[PLUG-TALK] morality in media

[gepr at tempusdictum.com]

Chuck Mize writes:
 > Why would you care about anybody's morality other than your own?

Ooo!  Ooo!  Pick me! Pick me!  I can answer this one!

Overall, it is a part of everyone's agenda to make the world amenable
to ourselves and our offspring.  (If you think that's not on your
agenda, then we have some deeper philosophy to discuss and will have
to leave morals and ethics for later.)  I believe this all stems from
survival and comfort.  We want to minimize risk to ourselves and our
loved ones.

One of the best ways to minimize risk is to ensure that you understand
the world and have access to the knobs and whistles that help you
understand it and, preferably, control it to some extent.

Now, if there are people running around doing things I don't
understand (which ultimately covers "things I don't agree with"), then
it makes me uncomfortable because my assessment and controls are out
of context.  Until/unless one is indoctrinated into the things he
doesn't understand, he will remain uncomfortable.  The level of
discomfort, I suspect, is proportional to the level of dissonance
these things have with the way the subject does things.

For example, if you drove into a town where everyone stopped at 
green lights and drove at red lights, you'd think it was strange;
but, you'd get used to it pretty quickly and only screw up now and
again when your lizard brain took over.  However, if you drove into
a town where everyone did all sorts of things differently (walked,
talked, wore funny clothes, ate funny tasting food, etc), then 
you wouldn't get over it quickly and you might even be able to 
pick out things that you thought were just plain wrong.  (I feel
like this when I go to Haight-Ashbury in SanFran... or, actually,
when I got to SanFran at all!)

Now, this argues directly against the old "live and let live" ethic
(which, I believe, is why that ethic is preposterous and
unmaintainable).  So, can a society find a line to draw between
"that's peculiar" and "there oughtta be a law"?  That line can be
drawn as long as the peculiar things others do are not
life-threatening or comfort-threatening.  So, for example, can we
get homophobes to be comfortable with public displays of affection
between homosexuals?  Can we somehow make the gay people and the 
homophobes comfortable without gay people accusing homophobes of
"having a disease" and without homophobes accusing gay people of
"having a disease"?

No.  We can't.  There will always be this rhetorical tension between
comfort zones.... at least as long as our technology allows us to 
grow up in heterogeneous environments.

So, then the question devolves to: Can we draw a line so that 
peculiar things are not life-threatening?  I think so.  And I think
we're doing a pretty good job of it, now.  There are borderline cases
where things like pornography and violence in the media encourage others
to take life less seriously, which can lead to my (or my daughter's)
life being threatened.  And those borderline cases need alot of work.

But, in any case, the trick is "where to draw the line".  And the 
answer is "preserve diversity and draw the line by choosing your
community."  If you choose to frequent dangerous places, then you 
have your reasons.  If you don't want to watch pornography, don't
associate with people who watch (or produce) pornography.  Further,
if you want to eradicate pornography, then find (legal) ways to 
diminish the population of people who watch and produce pornography.
That might mean passing laws.  Or it might mean spamming the PLUG
list with morality-related emails.

In a round-a-bout fashion, _that's_ why one would care about another's
morality.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971.219.3846                               http://www.tempusdictum.com