What’s wrong with completely shutting up about morals? Gustave Flaubert’s Salammbo is also about an alien crapsack world where the only character who disagrees with common morals is even worse than everyone else, and it’s wonderful. Except the parts where the book cuts itself off during a description of mass murder, torture, human sacrifice, or male-male couples, to remind the reader that they are wrong and abnormal. Yes, Gus, that’s nice, but will you be quiet and let the grown-ups read?
I guess you could make the argument that it teaches you that the typical mind fallacy is false, or to question your own society, or something, but that looks dubious. It’s just a pretty thing, and it doesn’t have to meet moral standards any more than gastronomic ones.
You’re still conflate “be a moral work” with “shove morals down your throat in a hamfisted way” which is exactly what I was saying you DIDN’T have to do. If Salammbo does this in a clumsy way, well, then yeah, maybe that book could be written better. (If it says male-male coupling is bad, I disagree with it on a moral level anyway, although that’s different than disagreeing about how that morality was dealt with).
When I say “works should be moral” I mean that, all else being equal, I prefer art works to produce a positive effect on the world. Sometimes by directly inspiring people, sometimes by subtly shaping them.
What’s wrong with completely shutting up about morals? Gustave Flaubert’s Salammbo is also about an alien crapsack world where the only character who disagrees with common morals is even worse than everyone else, and it’s wonderful. Except the parts where the book cuts itself off during a description of mass murder, torture, human sacrifice, or male-male couples, to remind the reader that they are wrong and abnormal. Yes, Gus, that’s nice, but will you be quiet and let the grown-ups read?
I guess you could make the argument that it teaches you that the typical mind fallacy is false, or to question your own society, or something, but that looks dubious. It’s just a pretty thing, and it doesn’t have to meet moral standards any more than gastronomic ones.
You’re still conflate “be a moral work” with “shove morals down your throat in a hamfisted way” which is exactly what I was saying you DIDN’T have to do. If Salammbo does this in a clumsy way, well, then yeah, maybe that book could be written better. (If it says male-male coupling is bad, I disagree with it on a moral level anyway, although that’s different than disagreeing about how that morality was dealt with).
When I say “works should be moral” I mean that, all else being equal, I prefer art works to produce a positive effect on the world. Sometimes by directly inspiring people, sometimes by subtly shaping them.