their actions, with smaller but still real costs (say, alienation of some folks who make different choices).

One can study the technical artistry of a work while accepting the flaws (perhaps the very great moral failings) of the artist.  Indeed, the juxtaposition of great artistry and great flaws, and the study thereof, can provide a lot of deep insights into people and generally how our minds work.  But, that study doesn't need to imply any approval or any deep patronage.

Certainly, one is expected to weigh the meaning of an artist's work in the context of the artist's life experience?  Why should the meaning of a work be impacted only in changing our understanding of the work, and not change our behavior towards the artist and the work as well?

Actions have consequences.  As well: no information is truly independent of any other information; there is only a separation in degree.

Thx!

TomB


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## Umbran (Aug 6, 2014)

goldomark said:


> TV, friends, school yard, listening to adults talking, etc. What she said wasn't very complicated. He put fingers in me.




Perhaps I wasn't clear before.  This is heading in the direction I mentioned upthread, with fans going at each other over their beliefs on a case, and we shouldn't go there.  We will not determine the facts here.  And I severely doubt either of you will convince the other.  This is unlikely to go anywhere other than acrimony.

So, please stop this line of discussion.


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## Mikaela Barree (Aug 6, 2014)

To answer the original post, this is something I wrestle with. There are a lot of brilliant creators who are horrible or just jerky people in their day to day lives. I often remember the story about Thoreau. The only one who gave a damn about him was Emerson, because Thoreau was known as a lazy jerk to everyone around him. Emerson spoke at his funeral, which was sparsely attended.

Then on the other end of the scale are creators like Lovecraft, Polanski, Card, etc. etc..

I can sometimes separate the artist from their creation - to say that they had a brilliant mind and were excellent creators, but not people I'd likely be friends with or even support.

In other cases, I feel like their bad behavior colors my opinion of the creation too much for me to be an empirical critic, or to enjoy their work; I don't want to support that behavior even incidentally.

As a rule in my own life, during workshops and meetings with other creators, I try to keep an eye more to the work than the person. In college, a woman I was attending with usually picked on me and was very negative toward my own work. One time, she made me cry. That same day, we were workshopping her piece and the professor had some negative and in my mind ungrounded things to say about her work - I was outspoken in defending the piece and how much I liked it, because, irrespective of my relationship with the creator, I thought it was a very good piece of writing. Needless to say, she was very surprised, and later apologized for being rude to me. We struck up a friendship a few years down the road.


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## Umbran (Aug 6, 2014)

tomBitonti said:


> Well, aren't there really no rules for this?




If there were rules, we wouldn't need to discuss the matter much.  There are, instead a bunch of personal guidelines. The diversity is what makes it worth discussing.



> One can study the technical artistry of a work while accepting the flaws (perhaps the very great moral failings) of the artist.  Indeed, the juxtaposition of great artistry and great flaws, and the study thereof, can provide a lot of deep insights into people and generally how our minds work.  But, that study doesn't need to imply any approval or any deep patronage.
> 
> Certainly, one is expected to weigh the meaning of an artist's work in the context of the artist's life experience?  Why should the meaning of a work be impacted only in changing our understanding of the work, and not change our behavior towards the artist and the work as well?




Except that changing your behavior towards the artist, in the general way suggested here, means you don't study the work while accepting the flaws.  You don't study the work at all.  There is a fine line, between including the person of the artist to glean meaning and learn something, and excluding the person of the artist, to not pre-judge the work.

I'll take Card as an example.  I'd read several of his books, when I noted that the more recent of them were skewing in ideological directions I didn't find particularly valid or enlightening.  I'd already not bought any of his work for quite a while when I heard about his public dissertations, and I haven't bought any of his work since.

But, I did see the movie.  And, I still like the original book - I don't find it problematic, and it doesn't seem to me to contain much of his hateful dogma.  But I don't think I can read his later work, and judge it fairly.  Is he including his objectionable dogma, or am I reading it into his work, because I expect to see it, and maybe want to think poorly of him to justify my own position and feelings?


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## Jhaelen (Aug 7, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm not proactive.  But as I said earlier, I can and do separate author from work.  Which is good for me as a music nut, since- if I couldn't- I'd have to get rid of my Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, James Brown, The Who and a whole bunch of other stuff...



Which reminds me of a Bill Hicks quote I know from a Tool song (Third Eye):


> "See, I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor; go home tonight, take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CD’s and burn em’. 'Cause you don't want the musicians who’ve made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years?..
> Rrrrrrrreal in' high on drugs."



So, yeah.


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## doghead (Aug 7, 2014)

Mallus said:


> So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?




The things you buy, the work you do and the taxes you pay all contribute to a level of economic prosperity that allows people to make living by writing. So if there are people who write whose views are objectionable, the only option is to you give up consumption, work and paying taxes and go back to subsistence living?

I'm sure that there is a cool latin term with words like _absurdum_ and _infinitum_ for this sort of argument. If there isn't there should be.

thotd


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## doghead (Aug 7, 2014)

Mallus said:


> Right. "How to be an ethical consumer?" is an important question. My wife and I think about it a lot. It's also a terrifically complicated question in a contemporary consumer economy. I don't have a good answer for how to do it (merely the answers I'm using _for now_). Which is why I asked you questions. I'm curious how other people answer them. Maybe I can improve/refine my answers, or at least come to a better understanding of how I go about answering the question.
> 
> Let me switch gears and make a statement: participation in a contemporary consumer economy involves an unavoidable amount of complicity in actions I find unethical. ....
> 
> I'm trying to figure out where I draw the line, or perhaps just make peace with the fact the line is arbitrary.




Very nicely put. I think you are right, the line is arbitrary. Or perhaps subjective is a better word. You do what you think is right as best you can.

thotd


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## tomBitonti (Aug 7, 2014)

Umbran said:


> If there were rules, we wouldn't need to discuss the matter much.  There are, instead a bunch of personal guidelines. The diversity is what makes it worth discussing.
> 
> Except that changing your behavior towards the artist, in the general way suggested here, means you don't study the work while accepting the flaws.  You don't study the work at all.  There is a fine line, between including the person of the artist to glean meaning and learn something, and excluding the person of the artist, to not pre-judge the work.
> 
> ...




The difference is between the question "can you separate an artist from their work" (with "you" meaning each hearer specifically), and the question "should you separate an artist from their work" (with "you" being a wildcard, with the question one regarding general behavior).  We can all answer how we individually handle the matter.  There is also a meaning of the first question which puts the focus on the "can": Not whether one can choose to or not, but is one mentally capable of making the separation, if if they tried?

But, I wanted to point out that, in the US at least, there is no clear sense of "public shaming" or of disallowing a person from conducting day to day business because of their moral character.  (Although, there are consequences of having a criminal record.)  That is to say, this is an individual matter, with impacts confined mostly to immediate contacts.  I imagine there is a bit more to say in this space, say, in China, or Iran.  I have no clear idea of the European attitude(s) on the matter, nor for other areas (anywhere in South America, or Africa, or India).

"Accept" (from "accepting the flaws") was poor word choice.  I'll see if I can phrase that better.

Also "technical artistry" was in reference to truly technical issues: An artists use of color; their brush strokes; their quality of writing.  I do think that these qualities can be evaluated as separable details (or so it seems) while other issues (the meaning of the work as a whole; whether to patronize the artist) are harder to evaluate separably.  That tells me a lot about how we think about artistic works.  And one can certainly study the artists technical attempt to convey an emotion and whether that is successful or not, while finding the work horrible.  (Transformers: Age of Extinction has a lot of technical artistry, and works very well on our emotions; but, the treatment of women, especially young women, is terrible.)

Thx!

TomB


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## Umbran (Aug 7, 2014)

Mallus said:


> So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?




That would depend upon the relationship between the artist and the agent.  Generally speaking, if the artist is a significant portion of the agent's business, then choosing to not support that agent may be a reasonable ethical choice.  If, however, the agent's business is very large compared to the artist, the ethical value of not supporting the agent becomes smaller.

Let us say you don't like Orson Scott Card, and don't want to support him.  You have one small movie theater in town - it shows two movies, and one of them is Ender's Game.  With only two films, you can imagine that the two screens are highly economically interdependent, so that sales for one screen may effectively subsidize the other.  It might make sense to boycott the theater.  

But for Amazon, the same tactic makes little sense.  Amazon is so large, that individual products are not effectively interdependent.  No measurable amount of your purchase of the 5e PHB from Amazon goes to support Card's work, so boycotting Amazon on account of Card seems pretty silly.  

Also, we have the issue that the undesired artist may not be the whole story for the agent.  You must beware unintended consequences.

Amazon sells countless items of positive ethical value - hurting Amazon enough so that you effectively remove support of Card means you *also* remove equal support of those good products.  If your local theater is small, and running on a shoestring budget, a large boycott might sink them, and leave their employees without income.  What's more ethically important - not giving Card some tiny amount of support, or having folks in your home community lose their jobs?  

If you must throw out the bathwater, you really want to consider carefully how you do it, so as to not toss out the baby!


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## Umbran (Aug 7, 2014)

tomBitonti said:


> But, I wanted to point out that, in the US at least, there is no clear sense of "public shaming" or of disallowing a person from conducting day to day business because of their moral character.




No clear sense, perhaps, insofar as it isn't institutionalized or part of official law enforcement.  There is, however, a pretty strong tradition of doing so among the public, however ineffective it may be.


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## Janx (Aug 7, 2014)

> So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...hor-from-his-or-her-work/page11#ixzz39ihNwSrL




this part from Mallus got me thinking.  use of the word "complicit" has got me thinking that this train of logic convicts me for somebody else's actions.

Am I complicit in supporting OSC's current politics because I read Ender's Game in the 90's?
Am I complicit because I wanted the movie last month on On Demand?

Am I guilty of a crime because I watched a Roman Polanski movie?

Am I guilty of a crime because I live in the US and am most likely on land formerly owned by natives?

While I would not recommend going to a new land and screwing the natives over to take their land, I am a beneficiary of that very tactic long before my time.  If what they did was wrong, they should have been punished for it.

While I abhor what Roman did, isn't it the legal system's job to punish him, not mine?

I hate walmart, but the least skanky one in Houston is 2 miles from my house, and when everything else is closed, I can get an HDMI cable there.  Am I "complicit" because I buy from them now and then, despite the fact that I usually avoid shopping there?

I don't think that's right to put on the average consumer in almost any shape or fashion.  But there's probably reasonable exceptions.


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## Mallus (Aug 7, 2014)

Umbran said:


> What's more ethically important - not giving Card some tiny amount of support, or having folks in your home community lose their jobs?



I think w/r/t the film version of _Ender's Game_ its important to recognize Card is only one part of the whole enterprise; you're also supporting a large number of artists and craftspeople who *do not* share his views, and likely hold views and support causes diametrically opposed to Card's.

This is true long before you get into the film's distribution channels.


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## tomBitonti (Aug 7, 2014)

Janx said:


> this part from Mallus got me thinking.  use of the word "complicit" has got me thinking that this train of logic convicts me for somebody else's actions.
> 
> Am I complicit in supporting OSC's current politics because I read Ender's Game in the 90's?
> Am I complicit because I wanted the movie last month on On Demand?
> ...




And this is where it all gets ... tricky.  I have no good answers to these questions, and have thought about some of the very same questions.  Arguably, genocide was committed against American Indians centuries ago.  Am I morally obligated to remedy this?  If people are enslaved by economic policies, am I obliged to act outside of the economy?  There is no way that I can see to do this, except to become a hermit (ala the Unibomber), not, it seems, a feasible action.

A rule of thumb a friend once gave me was "Think Globally, Act Locally".  We are too enmeshed, too interdependent, to restructure the world alone and quickly.  Change proceeds across decades and centuries.  But, we are able to effect local changes, and add our voice and actions to make small differences that can and do add up.

I've read a lot of Orson Scott Card (whose work I increasingly find less appealing than I once did); the same for Harlan Ellison, whom I once had a high opinion of, but have found to have less as I learn more, both generally, and about Ellison.

I find curious (as observed for myself) that as I learn more about authors and artists, I also find their work less appealing, not quite because of what I have learned about the artist, but because of everything else I learned over time. That is to say, there may be less of an issue here than there seems to be, as a result of one realizing the limited quality of a material, which one did not previously realize.  Then, I haven't had to learn much about Card to change my opinion of his work; my opinion changed on its own for other reasons.

Thx!

TomB


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## Umbran (Aug 7, 2014)

Mallus said:


> I think w/r/t the film version of _Ender's Game_ its important to recognize Card is only one part of the whole enterprise; you're also supporting a large number of artists and craftspeople who *do not* share his views, and likely hold views and support causes diametrically opposed to Card's.




Agreed, as I stated up thread.  I saw that film with that in mind.

But the specific examples are only meant to be demonstrative, so that dismissing one doesn't change the point - actions have consequences.  Just because you intend to address an injustice doesn't mean that your action has that net effect.

Take Roman Polanski as another example - his victim is on record as saying that at this point, the media has done more damage to her and her family than Polanski did himself.  Folks who may really have only been seeking justice may well have made her life notably worse.  The road to Heck is paved with good intentions, so to speak. Simple, naive analysis may not lead us to ethical action.

I think that the word "complicit" up there is an example, honestly.  Tom clearly is a person of conscience, and wants to help, right?  But, whether or not he thinks the word is technically true, it is problematic - it will tend to make folks you are talking with feel you are trying to push guilt upon them.  Most of the time, this is not apt to get them to agree with you, but will get them to push back on your ideas - much as Janx reacted.  "Guilt tripping" is an unreliable tool, at best.  So, meaning well or not, maybe he's working against his own good purposes.  

We aren't in a court of law, and our ethical mission as individuals probably isn't to identify and punish the guilty.  So, who is complicit should be a distant secondary concern.  Instead, simply identifying what is wrong, and acting as best we can to mitigate or reverse those wrongs should be our primary goal, no?  So, let us not worry about who is complicit, and instead concern ourselves with what constitutes right action once an ill has been identified.


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## billd91 (Aug 7, 2014)

tomBitonti said:


> A rule of thumb a friend once gave me was "Think Globally, Act Locally".  We are too enmeshed, too interdependent, to restructure the world alone and quickly.  Change proceeds across decades and centuries.  But, we are able to effect local changes, and add our voice and actions to make small differences that can and do add up.




I think another good suggestion is "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Attaining perfection in word and action isn't going to be possible. Acting perfectly ethical is an unattainable goal. You can still work to make things better when the knowledge is in place and the opportunity is available. Don't beat yourself up if you can't always take those opportunities or if conflicting ethical requirements means you must compromise on one of them. 

To provide an example, my mother in law got on my wife's case about buying something at Walmart because of Walmart's labor practices. And normally, for our own shopping we avoid Walmart. But my wife was at Walmart because of her job - she works for an agency that provides service for adults with developmental disabilities. That day, she was taking her client shopping and, because of where this client lives and her very limited income, Walmart is the best shopping solution available to her. There's the conflicting ethics - Walmart is exploitive but she also had to be responsible with her client's finances and ability to get around. She had to compromise one set of ethics for another given the situation and, despite my loathing of Walmart, she made the right choice. 

People make similar choices all the time, with good information, with incomplete information, with significant consequences, insignificant consequences, direct consequences, and indirect and, often, for very personal reasons so I don't usually get on anybody else's case about their own choices. I'm not them and don't get to make their choices for them and I expect similar courtesy in return.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 7, 2014)

Umbran said:


> We aren't in a court of law, and our ethical mission as individuals probably isn't to identify and punish the guilty.  So, who is complicit should be a distant secondary concern.  Instead, simply identifying what is wrong, and acting as best we can to mitigate or reverse those wrongs should be our primary goal, no?  So, let us not worry about who is complicit, and instead concern ourselves with what constitutes right action once an ill has been identified.




And in fact, the law in most modern jurisdictions only asserts a duty to help if you hold a certain position- fireman, policeman, lifeguard- or in limited circumstances- you caused the problem in question.  In all other cases, we can legally be mere observers.

Ethics and morality are different.  They often ask more if us than is legally necessary.

For instance, you know the term "show-rooming"?  The practice of doing price comparisons in brick & mortar stores and buying the product online, regardless of where you actually shopped?  It hurts a lot of retailers, but it isn't illegal.  However, certain moral/ethical systems don't see it that way.  I read an essay written by some orthodox Jewish theologians who stated in no uncertain terms that- in their interpretation- this was morally equivalent to theft.  By show-rooming without intent to buy, the shopper has taken the facilities, time and efforts of the shopkeeper & his staff could have used to make a sale to a _"real"_ potential customer.

Besides, even S.O.Bs gotta eat- if Hitler was a racist waiter who, nonetheless wound up as your server, would you insist on another server or being seared in a different section?

So, it just comes down to a question of conscience- *how far do you want to go to punish those you perceive as being wrongdoers?*

And let's be clear, the "wrongdoers" are performing the same moral/ethical calculus.  It's just that they place different values on the variables.  I know of otherwise very moral people, people I respect, who have what I consider moral failings.  My music minister- a Christian rock artist of no small status- boycotts the work of any musician he knows to be gay, for instance.  (Found that out when I mentioned an Elton John song...)

It's a disappointment to to me that he feels thus, but it doesn't stop _me_ from buying _his_ CDs.  This isn't just because I can- as stated previously- separate artist from works, but also because his work is startlingly good at conveying messages of healing and spirituality...and if I did boycott him, I would be acting as he did, albeit with a goal *I* deem morally superior.  Kinda hubristic.  Also runs afoul of ends/means justifications, and the admonitions Christians are supposed to heed about judging, loving all, and forgiving sins as we forgive the sins of others...


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## Mercurius (Aug 7, 2014)

I can't say that I've read the entire thread, but did scan through the first few pages and found the conversation interesting - but forgive me if I reinvent the wheel here.

What I find most worrisome about these sorts of discussions is that there is usually an implied "faux absolute" moral standard, as if the universe has an intrinsic moral code that somehow co-incides with 20th-21st century liberal arts postmodernism. Don't get me wrong, I agree with much of that cultural milieu, and certainly find it more progressive than religious fundamentalism, but find that it is often an instant of its own complaint and unable to be self-critical or recognize its own limitations. For instance, it separates itself from its own relativism, as if it is speaking from an absolute standard (cf. "performative contradiction"). 

I tend to take the view that we are continually evolving, our social and cultural ideas are changing--hopefully towards greater freedom, inclusivity, and compassion (although not always). But the key is, our worldview now--whether individual or collective--is never complete, never the Absolute Truth, yet we tend to see the world--and judge others--as if it was, as if we were "complete."

Anyhow, I am a huge Woody Allen fan, especially his 70s classics like _Annie Hall _(one of my five or ten all-time favorite movies), _Manhattan, _and _Stardust Memories, _all of which--along with a few others--I will re-watch every few years. Do I find the allegations against him disturbing? Certainly. Can I prove they are true? No, although even if they were proven I would still watch his films. Why? Because human beings are inherently flawed and no one is free from "sin."

I know there's a difference between stealing a candy bar or two when you're a kid and molesting your step child or, in MZB's case, sexually abusing your own children. But where do we draw the line? We can all agree that sexual abuse is bad but not everyone agrees that animal abuse is reprehensible. Some people honestly don't care, unless of course it is their own pet.

The other thing to keep in mind is that most perpetrators of sexual abuse were also victims. This doesn't excuse it, of course, but it does contextualize it as the inherited tragedy that it is. Suffering begets suffering - that is what the Hindu-Buddhist traditions call "karma."

A few years ago I saw an excellent, if controversial film in which Kevin Bacon played a recovering child molestor. _The Woodsman _it is called. Anyhow, what I found to be so evocative about the film is that Bacon's character wasn't depicted as an inherently evil human being, but as someone with good intentions but a mental illness. He didn't want to be sexually attracted to children but he couldn't help himself. It has been about 8-9 years since I saw it, but I think it effectively portrayed the difference between uncontrollable _urges _on one hand, and _actions _on the other. Bacon's character couldn't control his urges, but he could choose--through great difficulty--what his actions were.

Anyhow, I agree with Umbran's bit about "the baby and the bathwater." To that I would add, "so your poop don't stink?" Human beings are complex, flawed, terrible and marvelous all at the same time. We are all capable of terrible and wonderful things. Speaking for myself, I have done things that I wish I hadn't--from many relatively minor things to more than a few moderate ones (although thankfully nothing truly terrible)--and I think every single human being is the same. When someone steps beyond a certain line, it is easy to be judgmental, but more difficult to turn the mirror upon ourselves, and even more difficult to see that in almost every "bad person" there is a glint of humanity of goodness - even if it is deeply buried behind pathology. Just as in every "good person" there is the potential for truly atrocious acts. 

I will continue to watch and enjoy Woody Allen films because he is not only the man who (allegedly) molested his step child(ren). He is also the creator of some amazing art, and I support him for that even if I feel compassion for what could be a mental illness on his part.


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## Janx (Aug 8, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz;6354380
So said:
			
		

> how far do you want to go to punish those you perceive as being wrongdoers?[/B]




I think there's a secondary complexity to this consideration.

What if you are wrong about the guilt of the person you've chosen to "punish"


It's one thing to avoid social contact with Woody Allen because you think he's guilty.

It's a step further to avoid any of his products.

A step even further to actively speak out against him (talk shows, picketing, writing mean articles)

And even further to go hunt him down and chop his thingy off.

I'm pretty sure some of those things  you can't apologize for or just sweep under the rug and move on.

I suspect we are obligated to tip Mr. Hitler if he did a good job as our waiter.  Because if our interaction with Mr. Hitler is on a professional level (that is an exchange of goods/services outside of the disputed issue), then what he does/thinks outside of work is his business.  I'm pretty sure of this by how obviously wrong it is to NOT tip him, in the instances where people didn't tip their waiter because he was gay.  A clash of beliefs is no reason not to recognize good work.

Now if he's at a social gathering, espousing his hateful views, he might have a punch in the eye coming...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2014)

Janx said:


> I think there's a secondary complexity to this consideration.
> 
> What if you are wrong about the guilt of the person you've chosen to "punish"




That's a more direct way of stating one of the things I was implying when I wrote:


> ...I would be acting as he did, albeit with a goal I deem morally superior. Kinda hubristic. Also runs afoul of ends/means justifications, and the admonitions Christians are supposed to heed about judging, loving all, and forgiving sins as we forgive the sins of others...




Look at the case of Richard Jewell, crucified in the court of public opinion...and ultimately exonerated.


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## Umbran (Aug 8, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Ethics and morality are different.  They often ask more if us than is legally necessary.




Admittedly, I was being loose in my definition.  You probably don't have the luxury of ignoring the difference.  I am guessing you're talking about the ethics as a definition of whether an action is correct or incorrect, and morality as a question of whether the action is right or wrong.

A lawyer or doctor, for example, is strongly tied to an ethical code he or she cannot/should not violate, even when it might seem good to do so (say, in the case of mandatory reporting of certain events or interactions - in some cases you are not allowed to keep your mouth shut, even if speaking would be bad for someone who doesn't really deserve it).



> So, it just comes down to a question of conscience- *how far do you want to go to punish those you perceive as being wrongdoers?*




Except it doesn't have to be about punishment.  It can be about simply stopping further moral or ethical violations.   If you don't buy goods made in sweatshops, and instead buy goods made in the same area at decent wages, you make paying a good wage more attractive.  It may be that nobody is actually punished in this process - a company just realizes that paying their workers better gets people to buy, so they do so...

Again, the Market Basket example is a good one here.  The person who was ousted had instituted good pay and profit sharing for workers.  The remaining execs are expected to sell the chain to a more conventional owner, who would end those policies.  Workers and customers want those policies to remain - the fact that the result is "punishment" is (hopefully) secondary to the real goal of incentivising the desired behavior.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2014)

While you're right about incentivizing, I guarantee you: you boycott a bad business in the market, and they will feel punished, maybe even victimized.


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## Umbran (Aug 8, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While you're right about incentivizing, I guarantee you: you boycott a bad business in the market, and they will feel punished, maybe even victimized.




Which is part of why sometimes boycott isn't the best route to a desired goal.


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## Janx (Aug 8, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While you're right about incentivizing, I guarantee you: you boycott a bad business in the market, and they will feel punished, maybe even victimized.




Hmm, this line of discussion reveals what might be a separation of methods and purposes.

You should tip Hitler the Waiter if he does a good job at his job and is not actively ranting his ranty stuff during the meal (which would in fact, be part of "doing a good job").  Hitler serving food as his day job is not offensive.

The same as you should watch a Roman Polanski film if its something you would enjoy.  You're not condoning or even judging his hobby, and "not watching his film" isn't really an effective tool for changing his behavior anyway.  Roman making movies is not offensive, nor does stopping him from making movies remove or cure the offense.

Now to Walmart, or Market Basket.  Aside from not being a real person, as businesses, it is their very business activity (i.e. their professional interaction) that offends people.  Telling off the staff at a store doesn't even relay up to management that you don't like their corporate strategy.

Since a corporation's offensiveness often lies directly in their policy and behavior in dealing with customers (or PR statements as Chickfilet hates gay people), it seems justifiable to seek a means to issue a correction to the corporation.  Where Hitler the Waiter is only a jerk at parties that I don't attend, the corporation is right here, smack dab trying to do crappy business which hurts my local economy.

At that point, it seems I may be justified in pursing a conflict against Walmart, but not Hitler the Waiter's personal life choices.

Which comes to the methods.  We already know that me not watching Roman's films is impactful to Roman, and if it was, it'd me more damaging to the people who worked on his film than Roman himself.

In theory, the same harmful aspect is true of a corporation.  If I get everyone to not shop Walmart, a lot of employees' jobs are at risk.  However, what are my real, practical choices in getting Walmart to change its behavior:
I basically see 2 angles: PR and hurting their sales.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2014)

The fact is, unless you're opposed to the beliefs of a single person who has no staff or family, there is no action you take that won't have some kind of collateral damage.

Even Hitler the Waiter might have goldfish (named Crockett & Tubbs) who may go belly up of everyone refused to hire him because he's a racist S.O.B.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 10, 2014)

There have been several blogs comments I read that worry me on this subject and that is if you know that someone has done something bad and you still choose to buy their work then you are at worse condoning their crime or at best you are saying you don't care. I don't believe that. I personally can't watch Woody Allen films. I doubt I will ever read any MZB books but I will still read the Drakover novels being written by new authors. But I have no issue with people who enjoy Allen movies.

Things are rarely black and white take the Chik Fla A boycott  I choose not to buy food from there but I have a friend who does care as much as I do about LGBT rights who feels differently his point is what about all the employees who depend about their paycheck should they be punished too. He had a valid point. My point was valid too I don't want my money going to someone who uses it to openly discriminate against other people. I don't have an issue with people's views if they think homosexuality is a sin fine that is their opinion but when they support groups that are imo hate groups then I have to say no.

David Gerrold the SF writer is openly gay he did not support the boycott of Ender's Game. There was some backlash against Card over some comic he had been hired to write. Gerrold said it disturbed that any writer would be banned from writing because of their beliefs to him it would be as bad as someone not letting him write because he was gay.

At the end of the day we all just have to decide where we draw the line for ourselves.

The Michael Vick thing really bothered me I feel that animal abusers are a special evil. The man should never be allowed to own pets again. But once he did his punishment he should be allowed to continue with his life. The fact that people wanted him banned from playing football did not make any sense to me. His career as a football player had nothing to do with the animal abuse. Secondly once someone has dome their time they should not be punished the rest of their life for it. He has right to use his talent to make a living.


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## billd91 (Aug 10, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> The Michael Vick thing really bothered me I feel that animal abusers are a special evil. The man should never be allowed to own pets again. But once he did his punishment he should be allowed to continue with his life. The fact that people wanted him banned from playing football did not make any sense to me. His career as a football player had nothing to do with the animal abuse. Secondly once someone has dome their time they should not be punished the rest of their life for it. He has right to use his talent to make a living.




Maybe. But NFL teams also have the right to avoid hiring someone with an image that problematic, someone who will increase the negative press for the team.


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## Umbran (Aug 10, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> David Gerrold the SF writer is openly gay he did not support the boycott of Ender's Game. There was some backlash against Card over some comic he had been hired to write. Gerrold said it disturbed that any writer would be banned from writing because of their beliefs to him it would be as bad as someone not letting him write because he was gay.




The comic in question was Superman.  

And, Gerrold's analogy breaks down.  Gerrold did not choose to be gay, and cannot just change his mind about it and stop.  Card can realize he's being a nozzle, and change his ways and his position.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 10, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Maybe. But NFL teams also have the right to avoid hiring someone with an image that problematic, someone who will increase the negative press for the team.




They- and all other professional sports associations- do and they have...but they use that power with surgical precision.  It shouldn't be a surprise that the better an athlete you are, the less likely you are to face serious repercussions like suspensions or outright black balling.  It IS big business, after all, and results matter.

The disappointing aspect of this, though, is _how many_ athletes could be tossed under just such standards.  Towards the end of the Troy Aikman era, the Dallas Morning News printed an exposé on the NFL, detailing who had how many athletes with criminal records or subtantiated but unprosecuted charges on their teams.  Most teams had between 20-50% of their athletes that fell into that category.  Most of it was things like domestic violence, public drunkenness, DWIs or drug charges, but assaults, burglaries, armed robberies and even the odd homicide popped up.

IOW, if they didn't play favorites, they'd have problems being able to play at all.


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## pickin_grinnin (Aug 10, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> The Michael Vick thing really bothered me I feel that animal abusers are a special evil. The man should never be allowed to own pets again. But once he did his punishment he should be allowed to continue with his life. The fact that people wanted him banned from playing football did not make any sense to me. His career as a football player had nothing to do with the animal abuse. Secondly once someone has dome their time they should not be punished the rest of their life for it. He has right to use his talent to make a living.




The fact that he took part in dog fighting to begin with says something about the type of person he is.  That alone is enough to shun the guy.  What if he had raped someone, or murdered a child?  Do you think that a rapist (or child murderer) is ever going to be a person you could trust or want to be around?  Would you be arguing that the NFL should welcome him back with open arms?

Secondly, his punishment didn't fit the crime.  He should have been thrown into the pit with some fighting dogs to experience what he put other living things through.  That's not going to happen in our society, but his punishment should have been much, much more severe than it was, within the bounds of the types of punishments we use in our society.


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## Janx (Aug 10, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Card can realize he's being a nozzle, and change his ways and his position.




I'm not sure that's wholly true.

it seems to be VERY difficult to get people to change their minds.  in most cases, I think it's the person themselves evolving to change their viewpoint.  Which is technically the same as what you meant, but I don't think it'll be rapid or dramatic.

Given that he's espousing the same views as his church (as I am told, but could be wrong), he's inherently in an environment to maintain his current viewpoint.

In practicality, he's not likely able to change his mind.  Now if he moved off to GayTown (no clue where that is) and gets some nice neighbors, he may actually see they are nice people, possibly even better examples of behavior than some people he knows back home.

THAT, might cause him to soften his views, and ultimately change his mind.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 10, 2014)

Well, one can only hope.  After all, there are enough stores of skinheads changing their ways.

I was going to post a link to a story I read a few years ago about a skinhead who had been harassing a particular rabbi.  The rabbi met his hate with love and teaching.  He eventually wound up with a Hispanic girlfriend...and living with the rabbi.

I didn't post the link because I couldn't find it quickly in the mass of stories about skinheads converting to Judaism.


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## Umbran (Aug 10, 2014)

Janx said:


> I'm not sure that's wholly true.




I didn't say it would be *easy* for him to do so. 



> it seems to be VERY difficult to get people to change their minds.




Sometimes yes.  Especially in cases where the mindset isn't based on rational data or information.



> in most cases, I think it's the person themselves evolving to change their viewpoint.  Which is technically the same as what you meant, but I don't think it'll be rapid or dramatic.




I didn't ask for rapid or dramatic.  



> Given that he's espousing the same views as his church (as I am told, but could be wrong), he's inherently in an environment to maintain his current viewpoint.




All the more reason to send signals to him from outside his current environment, right?  Clumsy, probably ineffective, sure.  But, you take your chances where you can, right?  



> In practicality, he's not likely able to change his mind.




When considering ethical and moral action, we have to be very careful to differentiate between what one actually cannot do, and what one can do, but won't.  We are responsible for what we can change, and not responsible for the things we cannot.  

I *will not* accept the posit that he cannot change.  That position validates hate crimes.  "I'm sorry, officer, but I come from a culture that really believes this, and I can't change that, so I'm not really responsible..."  Nope.  Sorry.  Not acceptable.  

I will accept that Card is highly unlikely to change.  He won't change.  Confronting him with the wrongness of his ways will likely lead to him becoming defensive and entrenching and pushing back, sure.  But, there's a point where he stops getting to use his environment and upbringing as an excuse for being a jerk.

In Card's case with Superman, there is a point beyond getting Card to change his mind.

Imagine a young boy, reading Superman - the character is an icon of Right Action.  If the boy likes the comic, and goes looking by more from the author, and finds Card's personal blog?  We now have Right Action associated with hateful messages.  This is not DOOM!  We can teach the young reader otherwise, with luck.  But, why have that association possible in the first place?  Why knowingly add to the burden?  

Even if Card kept his more extreme ideology out of the comic book, maybe he has made himself an unacceptable role model.  In the sports world, maybe there is too much money at stake to reliably weed out bad role models, but genre authorship?  Not so much a problem.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 11, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Maybe. But NFL teams also have the right to avoid hiring someone with an image that problematic, someone who will increase the negative press for the team.






Umbran said:


> The comic in question was Superman.
> 
> And, Gerrold's analogy breaks down.  Gerrold did not choose to be gay, and cannot just change his mind about it and stop.  Card can realize he's being a nozzle, and change his ways and his position.






pickin_grinnin said:


> The fact that he took part in dog fighting to begin with says something about the type of person he is.  That alone is enough to shun the guy.  What if he had raped someone, or murdered a child?  Do you think that a rapist (or child murderer) is ever going to be a person you could trust or want to be around?  Would you be arguing that the NFL should welcome him back with open arms?
> 
> Secondly, his punishment didn't fit the crime.  He should have been thrown into the pit with some fighting dogs to experience what he put other living things through.  That's not going to happen in our society, but his punishment should have been much, much more severe than it was, within the bounds of the types of punishments we use in our society.




Of course they do any business has that right. But it makes me wonder in today's plugged in world with the power of social media if the power of people's opinion can be a destructive thing when it comes to things like this. Say Vick was an electrician not a football player and people started petitions to stop anyone form hiring him is that right?  Do we really want a society when someone had done a crime and fulfilled the punishment that that law gave them yet society does not want to let them go on with their life? 

Dog fighting is not in the same league as child rape or child murder.  I find it disgusting but I will point out that animal fighting is part of many cultures. Look at Spain and the bullfighting. Why is that different than dog fighting because dogs are pets? If you don't think the punishment was severe enough then that is a different issue than once someone has paid the debt that the law gave him having a right to move on with their life. 

But yes a person who commits murder and goes to prison and then is released has a right and a need to earn money to live. People do change and people have a right to live and earn a living. I doubt a child rapist or child murderer would get out of prison in time to continue a football career. 

Card very religion teaches that homosexuality is a sin. He truly believes that it is. Are you saying that in America he does not have the right to hold his religious beliefs? That is one of the issue if you want LGBT to have equal rights you will never get there telling religious people they can't believe it is a sin you need to to let them know that we have separation of church and state and that their belief that it is a sin does not give them the right to legally discriminate against an entire group. 


Your argument about a young boy is the same argument that the people who want to deny gays rights uses in think of the children. It is up to the parents to teach their children if you have done your job well then a blog by a comic book writer is not going to have that much impact. Everyone has opinions on this and they don't fall into some kind of we are Borg collective thought. David Gerrold has his, I have mine and other people have theirs.


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## Umbran (Aug 11, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> Card very religion teaches that homosexuality is a sin. He truly believes that it is. Are you saying that in America he does not have the right to hold his religious beliefs?




Constitutional rights are between the citizen and the government.  Not between citizens.  

He certainly has the right to have those beliefs in private.  He even has a right to state them in public.  He has a personal blog in which he does so quite regularly.  Nobody is stopping him.  

I have the right to have a belief that he's hurtful and wrong, and to say so.  I didn't in this case - I don't follow DC comics much, and it was pretty much all over before I saw it in the news - but it is my right to speak against his position, if I see fit.

DC has the right to listen to both, and decide what to do with Superman what they see fit.

Everyone's rights were upheld here.



> Your argument about a young boy is the same argument that the people who want to deny gays rights uses in think of the children.




There are two major differences.  And my apologies if this edges on politics, but they are important to be clear:

1) Those who want to deny gay rights have frequently attempted to do so through legislation.  Nobody has tried to legislate against Card of his beliefs.  The Superman issue was between a business and its fans/customers.  There was no governmental involvement.

2) Sexual orientation is, for the most part, a private matter that goes on in your own home.  If Card had kept his beliefs in his personal life, there would not have been an issue.  Instead, he's made himself a public figure and activist on certain subjects, and taken paid speaking engagements at politically-oriented gatherings.  In making himself a public figure, he opens himself up to public scrutiny and criticism.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Aug 11, 2014)

Elf Witch said:


> Of course they do any business has that right. But it makes me wonder in today's plugged in world with the power of social media if the power of people's opinion can be a destructive thing when it comes to things like this. Say Vick was an electrician not a football player and people started petitions to stop anyone form hiring him is that right?  Do we really want a society when someone had done a crime and fulfilled the punishment that that law gave them yet society does not want to let them go on with their life?



Sometimes the punishment given by the law does not fit the crime. There are instances in which the punishment required by law are far too harsh. There are also instances where they are far too lenient.  



> Dog fighting is not in the same league as child rape or child murder.  I find it disgusting but I will point out that animal fighting is part of many cultures. Look at Spain and the bullfighting. Why is that different than dog fighting because dogs are pets? If you don't think the punishment was severe enough then that is a different issue than once someone has paid the debt that the law gave him having a right to move on with their life.



You're assuming people don't view the running of the bulls or bull fighting in Spain the same or worse than the dog fighting Vicks participated in.



> But yes a person who commits murder and goes to prison and then is released has a right and a need to earn money to live. People do change and people have a right to live and earn a living. I doubt a child rapist or child murderer would get out of prison in time to continue a football career.



Some people change. Some people don't; however, the fact they committed a particular crime doesn't. I for one think Vicks got off far too easily, and in all honesty, I think he should not have been allowed to continue to play football. A lifetime ban would have been more appropriate for the scumbag.



> Card very religion teaches that homosexuality is a sin. He truly believes that it is. Are you saying that in America he does not have the right to hold his religious beliefs? That is one of the issue if you want LGBT to have equal rights you will never get there telling religious people they can't believe it is a sin you need to to let them know that we have separation of church and state and that their belief that it is a sin does not give them the right to legally discriminate against an entire group.
> 
> 
> Your argument about a young boy is the same argument that the people who want to deny gays rights uses in think of the children. It is up to the parents to teach their children if you have done your job well then a blog by a comic book writer is not going to have that much impact. Everyone has opinions on this and they don't fall into some kind of we are Borg collective thought. David Gerrold has his, I have mine and other people have theirs.



Card has the ability to reach a large audience. The idea that "a blog by a comic book writer is not going to have that much impact," is a bit short sighted. Maybe it won't have an impact with a particular individual, but let's face it, kids don't really matter. They are used as pawns to get a message across. You don't like something? Say it affects kids. The blog isn't really meant for the kids. It's meant for the adults that can, and do, vote. 
Also, card is far more than a comic book writer. He is also a university professor and a political activist.His influence if farther reaching than just comic book fans. His activities are not limited to just writing about his hateful ideas.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 11, 2014)

> Constitutional rights are between the citizen and the government. Not between citizens.




Small but important correction: Constitutional rights are human rights guaranteed to all under the jurisdiction of the USA- one need not be a citizen for most of them.


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## Janx (Aug 11, 2014)

Umbran said:


> When considering ethical and moral action, we have to be very careful to differentiate between what one actually cannot do, and what one can do, but won't.  We are responsible for what we can change, and not responsible for the things we cannot.
> 
> I *will not* accept the posit that he cannot change.  That position validates hate crimes.  "I'm sorry, officer, but I come from a culture that really believes this, and I can't change that, so I'm not really responsible..."  Nope.  Sorry.  Not acceptable.




This is where we may differ in opinion.  Humans are moist robots.  If a robot has bad code, I still blame the robot, and more importantly, I still take the robot off the factory floor.

Basically, the bad robot's tailing phrase of " so I'm not really responsible..." is irrelevant to me because I accept that the bulk of bad acting was decided by screwy parts of the brain long before any rational thought engaged.  As long as the bad robot gets carted away, the problem is solved.


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## Umbran (Aug 11, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Small but important correction: Constitutional rights are human rights guaranteed to all under the jurisdiction of the USA- one need not be a citizen for most of them.




Good point. They are between the government and the people, more generally.  

They are not, however, a protection from other private individuals.  You do not have a freedom to practice your religion in *my* home, for example.  If you come waltzing in and hold a religious ceremony in my dining room, I have the right to stop you and expel you.  You are protected by law in certain ways - I cannot discriminate based on race or gender in my hiring practices, for example, but the general rights from the Constitution do not apply between private individuals.  



Janx said:


> Basically, the bad robot's tailing phrase of " so I'm not really responsible..." is irrelevant to me because I accept that the bulk of bad acting was decided by screwy parts of the brain long before any rational thought engaged.  As long as the bad robot gets carted away, the problem is solved.




I see two problems with that.

First, the logic of that breaks down when the robot is self-aware, and large chunks of it are run by self-modifying code.  Mr. Gerrold's condition is buried deep in the factory defaults of his operating system, but Mr. Card's are in after-market, third party software.  He could update that application to a less buggy version that is more cross-compatible.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, bad action can be expected in moments of surprise.  If you have the Village People pop out of a birthday cake for Mr. Card, yeah, maybe he'll react with disgust.  But when one has *time* to think about it (say, when taking a day or two to write a blog post) in a basically healthy person, that screwy brain can be overridden by the rational mind.  And, while I disagree with Mr. Card's ideals, I don't have any evidence that he's unhealthy.  He's just wrong about a lot of things.

Yes, humans have some very deep drives, but we are not, in fact, meat robots.  Heck, even my house cat isn't a meat robot.  I find the belief that humans lack free will to be extremely nihilistic, and leads to more harm than good when applied in practice.


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## Janx (Aug 11, 2014)

note: this will seem controversial if the reader can't separate my point from what I may or may not believe.



Umbran said:


> I see two problems with that.
> 
> First, the logic of that breaks down when the robot is self-aware, and large chunks of it are run by self-modifying code.  Mr. Gerrold's condition is buried deep in the factory defaults of his operating system, but Mr. Card's are in after-market, third party software.  He could update that application to a less buggy version that is more cross-compatible.




If Mr. Card doesn't think he's wrong, he's not going to update his software.  I've seen enough examples in "normal people" to see they don't change their minds readily about deeply held positions, and in "crazy" people who can't see they are speaking/acting crazy.  I'm not qualified to root cause it, but I know something's funky in that area.



Umbran said:


> Second, and perhaps more importantly, bad action can be expected in moments of surprise.  If you have the Village People pop out of a birthday cake for Mr. Card, yeah, maybe he'll react with disgust.  But when one has *time* to think about it (say, when taking a day or two to write a blog post) in a basically healthy person, that screwy brain can be overridden by the rational mind.  And, while I disagree with Mr. Card's ideals, I don't have any evidence that he's unhealthy.  He's just wrong about a lot of things.




One of the problems here (and again, I do not hold Mr. Cards position to be correct), is that Mr Card believes his view is correct.  And just as importantly, if we are to insist that we are RIGHT and he is WRONG, then we are potentially making the same mistake he is.

It is entirely possible that there exists one deity  that founded Mr. Card's religion and that it defines certain behaviors as a Sin.  Now aside from the initial response of "I don't respect a superior entity that defines behavior in a way I disagree with", lets consider the holy crap, nobody allowed for that possibility and here it is actually.

I don't think we need to carry 20 or so different holy symbols like Benny from The Mummy did, just in case.  I do think Card would be better served keeping his ideas to himself, in that he is free to believe them, but doesn't need to be pushing it on other people.  When I am feeling wiser, I don't need to say his ideas are wrong, even if I disagree with them.  I don't feel that broadcasting those ideas is a good strategy for getting along with other people, but that's because like this site's rules, talking about religion and politics is divisive, not unifying.



Umbran said:


> Yes, humans have some very deep drives, but we are not, in fact, meat robots.  Heck, even my house cat isn't a meat robot.  I find the belief that humans lack free will to be extremely nihilistic, and leads to more harm than good when applied in practice.




Though we disagree on how roboty the meat is, you may be right in the actual application of it.  I don't doubt that you were free to post this.  What I simply acknowledge is that deeper under the hood, a chain of chemical and electric reactions engaged for you to make that decision and that you don't have full control over that chain.


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## billd91 (Aug 11, 2014)

Janx said:


> Though we disagree on how roboty the meat is, you may be right in the actual application of it.  I don't doubt that you were free to post this.  What I simply acknowledge is that deeper under the hood, a chain of chemical and electric reactions engaged for you to make that decision and that you don't have full control over that chain.




Indeed, you have a point. Studies have even indicated that evidence contrary to held beliefs seems to have either no effect on those beliefs or intensifies them. This is one reason internet arguments and political arguments almost never convince anyone to change their views.


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## Janx (Aug 11, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Indeed, you have a point. Studies have even indicated that evidence contrary to held beliefs seems to have either no effect on those beliefs or intensifies them. This is one reason internet arguments and political arguments almost never convince anyone to change their views.




There's also some other science that indicates that a person's actions are initiated in the emotional part of the brain, before the "rational" part kicks in.  The effect is like your body reacts to a situation, and then your brain rationalizes a chain of logic of what the response will be, despite it already being determined earlier.  Based on our present understanding of brain functions, that ain't logical thinking going on.  Of course, it may also turn out that they got the parts of the brain labeled wrong...

This is of course a big fork from the OT, but I think there is a relationship.  People who hold stupid views (assuming you oppose those views) are kind of stuck that way.  And if they're not good at keeping those views to themselves, all sorts of conflict arises.


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## Cergorach (Aug 11, 2014)

The actions/views of writers/artists should be separate from their works. Or do we think about the actions/views of the person who's packing your groceries or flipping your burgers? Should we give them our money... That way lies madness!

Things like child abuse, rape and even murder are enraging. And people should be punished for them harshly (I feel that anything short of a tortuous death is getting of light in this regard, but I disprove the death penalty, go figure), but income from legal activities should not be further punished by the public imho. You can make a choice whether you want a product by person X or not.

A further problem is regarding 'famous' people and accusations, the fame surrounding them makes them a better opportunity for attention seekers to make false claims. Don't get me wrong, not every accusation is false (far from it), but I'm always skeptical especially when 'famous' people are involved.

The folks spewing hate, racism, etc. I just find sad, as long as they don't do do the other horrible things, if they get in my face they might have a demonstration of fist meets face, face meets ground. When dealing with such people I always think "When making something foolproof, they keep making better fools!". Things are different when these kinds of people start moving into public office...


As for the people living together (of the same sex or not) who aren't romantically (or sexually involved), these are perfect solutions for combining resources, companionship, mutual support, etc. The (single) guy living with his mom... Hits close to home ;-) I am that 38 year old single guy that rented a house and invited his parents along, not because I was financially bad off, but because my parents needed support (after all the medical stuff my dad went trough he's now the $6,000,000 man, we can rebuild him!) and after having worked 45+ years the pension my dad build up wasn't exactly luxurious. Having worked a day in an 'old folks home' 25 years ago I can say I truly don't wish that on my parents. My mom still cooks, cleans and does the groceries, any attempt to change that is thoroughly shot down by said mom. I pay the bills, do the heavy lifting (something I somehow have to enforce, sometimes they still act as if they are still 18 or 45) and provide technical support ;-) This arrangement is beneficial for everyone involved, although you sometimes get those stares from people that say "He still lives with his parents!", I have a thick skin ;-)

Edit:
Changing people's views isn't as hard as it is made out to be, but it requires manipulation. It can be as simple and innocent as "Take an umbrella." vs. "Take an umbrella, because it's going to rain cats and dogs according to the radio.". People just don't change their view because "I said so!", they need reasons. And some people need a lot more manipulating then a reference to today's weather report... But honestly, a lot of it just isn't worth your or my time, because it's a bottomless pit, on the other side everyone else is also manipulating the same person. People are gullible...


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## Umbran (Aug 11, 2014)

Janx said:


> If Mr. Card doesn't think he's wrong, he's not going to update his software.




I know.  I already noted that he won't do it.  The point was that when considering ethics, we need to consider responsibility - so the cases of "cannot" and "will not" need to be considered.



> It is entirely possible that there exists one deity  that founded Mr. Card's religion and that it defines certain behaviors as a Sin.  Now aside from the initial response of "I don't respect a superior entity that defines behavior in a way I disagree with", lets consider the holy crap, nobody allowed for that possibility and here it is actually.




I said I considered him wrong on some things, and did not specify what those things were - I was being intentionally vague.  I generally don't consider such non-falsifiable things in such matters.  Card is on record about some specifics of action and results within society, more specific than just "it is a Sin" - stuff that we can (and in some cases do do) actually have some sociological data and statistics on.  I think he is wrong about those.  

I will again, leave out specifics, as I don't want to cross the politics line. 



> Though we disagree on how roboty the meat is, you may be right in the actual application of it.  I don't doubt that you were free to post this.  What I simply acknowledge is that deeper under the hood, a chain of chemical and electric reactions engaged for you to make that decision and that you don't have full control over that chain.




Full control?  No.  But if the chain(s) of electrical and chemical reactions are fully deterministic, then consciousness and free will are illusory, and all this talk of ethics and morality is pointless - that way lies nihilism.  We might as well be hunks of granite as a human being, if that is the case, for there is no moral or ethical difference between us.

If, however, some of that chain is not deterministic, then I have the potential for choice and free will.  Only then does the discussion have any meaning.


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## Janx (Aug 11, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Full control?  No.  But if the chain(s) of electrical and chemical reactions are fully deterministic, then consciousness and free will are illusory, and all this talk of ethics and morality is pointless - that way lies nihilism.  We might as well be hunks of granite as a human being, if that is the case, for there is no moral or ethical difference between us.
> 
> If, however, some of that chain is not deterministic, then I have the potential for choice and free will.  Only then does the discussion have any meaning.




That's one way to look at it.  rather an extreme end from my view.

To me, if we are all moist robots, then the point of ethics and morality is to program our children to function in a positive way in a community.  Moist robots that have unethical software are disruptive to a community.  Ethics and morality are sort of the measuring sticks by which we determine what moist robots are misbehaving on the factory floor.


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## Umbran (Aug 11, 2014)

Janx said:


> That's one way to look at it.  rather an extreme end from my view.




The idea that free will is required for there to be morality goes back to Kant, at least.  He and other philosophers have covered the topic better than I can expect to do here.  Call it extreme if you like, but it comes down to this - there is no moral or ethical value or character to a thing following inexorable, inviolable physical law.  Take a ball bearing rolling down an inclined plane - it has no moral character.  It just is.  A thunderstorm is not good or evil - it just is, the result of natural processes in action.  To quote Hamlet, "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  But, if it is all just stimulus -> deterministic response, then there is no *thinking*, except in the same sense that your laptop "thinks".

If you are a moist robot, following programming in a deterministic way, then you are not in any meaningfully way different from a rock rolling down a hill.  Or maybe we can say you are a clockwork machine, like a mechanical watch.  Wind you up, and you go.  You have many parts, complex, but the parts interact in a completely predetermined way.  Moist robots are... arbitrary mechanisms.  Complicated, perhaps, but arbitrary.



> To me, if we are all moist robots, then the point of ethics and morality is to program our children to function in a positive way in a community.




"Positive" in this context is a moral judgement.  But, if those people are no more than rocks rolling down hills, or wristwatches, there is  no positive, nor negative.  Their interaction has no intrinsic meaning or value, as they are but objects.  What does it matter if a collection of windup toys is disturbed?


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