Posts of the Week
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What, if not the author's vices, would make a book immoral? betsy Mitchell Henning - 07:42am Sep 9, 1997 PST (#14 of 45)
perhaps this is a trivial question, but it still occurs to me: Can a book, a collection of printed words, be said to be moral? Aren't acts and thoughts moral (or immoral or amoral) but the products of those acts and thoughts neutral? Or maybe they stand as memorials, to the acts or thoughts. I might consider the act of writing a specific book "immoral", ("Hmmm, I think I'll create a masterwork which will convince other members of the master race to join me in the subjugation of the world...") but that would not mean it was necessarily immoral for me to read it. Individual motivations matter, and no author can predict the motives of all her readers throughout time. Right? Do you think books, in the long run, are collaborations between writer and reader? The Hong Kong Handover Dave C - 03:40pm Sep 11, 1997 PST (#1082 of 1088)
...I think one of the points ... is that as bad as things became under communism--and I will never dispute the inherent badness of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution [as they are known]--there was better reason to experiment with communism back in the 1930s in China [when the experiment actually began] than in any other country in the world. It wasn't ideology. The average landlord was a dictatorial bastard with no compassion or remorse. If I was an 18 year-old Red Army soldier in 1949, and the son of peasant parents who'd been made to eat shit their whole lives, I'd have gladly pulled the trigger a few times. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying you have to imagine walking in their shoes before you criticize what they did. Leading Edgers (b. 1960-67): Where no generation has gone
before. Steven Raetzman - 08:31am Sep 10, 1997 PST (#15 of 55)
this has been a little pet topic of mine for some years now, so I'm glad this started. Me: Born 1961, Male, Too much time in college. I like "Leading Edgers" as a moniker, but also think we're "Trailers." The bad points: 1) I look around my workplace and see lots of 40 somethings lining up for top jobs they'll hold on to for 10 - 15 years. Hell, if you're a SR VP at 45, it ain't too hard to hang until you're 60. That leaves me perpetually waiting in line, 10 years behind. 2) They buy houses to fill up with their offspring, driving up prices just as I need a house myself. A few years from now, when their youngins leave the nest, they'll move out to something smaller, driving the price of my child-filled house down. I'm screwed on the way up and the way down. And I can't afford to wait 5 or 10 years for the market to reach oversupply meltdown, so what can I do? 3) They're gonna want to pay less taxes when their kids grow up,leaving mine in local shool systems that the Boomers feel like they don't have to support anymore. Not really their fault, but it sucks. 4) Social Security. This pay-as-you-go time bomb is gonna need a lot of money pumped in to keep the Boomers happy. Where's it going to come from? Hmmmm... 5) My younger brothers won't let me pretend to be a slacker/grunger/hip hop/rapper. Besides, I grew up on the music of the 70s (Now there's a thread topic), which we all know generally lacked much soul and style. 6) Can't masquerage my way through the work force as one of those Baby Busters, who are few in number and high in demand workwise. I can't downgrade my skills. Good points: 1) Not addicted to 1960s music, styles, morality etc. 2) Not addicted to 1990s subadult/teen music, styles, morality etc. 3) I'm sure there are more good points, but I've been dwelling on the bad ones recently. My Strategy: 1) Get a job that doesn't depend on climbing the hierarchy to make a good living (Consulting, sales, financial planner, stock broker, trader, investment banker, lawyer) 2) Live somewhere that Boomers don't. (South Africa at the moment) 3) Try to learn about 1990s culture so I can translate for the Boomers. (Not having much luck here - it's so indecipherable) 4) Blame either Boomers or Busters for whatever bad things come my way. For all good things, assume full credit as an enterprising leading edger who made a living in the gap between my older siblings and the little kids all around me! |
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