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Oscar Wilde has something to say about censorship (and he knew a little bit about being attacked for writing): > There is no such thing as a moral or an immora
by ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Oscar Wilde has something to say about censorship (and he knew a little bit about being attacked for writing):
> There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
In today’s highly polarized and tribal world, books must also be a way to signal virtue and tribe membership.
- tharne 6y agoThat was exactly Nabokov's point in writing Lolita.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThis also applies to art in general. Marcel Duchamps Fountain was one of my favorite pieces of art because it called out the art world for judging art based on the fact that it was made by a member of the accepted 'art world' but it was a frickin urinal.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI didn't think that was the point. I thought that the point was that, within certain flavors of philosophy, there is no such thing as beauty (that is, beauty has no objective reality), and therefore that anything could be regarded as being art. Duchamps' point was that this urinal was as good as the Mona Lisa; that is, Duchamps really agreed with this viewpoint (if I understand correctly). He got upset when critics called it "pretty", because that meant that they had completely missed the point.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoIt beggers the question of 'what is art'? What actually MADE that urinal art was that it was made by a member of the artistic ingroup. If I go hang a urinal in a museum as a web developer I will get arrested and it will be thrown out.