Is the quality of a story separable from the socio-political and linguistic milieu it is born in?

In a word, no. I think. The human psyche (and the English language – or any other for that matter) is too complex for something like that to be a simplistic “yes” – words, grammar and even phrasing and vocabulary do not a story make.

I love BG – just saying.

Art must be appropriated before it can appropriate popular opinion.

@the100thmonkey No so much vague as, at least the way I’m reading it, you’ve asked about 5 different questions here. Could you possibly narrow the focus a little?

You think Marxist ideas should be censored?

@lillycoyote – I’d be really happy if you answered all five! :)

I guess what I’m getting at is this:

Does the media you consume and enjoy, nay seek out, say anything about your views?

and

Does the media you are exposed to, whether you like it or not, influence your opinions, whether you like it or not.

or

Are all critiques valid?

No. Great stories rise above their settings.

@absalom and @marinelife – but what does that really mean? I would greatly appreciate it if you could expand on your answers.

So much of this depends on the creator of story, doesn’t it? I mean, some people are more aware of things like politics, the role of language, and examining unstated premises.

@Hobbes: no; and I can’t see how you could come to that conclusion. I suggested that Marxism requires that certain ideas be censored.

If you want to think, read, talk, disseminate, convert, philosophise, proselytise or do whatever with regards to Marxism, knock yourself out.

Language generally, and art almost essentially, miscommunicates as much as it communicates. Assigning static meaning to any piece of fiction is fine…but it ignores the subjective experience that is one of the things that separates art from other forms of “information.”

So, I don’t think a solid investment in the idea of mimesis in the characteristically Platonic discussion of it because it both presupposes a truth and the availability of tools to communicate that truth. I don’t believe in either – we can get to our best answers, but truth requires an omniscience that precludes communication as there is no need for it.

Because meaning is fluid for these reasons, enjoyment is always subjective. So, whatever the reasons or message of the piece, your takeaway is your own.

And fiction/art can be a tool of the propagandist, but art (as long as it holds itself out as art) should never be subject to censorship except in cases where there are concerns for participants (e.g., child porn).

Attempts to control in the speech context are problematic because they’ll inevitably result in pushing an agenda of those in power. It reduces freedom. But letting the art out there allows it to be criticized, gets us talking about issues we weren’t before, etc.

Now, advertising is a whole other story, as commercial speech (purely commercial) is about getting people to do something, whereas fiction is about getting them to think about something. Sure, one leads to another…but we should draw the line at thought policing.

For me, a good story “rises above” its settings in the sense that it “transcends” its context. It allows for an experience that doesn’t depend on a familiarity with the time and place of the author himself or the story.

@the100thmonkey I could have sworn I commented on this… know I composed the comment but maybe I didn’t hit the submit button, anyway, I do see how @Hobbes might have gotten that idea, that’s the way the sentence scanned for me first too, but I knew that you would never be suggesting that Marxist ideas be censored so I read again, and of course, you meant that certain political systems require the use of censorship by those in power, not that the ideas themselves, should be censored. Anyway, I’m just saying I understand how the misunderstand might have come from.

@lillycoyote – I see it now too (although I would have structured the sentence differently).

@Hobbes – my apologies.

If art/media is as unstable as even a sentence in English, are the “humanities” (however defined, which is part of the problem) not undermined?

@the100thmonkey – I don’t think anything is undermined except for the concept of truth. How would they be undermined?

Well, exactly.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that brute facts exist.

The question is, then: are there brute facts in the humanities, or are there only social facts?

The drama inherent between the characters more important than the setting to really great stories.

For example, a story about friendship could be set in a war zone with soldiers or in a neighborhood.

Sure, there are brute facts – or things accepted as brute facts. But the work of most humanities is to get meaning from facts, or present them for evidence of one theory or another.

So many questions flying around here (as lillyc said). Don’t drink and fluther (do as I say not as I do).

I’ll just answer the headline question. Yes. You don’t have to know much about ancient Sumeria, much less subscribe to the worldview of that society or speak its language, to get something out of the Gilgamesh epic—and what you get out of it will transcend the differences between the society that produced it and yours. Likewise for the Odyssey, Beowulf, le Morte d’Arthur, Hamlet, The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, etc. ... And likewise for the other arts. You don’t have to believe anything Wagner believed or know anything about his society to be moved by his music.

People will easily be able to understand stories that refer to their frame of reference. Example: I don’t get Rap music.

@the100thmonkey

You’d “be really happy if you answered all five! :)”

And now you want to add three more questions on top of those five?

“Does the media you consume and enjoy, nay seek out, say anything about your views?”

and

” Does the media you are exposed to, whether you like it or not, influence your opinions, whether you like it or not.”

or

“Are all critiques valid?”

Oy vey! Focus my friend, focus. That’s all I can say.

I can only do this one bird at time so I will start with your first question, the “headline question” as @submariner puts it.

I think you can and very often should separate the two, the “quality” from the “socio-political and linguistic milieu” but it can sometimes be very difficult, particularly on a personal level, and very often can be difficult to justify to other people who feel differently. Some of my favorite authors, like Flannery O’Connor and James Steinbeck, are just more difficult for me to enjoy in the same way I did when I was much, much younger and less “enlightened” than I am now. There passages in the writings that just make me cringe but are we too simply dispose of the O’Connors and Steinbecks because of that? Are we supposed to ignore the value of these stories, of this literature, of what they tell about ourselves and about a particular time and place because of the language? Because the were written in a particular way, by people whose writings were a product of not only their own genius, but by their time and place?

It’s the same problem I have with banning books in schools.

It’s kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and, it just seems like a tremendous loss and a tremendous lost opportunity to ban books in the schools, books like Of Mice and Men when you have the opportunity to teach the book not only as literature but teach the book in terms of it’s social and historical context, which I think is incredibley useful. Instead people simply want to ban books, not that they are racist or promote a racist ideology but may only use language is objectionable to some people. It is a teaching opportunity, as they say, not a reason to ban a book.

And don’t even get me started with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. People want to ban the book because it contains racist language or because they believe, wrongly, I think, that it is a racist book. It is not. But if there is a controversy regarding Huckleberry Finn, is it or isn’t, what a tremendous opportunity to teach great American literature, to try to teach it within its socio-cultural and historical context and to have students read it and to think for themselves. What a tremendous waste and what a tremendous pandering to ignorance it is to ban Huckleberry Finn from the public schools, I think.