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Simple moral messaging doesn't seem to be a problem today. Almost more valuable than ever. Even here in Australia, where we're not as nutty as the US, we just

Simple moral messaging doesn't seem to be a problem today. Almost more valuable than ever. Even here in Australia, where we're not as nutty as the US, we just had a bunch of teenagers stab someone for his phone. The world could do with a re-grounding in simple morals.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Huh, I've come to completely the opposite conclusion. Simplistic moral messaging like Star Wars is harmful to public morality. It teaches people that evil is some obvious lifestyle / alignment that people consciously choose. That evil people know they're evil, believe being evil to be good and behave in evil ways for the sake of being evil. What's wrong with that? It gives people a framework for rationalizing away their own evil acts because they believe themselves to be fundamentally good, not aligned with evil. Simplistic moral messaging facilitates moral self-licensing, in which people form a self-image of being fundamentally good and use that self-image to give themselves license to occasionally commit evil acts. People 'know' themselves to be fundamentally good, and believe an occasional evil act doesn't define them as a person. Mass media like Star Wars promotes this model of morality because it helps the audience feel good about themselves, and that is good for business. We should instead be teaching the public about the banality of evil. Evil people should be depicted as complex characters with a mix of good and bad traits, not flat sociopaths fanatically dedicated to evil for the sake of evil. This encourages people to evaluate their individual actions, and particularly to evaluate the morality of their own actions when they know themselves to have a mundane (or even good) motivation rather than some comic book supervillain's alignment to evil itself. In stories with complex morality, a character who is generally good can do something evil and the story recognizes that as evil; this helps people who believe themselves to be fundamentally good to recognize that they might nevertheless sometimes do something evil. Even better is when a story shows how evil can be motivated by the pursuit of some good and noble goal; it teaches people that they might be tempted to commit evil acts when "the ends justify the means", and that doing so is still evil despite their pure motive.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  The ends can justify the means though. Writers often suggest otherwise as a lazy crutch. Guy tries to do good and ends up preparing to genocide a whole country. Yeah no shit that sounds pretty evil. But you can’t really extrapolate that into every scenario. Batman’s an idiot who generally argues with slippery slope bullshit about “where does it stop” if you start killing villains. Killing the joker is a no brainer. Killing a goon probably not so obvious. But let’s not pretend either that breaking his spine is fine. Evil may be banal, but in practical settings it’s not a twisted duality. It’s just hoping that the person in question at least wonders if they are doing the right thing. That’s more than we get. There aren’t really complex characters. There are complex situations. Very rarely is it unclear who is trying to be a good person and who is not. And while fiction writers may portray some folks as trying to be good while doing humongous bad, they’re full of shit and just not particularly realistic viewpoints. Geralt from the Witcher is thrown into a lot of complicated moral choices, but there’s no ambiguity that he’s trying to be a decent guy.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    I'm glad you brought up Batman; that's a great example: Batman violates everybody's civil liberties by creating a panopticon device that spies on everybody to catch one terrorist, but it's okay because he's Batman, the good guy, and he's fighting the evil terrorist who's evil for the sake of being evil. And then the audience gets to feel good about this not-so-subtle allegory to the American government's response to 9/11 because Batman has his friend destroy the panopticon device once the terrorist has been defeated, showing the audience that the good guys can be trusted to relinquish these great powers once the crisis has passed. Except in reality that never happens and those powers are not just retained but greatly expanded. The narrative is a sweet lie that the audience feels good about, making them complacent towards reality. You saw this one, right? It was very popular, audiences clapped like trained seals. And then here you are calling Batman an idiot for having any boundaries at all. It's a no-brainer that he should be murdering bad guys without so much as a trial; it would be fine because he's the good guy so obviously he'd get it right. The great atrocities of the 20th century were perpetrated by people who felt certain the ends justified their means, but fictional media has you thinking that reality is unrealistic. Capeshit is trash, it rots your brain. It belongs in the rubbish bin. Ironically, characters who speak as you do would make excellent villains in stories with nuanced morality. You seem certain that you're in the right as you speak of murdering people. This exemplifies realistic evil. From A Man for All Seasons, a play by Robert Bolt: Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law? More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

mcpackieh 3y ago

Huh, I've come to completely the opposite conclusion. Simplistic moral messaging like Star Wars is harmful to public morality. It teaches people that evil is some obvious lifestyle / alignment that people consciously choose. That evil people know they're evil, believe being evil to be good and behave in evil ways for the sake of being evil. What's wrong with that? It gives people a framework for rationalizing away their own evil acts because they believe themselves to be fundamentally good, not aligned with evil. Simplistic moral messaging facilitates moral self-licensing, in which people form a self-image of being fundamentally good and use that self-image to give themselves license to occasionally commit evil acts. People 'know' themselves to be fundamentally good, and believe an occasional evil act doesn't define them as a person. Mass media like Star Wars promotes this model of morality because it helps the audience feel good about themselves, and that is good for business. We should instead be teaching the public about the banality of evil. Evil people should be depicted as complex characters with a mix of good and bad traits, not flat sociopaths fanatically dedicated to evil for the sake of evil. This encourages people to evaluate their individual actions, and particularly to evaluate the morality of their own actions when they know themselves to have a mundane (or even good) motivation rather than some comic book supervillain's alignment to evil itself. In stories with complex morality, a character who is generally good can do something evil and the story recognizes that as evil; this helps people who believe themselves to be fundamentally good to recognize that they might nevertheless sometimes do something evil. Even better is when a story shows how evil can be motivated by the pursuit of some good and noble goal; it teaches people that they might be tempted to commit evil acts when "the ends justify the means", and that doing so is still evil despite their pure motive.

jncfhnb 3y ago
The ends can justify the means though. Writers often suggest otherwise as a lazy crutch. Guy tries to do good and ends up preparing to genocide a whole country. Yeah no shit that sounds pretty evil. But you can’t really extrapolate that into every scenario. Batman’s an idiot who generally argues with slippery slope bullshit about “where does it stop” if you start killing villains. Killing the joker is a no brainer. Killing a goon probably not so obvious. But let’s not pretend either that breaking his spine is fine. Evil may be banal, but in practical settings it’s not a twisted duality. It’s just hoping that the person in question at least wonders if they are doing the right thing. That’s more than we get. There aren’t really complex characters. There are complex situations. Very rarely is it unclear who is trying to be a good person and who is not. And while fiction writers may portray some folks as trying to be good while doing humongous bad, they’re full of shit and just not particularly realistic viewpoints. Geralt from the Witcher is thrown into a lot of complicated moral choices, but there’s no ambiguity that he’s trying to be a decent guy.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  I'm glad you brought up Batman; that's a great example: Batman violates everybody's civil liberties by creating a panopticon device that spies on everybody to catch one terrorist, but it's okay because he's Batman, the good guy, and he's fighting the evil terrorist who's evil for the sake of being evil. And then the audience gets to feel good about this not-so-subtle allegory to the American government's response to 9/11 because Batman has his friend destroy the panopticon device once the terrorist has been defeated, showing the audience that the good guys can be trusted to relinquish these great powers once the crisis has passed. Except in reality that never happens and those powers are not just retained but greatly expanded. The narrative is a sweet lie that the audience feels good about, making them complacent towards reality. You saw this one, right? It was very popular, audiences clapped like trained seals. And then here you are calling Batman an idiot for having any boundaries at all. It's a no-brainer that he should be murdering bad guys without so much as a trial; it would be fine because he's the good guy so obviously he'd get it right. The great atrocities of the 20th century were perpetrated by people who felt certain the ends justified their means, but fictional media has you thinking that reality is unrealistic. Capeshit is trash, it rots your brain. It belongs in the rubbish bin. Ironically, characters who speak as you do would make excellent villains in stories with nuanced morality. You seem certain that you're in the right as you speak of murdering people. This exemplifies realistic evil. From A Man for All Seasons, a play by Robert Bolt: Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law? More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.