"When in doubt, tell the truth." —Mark Twain

[f4f3]

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written, that is all." Oscar Wilde.

Thanks to Neil Gaiman, who's blog reminded me, and to juno_magic, who's icn illustrates, that Mark Twain is amongst the top ten banned authors in America.

Any list that contains Huckleberry Finn (for being racist) and The Colour Purple (for being sxually explicit) tells us much more about today than about the books...

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

And then of course Oscar goes on to say some even more cool stuff.

The moral life of a man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium... No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

And then he went to prison for it. That happens.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

...and it still happens.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

Ooh, he slipped there. He actually prescribed limits in an argument for unlimited freedom of expression.

Any artist, if they so wish, can have ethical sympathies. And if their command over the tool of their craft is strong enough, these sympathies need not translate into 'unpardonable mannerisms of style'. They can just be the fuel for conviction and passion.