Category: Aesthetics

Each Sunday I toss my neighbor’s paper down the steep steps from her driveway to her door. During one toss, I saw that Peanuts was still appearing as a Sunday cartoon. Since Charles Schulz is no longer with us, I wondered if someone else was drawing Peanuts. I did learn that Boom Studios has published new Peanuts stories, such as the graphic novel Snoopy: A Beagle of Mars.  But the cartoons in the Sunday paper are reprints.

The continuation of characters and settings beyond the death of the original creator is not new.  Nor is the transfer of creative control of characters and settings anything new. Characters such as Superman and Batman have lived on to be monetized after their creators have died. Star Trek continued after the death of Gene Rodenberry with the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and beyond. Frank Herbert’s Dune universe has spawned numerous books, including prequels. The same is true of Asimov’s Foundation series.

In general, the legality of the continuation of characters and settings can be easily settled (with obvious exceptions). Intellectual properties are just that, properties. So, they can be inherited, bought and sold like any other property. If a company owns the legal rights to Peanuts, then they can do with it as they wish within whatever agreements might be in effect. Naturally, there can be nasty legal battles and disputes when it comes to specific properties, but this is not anything legally special about even beloved intellectual properties like Peanuts or Star Trek. As a philosopher, I do have thoughts about this.

There is a moral question of whether creations should be continued after the death of the creator. This can, of course, be tied to legal concerns in many ways. If, for example, the creator agreed to this continuation in a contract or other agreement, then the continuation would be morally acceptable, if the agreement was not coerced. If the creator made it clear that they did not want the work continued, then even if someone (say a relative who inherited the property) had the legal right to continue the work, then doing so would be morally dubious. This would also apply to cases in which characters and settings had entered the public domain. While people would have the legal right to use the characters and settings, there is still the moral question of whether they should do so—especially if they degrade the characters and settings. For example, the John Carter movie is based on Burroughs’ works which are now public domain. However, the treatment of these excellent works was so awful that one could argued that Disney did something morally wrong. I am also concerned with the matter of aesthetic identity.

Philosophers love to debate identity, especially personal identity. Fortunately,  a discussion of aesthetic identity can bypass many of the usual metaphysical problems of identity since the fictional characters and settings do not have the ontological status of actual people and settings/ Unless, of course, one believes that fictional worlds are also actual worlds. However, there are still concerns about identity in aesthetics.

In the case of characters, the concern is like that of personal identity: when a character is continued by someone other than the original creator, is the character still the same character? For example, if someone else draws and writes Charlie Brown, is that character still Charlie Brown in terms of aesthetic identity? Or is it a character that looks similar and says similar things but is a mere imitator, a doppelgänger? In some cases, the continuity of aesthetic identity does seem possible. After all, it seems that many comic book characters retain sufficient identity to still be the same characters even though they are drawn and scripted by different people (and played by different actors in movies). For example, most would agree that Spider Man is still Spider Man across most of the movies.  

 Interestingly, it can be argued that in some cases even the creator fails to preserve the aesthetic identity of a character. What is needed, of course, is a full account of the aesthetic identity of characters—a project that goes beyond this short essay.

In the case of settings, aesthetic identity is also of concern. For example, there is the question of whether the universe in the newer prequels to Dune is similar enough to Herbert’s Dune universe in terms of its aesthetic qualities to be the same universe. As another example, the latest versions of Star Trek and Star Wars raise questions about whether they are still Star Trek and Star Wars in terms of aesthetic identity. I know there are dumb culture war fights over Trek and Star Wars. Star Trek has always been woke—just watch the original series, so saying modern Trek is not Trek because it has something to say about racism is an error. But one can raise good faith concerns about whether the Trek retain the aesthetic identity of Star Trek. There is also the question of whether the modern Trek shows are good; after all the original series had some bad episodes (“Spock’s Brain”) but were still Trek.

 While the identity of a setting would include obvious factors such as getting the locations, inhabitants, history and such right, there is also the matter of capturing the “look and feel” of the setting. Beyond that, there are also the deeper qualities that define a setting, such as the Star Trek universe.  So, while a book might get all the facts about the Foundation universe right, it might fail to capture the aesthetic qualities that made the Foundation universe the Foundation universe. As with the aesthetic identity of characters, the specific conditions of the aesthetic identity of settings would also need to be developed. As I am all too familiar with the endless manufactured culture war fights, I always strive to be clear that I am not engaged in that sort of thing. My concern here is not with the manufactured culture war fight over identity politics, but with the philosophic subject of aesthetic identity of characters and settings. That is, what makes, for example, Spider Man the same character across the spider verse?

Traditionally, drawing is seen as an imitative art in that artists create images based on real things. Naturally, this imitation can range from copying entire scenes to creating an original assembly from bits and pieces of real things. Descartes, in the painter analogy in his Meditations, makes note of this interesting nature of painting (which also applies to drawing). He considers that dreams are assembled like paintings from bits of real things. At the very least, he argues (before moving on to even greater skepticism), the colors used are real.

Moving away from metaphysics and epistemology back to aesthetics, imitating real things does not disqualify a drawing from being art. In fact, artists are often praised for their ability to accurately imitate reality. For example, my friends mistakenly claimed that I am an artist because they could recognize who I was drawing.  Interestingly, though this realism is often praised, there might be a point at which a drawing is too real to be considered art.

One argument for this is easy enough. When I taught an aesthetics class, I demonstrated my lack of artistic ability and asked my students why my badly drawn capybara was not art. They pointed out the obvious—it did not look much a capybara because it was so badly drawn. I then ask them if it would be art if I could draw better and they tend to agree. I then asked about photocopying or scanning the picture I drew my capybara from. They pointed out the obvious—that would not be art, just a copy.

Obviously, part of the reason the photocopy or scan would not be art is that it is just a mechanical reproduction. Things become considerably more interesting when a photorealistic image is created not by a technological means of duplication, but by hand. For example, Samuel Silva recreated the image of a red haired girl from a photo by Kristina Taraina as well as other photorealistic images. While Silva works with color Bic pens (seriously), Paul Cadden creates his photorealistic works by drawing and with paints. He, however, uses the term “hyperrealism” rather than “photorealism.”

Clearly, the creation of such realism in imitation requires great technical skill. For example, Silva can create photorealistic colors using Bic pens and this demonstrates an impressive mastery of color. There is also the obvious technical skill required to imitate a photograph with such incredible accuracy.

However, technical skill alone does not make something art. After all, this technical skill can be exceeded by a decent color photocopier or a smartphone camera.

It might be objected that technical skills do make it art, even though a machine can do it better. To use an analogy, the fact that a scooter could beat a champion runner does not prove that the runner is not an athlete. Likewise, the fact that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden does not mean that they are not artists. This leads to a second point about art and imitation.

The problem, it can be argued, is not that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden. Rather, it is that there seems to be a point at which the exactitude of the imitation ceases to be a contribution to artistry and begins to detract from it. While it seems unlikely that an exact tipping point can be specified, it does certainly seem that this is the case. Why this is so can be shown by returning to the reason why a mechanical copy is not art: there is nothing in the copy that is not in the original (laying aside duplication defects). As such, the more exact the copy of the original, the less room there is for whatever it is that makes a work art. As such, to argue that Silva or Cadden is an artist requires showing that they do more than merely copy. That is, they must add something aesthetically significant to their work that is not in the original. Otherwise, they could be seen as organic photocopiers—somewhat like how computers were once humans who did math.

One way to approach this matter is  an analogy to photography. By its very nature, an unaltered photograph merely captures an image of what is there (photons bouncing of surfaces and all that).  What the photographer adds is her perspective—that is, she selects what she will capture and thus what makes the work art is not that it duplicates reality (which it must by the laws of physics) but that the photographer has added that something extra (which, to steal from Locke’s Indian, I must say is “something I know not what”).

As such, someone who creates photorealistic images of photos could be adding that something extra in a way comparable to what photographers do when they create their art (assuming that a photograph can be art).

The obvious reply is that a person who is creating a photorealistic re-creation of a photograph does not seem to be adding that something extra. Cadden does, however, claim that he is not engaging in photorealism, but rather in what he calls hyperrealism. He says that

“Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they utilise additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye” and he adds that “Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of Photorealism.”

From a theoretical standpoint, Cadden is certainly on solid ground. After all, he makes an argument analogous to the one used above, namely that he adds that “aesthetic extra” that makes his work more than a technical achievement in manual duplication. There is, however, the question of whether that “aesthetic extra” is present in his works. Since he works from photographs, it seems easy enough to put the matter to an empirical test by comparing his works to the original and giving due consideration to the difference. As such, if his work differs in aesthetically significant ways from the original image, then it would be safe enough to consider it art and him an artist.  In any case, both Silva and Cadden are remarkably talented and do amazing work. While my drawing skill has increased dramatically from my capybara days, I am not an artist—I merely apply graphite to paper in the form of recognizable shapes. After all, my indisputable theory of art is that if I can do it, it ain’t art.

 

 

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While I am a fan of fantasy, I’ve only seen a few episodes of the original Game of Thrones  and its spinoffs. One reason for this was and is practical: streaming services are expensive. I also resisted watching the series because some of my friends gushed about the grittiness and were enthused over the evil of most of the characters. Other friends condemned the shows for the same reason. While my experience with the show (and spinoffs) is limited, my friends were right and I understand why some liked it and some loathed it. I ended up in the “meh” camp, not liking it enough to make an effort to watch more but interested enough to watch episodes when they were available for free and I had nothing better to do at the time. Or episodes were inflicted on me.

Having taught aesthetics,  I know that practical aesthetic taste is like one’s taste in food: what one finds too bland, another finds too spicy and so on. I am also mature enough to recognize that what I dislike might be liked (even loved) by others and that there might be merit in such things. But I do not subscribe to aesthetic subjectivism so I do not accept that aesthetic discussions end after one has expressed one’s like or dislike. As such, I will endeavor to present a rough discussion of fantasy and evil.

To set the stage a bit in terms of my own biases, my love of fantasy was shaped primarily by writers like Tolkien and by games like AD&D, which is usually called heroic fantasy. While such fantasy worlds do contain evil (such as Sauron and Orcus), evil is of a different sort than that of Game of Thrones.  In Game of Thrones, the evil of classic fantasy is wedded to perversion, depravity and other such horrors that are seen as making evil “gritty and real.” This is, of course, not limited to this series. The idea of presenting evil characters in this manner is rather common and a case could be made in its favor.

When I first watched some episodes of Game of Thrones , I thought it broke the rules of the fantasy genre by presenting and seemingly glorying in this sort of evil. This was one reason I was not drawn into the series. To be fair, one criticism made of my view was that I liked fantasy as an escape from the nasty evil that exists in the real world and this is a defect in my character. This took me back to my youth when I was criticized for reading fantasy and sci-fi as a form of escapism; presumably it was assumed that people should stay engaged with boring and awful reality until it killed their soul or them. But I digress.

There are two easy and obvious replies to this alleged problem. First, heroic fantasy is but one of the many legitimate sub-genres within the fantasy genre. While the genre does require fantasy elements to be present to a degree greater than zero, it can be argued that there is no moral requirement that needs to be met to classify as a  proper work of fantasy. Obviously, this series is not heroic fantasy, but it seems sensible to say that it is still legitimately fantasy. After all, it does include the seemingly supernatural white walkers and dragons (unless they are non-magical aliens or something) and the technology is at the sword and bow level (although guns are now a common weapon in fantasy and one should not forget the sci-fi fantasy of Shadowrun).

Second, the evil portrayed in the series is taken from the real world. So, the series  meets Aristotle’s view that characters and actions should conform to what is probable. As Aristotle argued, what has occurred is obviously possible. It could even be argued that this series and others that embrace gritty realism are better than the more classic works because they are more realistic. This could form the basis of a counterattack, namely that it is heroic fantasy that is defective because presents the powerful characters (humans, at least) in a way that is improbable (that is, being mostly heroic and good rather than mostly depraved and evil).

One response to this argument is that fantasy works by their very nature need to break with reality. After all, if they are strictly realistic, they are not fantasy. As such, by presenting humans in what is taken to be “gritty and real”, a work is failing to be a work of fantasy and instead is realism, only with a monster or two thrown in to create the appearance of fantasy.

This raises the obvious concern about what sort of realism a fantasy work should include and what it should reject. While traditional fantasy typically rejects much of the reality of evil, it can be argued that this merely defines that sort of sub-genre rather than defining the entire genre. As such, a work can be very realistic in some ways, if it contains at least the necessary conditions for being a work of fantasy. In the case of Game of Thrones, it can wallow in evil while also being legitimate fantasy.

While I obviously prefer my fantasy with less evil (or at least with less of the sorts of evil in the series), I must concede that the inclusion of such evil is compatible with the fantasy genre, though obviously not with the traditional heroic fantasy. Interestingly, I have been told that my own preference for classic heroic fantasy shows that I am lacking in maturity and adult sensibilities. That is, it is a defect on my part to not prefer the gritty realism and evil of Game of Thrones to works like The Lord of the Rings. My self-righteous reply is that I prefer good over evil, which brings me to a second point, namely the matter of corruption.

In Book X of the Republic Plato argues that art is dangerous because it appeals to emotions and encourages people to yield , in harmful ways, to these emotions.  For example, someone who watches works filled with lust and violence might become more inclined to yield to lust and violence in real life because of the corrupting power of art. This is the foundation for most censorship arguments, such as Hilary Clinton’s attack on video games. No, Hilary, I will never forget that. But lest anyone think I favor censorship, I do not.

While I have known about Plato’s arguments for years, I found them unconvincing until I played Grand Theft Auto III.  Unlike the usual violent games I had played, GTA III casts the player as a bad person doing bad things for bad reasons. I am not sure how many police cars I had burning in the street or how many hookers I had killed before I felt the corrupting influence of the game. I dropped the controller, popped out the disk and never played that sort of game again. I did, however, continue to play violent video games.

When thinking about Game of Thrones and similar works in the context of my old GTA III experience, I knew that it was not the violence that bothered me. After all, I enjoy violent video games, I play D&D and I like fantasy novels that are replete with battle. In the case of Game of Thrones (GT), my analysis is roughly the same as that I made of GTA III.

In heroic fantasy, the heroes are trying to save the world by fighting evil. There is a clear moral purpose, even though violence is the usual means to the moral end. In the case of Game of Thrones, the focus seems to be on characters doing bad things for their own selfish ends, or (in some cases) simply because they are psychotically evil. So, in heroic fantasy, the heroes are acting in the right way towards the right persons for the right reasons. In the “gritty and realistic” works, the characters typically act in the wrong way towards the wrong people for the wrong reasons. As one might gather, I find an overabundance of evil unappealing, and I am concerned that exposure to such material can (as Plato argued) have a corrupting influence on people. After all, what people watch and experience shapes their cogitative processes and being exposed to an unrelenting tide of virtual evil would seem to have an impact on people. On the other hand, one could say that it is just a show and it would be silly to think that media can affect how a person thinks and acts.  

Since I am a proponent of freedom of expression, I always feel odd arguing against artists doing as they wish in terms of the ethics they present in their works. However, I have never held that artists are exempt from morality (which, I am sure, would be vigorously argued against by someone like Oscar Wilde). I do, as might be suspected, agree with Aristotle that “things are censured either as impossible, irrational, morally hurtful, contradictory, or contrary to artistic correctness.” I did like the two episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms I saw while flying to and from my home state of Maine. But this was mostly because Dunk seems to be a good person and thus offsets the evil of the other characters.

 

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As a philosopher who teaches aesthetics and a gamer, I find questions about games and art interesting. As I have argued elsewhere, I take the intuitively plausible view that video games can be art. However, even if this is considered settled, there is still a rich vein of philosophical issues to mine.

One topic that I and many other gamers find interesting is the importance of story in games. John Carmack, who knows a bit about games, once said that “story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” Folks who delight in story driven games disagree. For the sake of this discussion, I will be assuming that games (specifically video games) can be art. I have argued for this over the years but will not repeat my arguments here.

Obviously enough, there are games that have no story at all and are still good games. To use some obvious examples, Tetris and Asteroids are story free, yet great games. Naturally, these are not the sort of games that people debate about when it comes to whether story is important. However, it is worth noting these sorts of games because they provide relatively pure context in which to present two relevant points.

The first is that game mechanisms (the purely game aspects of the game) are reasonably seen as being distinct from the art aspects of the game (the game as art).  After all, while all games are games and some games are art, not all games are art.  This can, of course, be disputed. However, it does have enough intuitive plausibility that it is well worth considering.

The second point is that even the art aspects of a game that is (or contains) art can be distinguished from each other. For example, while Tetris and Asteroid do not have plots, they do have game artwork and sounds (which might be dismissed as mere sound effects rather than having any status as art). As another example, the music and visual art of Halo can be distinguished from each other in that one is music and the other visual art.

The importance of story is most interesting when it comes to games that do, in fact, feature a story. Obviously enough, the story (or plot) of games has varying degrees of integration into the game. For games that have a story, on one end of the spectrum lives the games whose story has a minimal role in the game. One excellent example of this is Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game does have a story: an evil alien threatens earth and you, as Sam, must travel in time and kill wave after wave of monsters. That is pretty much it. Despite the limited story, the game works amazingly well as a game and it is fun to play. On the other end of the spectrum are games that are heavily story driven, such as the classic Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur’s Gate 3. These games are, not surprisingly, role-playing games. In these games the player takes on the role of a character and spends considerable time talking to non-player characters, making decisions and experiencing the plot unfold. As might be imagined, the story in such games is much more important than in the typical first person shooter. In the middle are games like the Halo series which have well-developed stories and unfolding plots, but do not have any role-playing elements. For example, in Halo games your choices mainly revolve on what gun to use to kill which alien in what way.

As might be imagined, the significance of the story would seem to be proportional to its role in the game. After all, a first-person shooter whose plot is lacking or poor would suffer less than a story-driven role-playing game whose plot is lacking or badly done. That said, it could still be argued that plot is important.

It is tempting to compare a game with a story to a movie and, obviously enough, plot seems to be somewhat important to a movie (although Michael Bay, some might claim, has long endeavored to prove otherwise). The idea of plot being the most important aspect of poetical works (broadly and classically construed to include theater) dates back at least to Aristotle. To steal his argument regarding tragedy, the following argument can be given for the importance of plot in games that have a story element.

Games are not an imitation of humans (or elves, aliens, or dragons), “but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.” It is, of course, the actions taken by people that “make them happy or miserable.” As such the “the incidents and the plot are the end of” the game and “the end is the chief thing of all.” Thus, the story is important, at least on the key assumptions made by Aristotle.

For Aristotle, a key part of having a good plot is ensuring “that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity permits a change from bad fortune to good or from good to bad.” In more general terms, the plot must be such that the events make sense and fit together to form a coherent whole. In my own experience as a gamer, I have consistently disliked games in which the story fails to meet that basic requirement that events play out in a way that makes sense (except for games that are supposed to not make sense). After all, if you are running around in a game doing things that make no sense for no apparent reason that leads to nothing, then that will tend to be a disappointing gaming experience (although it would be a fair approximation of life).

The obvious reply to this is that there are games that are weak in stories that seem to be great successes as games, thus helping to support Carmack’s claim. This seems a consistent aspect of the top tier first person shooters as they tend to be marked by weak, implausible or otherwise lame plots but are top ranked for game play, especially competitive multi-player. As I once jokingly put it while playing one of the Borderlands games, “I don’t really care why I am killing, I just care about whether I’m enjoying it or not.” That, I think, nicely captures the view of most gamers. 

This view often extends into games in which story would seem important, such as role-playing games. While some people do enjoy going through all the dialog and getting into the story, my  experience is that the main focus is on the game-play rather than on the story.  This even extends to my experience in traditional role-playing games, like AD&D and Pathfinder: many players are far more into roll-playing (that is, simply killing monsters in combat) than role-playing (that is, talking to the monsters before killing them).

Getting back to the claim that the game aspects of a game are not art, this does seem to suggest that the story is not as important to the game as the game aspects of the game. Alternatively, it could be argued that the game aspects of the game are still art, but they are a different sort of art than a story. After all, the name of the game is, well, “game” and not “story.” In the case of a first-person shooter, the game is (obviously enough) about shooting things from a first person perspective. Story is thus secondary. Even in role-playing games, such as Pathfinder, all the actual game mechanism are about rolling dice, usually while trying to kill monsters who are blatantly and shamelessly holding the loot that rightfully belongs to the party. While the game can be augmented by art (acting, beautiful maps, and well-crafted stories) the core of the game is, it can be argued, the game mechanics. As my friend Ron has said, “if you are not rolling dice, you are not playing the game. You are just sitting around the table talking.” Those who enjoy role-playing would, of course, disagree.

The idea that a game should be focused on the game is also consistent with Aristotle’s view: “each art ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to it.” But story is fine, too.

 

 

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Years ago, Neal Stephenson argued that contemporary science fiction was too focused on nihilism and apocalyptic scenarios. As an example, the Walking Dead was compared unfavorably to the hopeful view of the future claimed to be a common theme in the mid twentieth century. As the Walking Dead franchise is still walking and science fiction is still being written, I decided to revisit this subject.

One question is why the focus on nihilism and apocalyptic scenarios should be seen as a problem. Stephenson worried that science fiction of this sort lacked the optimism about the future needed to inspire scientists, engineers and others. If science fiction stories predict an apocalyptic world, then the readers will not be inspired to do things such as inventing space ships or solving the fossil fuel problem.

In support of his view, Stephenson pointed to an incident in which the president of Arizona State University and co-founder of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes  Michael Crow told him that science fiction writers have been “slacking off” and are thus (at least partially) responsible for the (allegedly) slow pace of innovation.  To address this problem, Stephenson created the Hieroglyph project which aims at getting science fiction writers to create inspirational works infused with optimism. As Stephenson put it, “we have one rule: no hackers, no hyperspace and no holocaust.” This rule seems to have three goals. First, avoid “hacking”, which is using old solutions rather than creating something new. Second, provide optimistic inspiration (hence no holocaust). Third, avoid any “impossible” or “magical” solutions to problems, presumably so that the inspiration will focus on what is possible. As might be imagined, Stephenson raised some interesting matters for philosophical consideration.

One obvious concern is that dystopian science fiction seems to be as old as science fiction itself. One example is Mary Shelley’s 1826 The Last Man.  In this book, humanity is beset by a terrible plague, and the work ends in 2100 with the last man.  A later work is H.G. Well’s 1895 vision of the far future in the Time Machine. In this classic work, humanity is divided into the cannibalistic Morlocks and their beautiful (but ignorant) food, the Eloi. Jack London even wrote within the dystopian genre, producing a political dystopia in his 1908  The Iron Heel . Rather interestingly, London’s 1912 The Scarlet Plague is about a worldwide pandemic which echoes the The Last Man. H.P. Lovecraft also presents a dystopian world during the early twentieth century—one in which humanity is apparently destroyed by Nyarlathotep. There are, of course, a wealth of classic dystopian works such as 1984, Brave New World, and a Clockwork Orange.

Given that dystopian science fiction is a well-established genre in science fiction, it seems odd to blame an alleged slowdown of innovation on the dystopian and nihilist science fiction of today. After all, if this sort of science fiction slows technological innovation due to its pessimism, then it would seem to follow that past dystopian science fiction should have been slowing down innovation all along. At the very least, it would seem to follow that it does not present a special problem now, given that it has been around so long.

One counter is to claim that while dystopian science fiction has been around for a long time, it is only recently that it has come to dominate fiction. By analogy, while there has been junk food for a long time, it is only relatively recently that it dominated the foodscape. Thus, just as obesity is now a serious problem in the United States, the retardation of inspiration is now a serious problem in science fiction.

As a science fiction fan (and a very, very minor writer), I am somewhat inclined to agree with this. In my own case, I find myself loading my Kindle with science fiction from the early to mid-twentieth century and ignoring many new novels. In part, this is a matter of being thrifty. I can, for example, get H. Beam Piper’s works for free. However, part of it is because much of the new stuff seems to lack something possessed by the good old stuff. While I have thought about this for some time, I considered that my experience matched Stephenson’s claim: the new stuff often lacks a certain thread of optimism that ran through the good old stuff, even the old dystopian stuff.

For example, consider Fritz Leiber’s 1960 story, “The Night of the Long Knives.” On the face of it, this story is dystopic and nihilist: the world has been devastated by a nuclear war, the survivors have divided into warring states, and the main characters are murderers. However, the story is oddly optimistic: some surviving scientists have created technological marvels and at the end the main characters struggle to free themselves of their need to murder. As another example, consider Asimov’s Foundation stories. While humanity builds a vast galactic empire, it falls into the long night and civilization all but dies.  The capital of the empire, Trantor, goes from being a metal encased super world to a wrecked planet whose inhabitants subsist by selling the remains of the great civilization for scrap. However, there is still the Foundation (or, rather, two—spoilers) that restores civilization and the original trilogy is ultimately optimistic. This is not to say that all the dystopian stories have optimistic aspects. In fact, some of them are (or at least seem) unrelenting in their pessimism. There is, I think, nothing wrong with this. After all, not all good tales must have happy endings.

If, as a matter of empirical fact, the dystopian and the nihilistic dominate modern science fiction, then Stephenson could have a case. But, of course, making such a case requires drawing a connection between science fiction and technological innovation. Fortunately, this seems easy enough to do.

Some recent technological innovations can be traced back to science fiction, and these have been explicitly credited with inspiring engineers and scientists. To use the obvious example, the older Star Trek was an inspiration for technology and inspired scientists, engineers and astronauts. Another example of this is Well’s 1903 story “The Land Ironclads” in which he introduces the tank. Naturally, there are also the contributions of Jules Verne. One could, in fact, fill a book (or more) with all the innovations that first appeared in science fiction (for good or for ill). Considering this, it would seem reasonable to accept a connection between science fiction and innovation. However, there is the question of whether the dystopian and nihilistic works would lack inspirational power or, more importantly, impede innovation.

On one hand, such works could provide ideas that would inspire later innovation. For example, a dystopian work could still include descriptions of interesting technologies or innovations that later engineers or scientists might duplicate. There is also the possibility that such works could provide an inspiration in a negative way. That is, by portraying a horrific future a write could inspire people to try to avoid that. To use the obvious example, the classic stories about nuclear war might motivate the audience to avoid nuclear war. Likewise, stories about pandemics could motivate people to develop the means to prevent them in ways that tales of a disease-free future might not. After all, we can be inspired by the threat of something awful. Or maybe not.

On the other hand, works that lack optimism could fail to inspire, despite including interesting technology or providing a plausible threat. To use an obvious analogy, if a leader tries to inspire people by sharing an anecdote of failure (“and then everyone died a pointless death”), then this probably would not be motivational. Perhaps the bad can be inspiration, if there is a strong element of the possibility of the good. Works that lack this would, not surprisingly, fail to inspire. One final point I will consider is whether science fiction writers have any obligation to write inspirational stories.

As might be imagined, it is easy to argue that writers are not so obligated. Writers should have the freedom to create works as they see fit and it is up to the writer whether they wish to present optimistic or nihilistic tales. Oscar Wilde, for example, would no doubt argue that writers should not be constrained by such an imposition.  This view is, of course, consistent with writers electing to produce optimistic tales and even working within the limits discussed by Stephenson if they are contributing to an anthology or want to write within a narrower genre. After all, if it is acceptable for writers to limit themselves to time travel stories for a time travel anthology, it would be equally acceptable for writers to limit themselves to optimistic stories for an optimistic anthology of science fiction.

It is also easy to argue that writers should contribute to beneficial innovation. After all, being a writer does not seem to grant a person an exemption from morality. If a utilitarian approach to ethics is taken, then a solid case could be made that authors (morally) should write inspirational works. After all, if writing such works increases the likelihood of good consequences (such as developing clean energy or a means of replacing diseased or damaged organs), then authors (morally) should write such books. After all, a failure to do so would result in a worse world.  Kant, given his view of the moral badness of letting useful talents rust, would no doubt favor writing positive science fiction. This is not to say that writers should be compelled to write such works and the usual arguments for artistic liberty would have their normal weight here. Plato, of course, would be against the liberty of creating harmful works, but he might favor science fiction that yielded good results (after all, he did endorse the noble lie).

To close, writers should (obviously) be free to craft nihilistic dystopian hellscapes. But optimism is also nice.

 

 

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While in Indonesia in 2011, photographer David Slater’s camera was grabbed by a macaque. While monkey shines are nothing new, the macaque took hundreds of shots including selfies that went viral. While the macaque seemed to have an aesthetic gift, the United States copyright office ruled that “Works produced by nature, animals or plants” or “purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings” cannot be copyrighted. After AI began creating images, American law also says that these images cannot be copyrighted.  While the legal issues have been addressed, the philosophical issues have not.

The general issue is whether a non-human animal can have moral ownership rights over its artistic works. This breaks down into the two sub-issues. The first is whether a non-human animal has a moral status that can ground ownership rights. The second is whether a non-human has the capability to create a work of art. These issues have often been the subject of philosophical discussion, but it is certainly worth considering them again.

One approach to the issue of ownership rights is that non-human entities do possess ownership rights. Corporations have ownership rights and own copyrights. If a legal fiction like a corporation be seen as having ownership rights, there seems to be no principled way to deny the same rights to animals. After all, animals have a better claim to rights since they are real beings with qualities analogous to humans. Our fellow primates are often very intelligent and can have complex emotional and social lives. Because of these qualities, it is tempting to grant them a proportional status.

An obvious reply to is that corporations are legal fictions and legally fictional people in the United States. As such an appeal to a legal fiction does not help with the philosophical issue of whether animals can have ownership rights. Legally, the matter is simple: just like corporations, animals have whatever legal rights the law gives them. So, if the Supreme Court ruled that animals are people and can own property, then that would be the law—but the philosophical issue would remain unresolved. That said, if corporations should be regarded as having ownership rights (and as people), then it seems reasonable to accept that animals should have ownership rights (and perhaps recognized as people in some cases).

To determine whether animals have ownership rights, it is necessary to determine the foundation of these rights. Our good dead friend John Locke bases property rights on the claim that each person owns their own body (well, God does but He is cool about it) and hence each person owns their own labor. This labor is mixed with common property and makes what it is mixed with the property of the laborer. If animals have this sort of self-ownership, then they would have the same ownership rights as humans—whatever an animal mixed their labor with would be theirs. The usual counter is to claim animals are not owners—they are objects to be owned. It is worth noting that people often say the same thing about other people.

Higher animals like dogs and primates also grasp the basics of ownership: they distinguish between what is their stuff and what is not. My dogs have always grasped the distinction between their toys and similar objects that belong to other dogs. They also seemed to understand territory, responding differently to people and animals near our house compared to their reaction in common areas, like the park behind my house. As such, perhaps animals see themselves as possessing ownership rights. Or to be less abstract, thinking they own stuff.

An obvious objection is that animals have, at best, an extremely limited understanding of property and this could be attributed to possessiveness or territoriality. The obvious reply is that ownership does not seem to require an understanding of property rights—corporations (which have no minds and hence have no understanding) and humans who have no understanding of property rights are still seen as having ownership rights.

While the debate over ownership could go on endlessly, animals seem to have as good a claim to ownership rights as humans, at least in terms of the foundation of such an alleged right. So, if humans have ownership rights, then animals would seem to also qualify.  Thus, animals do have ownership rights.

The next issue is whether an animal can create an artistic work. Addressing this properly would require an adequate definition of “art” that would enable one to distinguish between art and non-art.  While there have been many attempts to provide such a definition, they are all inadequate.  Since such a definition is lacking, a rough and ready approach must suffice.

In this case, the rough and ready approach is to begin by considering cases in which it is intuitively appealing to accept that a human is creating a work of art. The something similar.

Painting provides a good example: a human intentionally applies paints to a surface based on the contents of their intentional states and this image sometimes resembles something internal (a feeling or thought) or external (a person, landscape, etc.). While animals can apply paint to surfaces, their lack of language makes it difficult to determine what they are doing. If, for example, good grounds for thinking they are creating art.  But to be fair to the animals, there are humans who create paintings that look like those created by elephants. The main difference is that the humans claim to be artists while the elephants say nothing about this (which is yet another reason to like elephants). But, if judgment is based solely on the work produced, if those humans are artists, then so are the elephants.

Another case is that of photography and it seems reasonable to accept a photo can be a work of art and a photographer an artist. The challenge is distinguishing between just taking a photo and being an artist. To clarify, photos can be taken by automatic timers, motion sensors, tripwires or by accident but these would not be cases involving an artist. If the shelves in a shed fail and the paint spills to create a work on par with a Jackson Pollock, that would not make the shed’s owner an artist.  If the paint were spilled by a trip-wire trap, this would not make the victim an artist. So, being an artist in photography would seem to require intent and control rather than automation or chance.  At the very least, the photographer must know what they are doing and act with intent.

In the case of the monkey taking pictures, the key question is whether the monkey understood what it was doing and acted with intent. If the monkey was just playing with the camera and it just happened to take a few shots that looked good, the monkey is no more an artist than an automatic timer, motion sensor or defective shutter control that made the camera constantly shoot. Or AI generating an image.

It might be objected that some shots were aesthetically good and judging by the work itself, the monkey had produced art. This does have some appeal—after all, whether the work is art should (it can be argued) rest in the work itself rather than the process of creation. One could use this to argue that AI could thus create art, provided that the image generated would be seen as art until one learned it was AI generated. This is the classic question of whether you need to know who the creator of a work is to decide whether it is art.

But, even if this is granted, it does not follow that the monkey is an artist. After all, an automated camera shooting constantly would almost certainly produce some good photos eventually—but the automating machinery or software would not be an artist.  Perhaps there could be art but no artist. In the case of the monkey, this seems to be the most plausible explanation—the money was probably just pushing the button and by chance some good images occurred. As such, the monkey was probably not an artist. In the case of AI image generators, they have far less claim to being artists. At least animals can lay claim to intent and feelings.

 

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Way back in 2014 Hayley Krischer wrote a post for the Huffington Post contending that t Maleficent includes a rape scene. Since this movie is a PG-13 Disney film, it does not contain a literal rape scene. Rather, the character of Maleficent is betrayed and mutilated (her wings are removed) and this can be taken to imply an off-screen rape or be a metaphor for rape.

The claim that the betrayal and mutilation of Maleficent is a metaphor for rape is plausible—Krischer does a reasonable analysis of the scenario and, of course, for rape to be in a PG-13 Disney film it would need to be metaphorical.  But whether the scene is about rape is a matter of dispute. Metaphors are not literal and are always subject to some degree of dispute.

One way to address the question would be to determine the intent of those who created the film. After all, the creators would be the best qualified to know their intent and can be seen as those who get the final say about what it means.

 However, creators sometimes do not know what they intend. While I am but a minor writer, I know that sometimes the words come forth like wild animals,  going as they will. Also, I know that sometimes the audience provides an even better interpretation. For example, in one of my Pathfinder adventures I created a dwarf non-player character named Burnbeard. While interacting with the players, he evolved into a true villain—a dwarf who burns off the beards of other dwarfs after he murders them (the greatest insult in dwarven culture). This sort of interaction between the audience and the work of the creator can invest something with new meaning. As such, even if the creators of the movie did not intend for the scene to be a rape scene, it could have evolved into that via the interaction between the audience and the film.

There is also the possibility that a metaphor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The intent of the creator does not matter as much as the interpretation of the audience. To use the obvious analogy to communication, a person might say something with a certain intent, yet what matters is the meaning taken by the recipient. As such, whatever an audience member sees in a metaphor is what the metaphor means—for that person. To those who see a rape metaphor in Maleficent, the movie contains a rape metaphor. To those who do not, it does not. As such, every metaphorical interpretation would be “right” in the subjective sense.

While this has some appeal, it makes claims about the meaning of metaphors pointless—if everyone is right, it is not worth discussing metaphors except as an exercise in telling others what you see in the mirror of the silver screen. As such, it seems reasonable that for discussing and disputing metaphors to be worthwhile (other than as psychoanalysis) there must be better and worse interpretations.

In the case of Maleficent, there is a plausible case that there is a metaphor for rape. However, a case can be made against that. After all, there are many fantasy movies in which something awful happens to a main character, in which they are subject to treachery and gravely wronged. However, these are not all taken as metaphors for rape. One does not speak of the rape of Aslan. Or the rape of Gollum (betrayed by the ring and robbed of his precious by Bilbo). Or even the rape of Sauron (who has his finger chopped off and is robbed of his ring of power). However, it might be contended that the rape metaphor is limited to female characters rather than male characters who undergo comparable abuses. But what is needed are clear guides to sorting out the evils which are metaphors for rape, and which are not.

 

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While I consider myself something of a movie buff, I was out-buffed by one of my old colleagues. This is a good thing—I enjoy the opportunity to hear about movies from someone who knows more than I. Some years ago we talked about  science-fiction classics and movies based on them.

Not surprisingly, the discussion turned to Blade Runner, which is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Phillip K. Dick. While I like the movie, some fans of the author hate the movie because it deviates from the book. This leads to three questions one should ask about such works.

The first question, which is the most important is: is the movie good? The second question, which I consider less important is: how much does the movie deviate from the book/story? For some people, the second question is important and their answer to the first question can hinge on the answer to the second. For them, the greater deviation from the book/story, the worse the movie. This rests on the view that an important aesthetic purpose of a movie based on a book/story is to faithfully reproduce the book/story in movie format.

My view is that deviation from the original is not relevant to the quality of the movie as a movie. That is, if the only factor that allegedly makes the movie bad is that it deviates from the book/story, then the movie would seem to be good. One way to argue for this is to point out the obvious: if someone saw the movie without knowing about the book, she would regard it as a good movie. If she then found out it was based on a book/story, then nothing about the movie would have changed—as such, it should still be a good movie on the grounds that the relation to the book/story is external to the movie. To use an analogy, imagine that someone sees a painting and regards it as well done artistically. Then the person finds out it is a painting of a specific person and finds a photo of the person that shows the painting differs from the photo. To then claim that the painting is not a good work of art would be mistaken.

It might be countered that the painting would be bad because it failed to properly imitate the person. However, this would only count against the accuracy of the imitation and not the artistic merit of the work. That it does not look exactly like the person would not entail that it is lacking aesthetically. Likewise for a movie: the fact that it is not enough like the book/story does not entail that it is a bad movie. Naturally, it is fair to claim that it does not imitate well, but this is a different matter than being a well-done work.

That said, I am sympathetic to the view that a movie must imitate a book/movie to a certain degree if it is to legitimately claim the same name. Take, for example, the movie Lawnmower Man.  While it is not a great film, the only thing it has in common with the Stephen King story is the name. In fact, King apparently sued over this because the film had no meaningful connection to his story. However, whether the movie has a legitimate claim to the name of a book/story or not is distinct from the quality of the movie. After all, a very bad movie might be faithful to a very bad book/story. But it would still be bad.

The third question is: is the movie so bad that it desecrates the story/book? In some cases, authors sell the film rights to books/stories or the works become public domain (and thus available to anyone). In some cases, the films made from such works are both reasonably true to the originals and reasonably good. The obvious examples here are the Lord of the Rings movies. However, there are cases in which the movie (or TV show) is so bad that the badness desecrates the original work by associating its awfulness with a good book/story.

One example of this is the desecration of the Wizard of Earthsea by the Sci-Fi Channel. This was so badly done that Ursula K. Le Guin felt obligated to write a response to it. While the book is not one of my favorites, I did like it and was initially looking forward to seeing it as a series. However, it was the TV version of seeing a friend killed and re-animated as a shuffling zombie. Perhaps not quite that bad—but still bad. Since I also like Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books, I did not see the travesty that is Disney’s John Carter. To answer my questions, this movie was apparently very bad, deviated from the book, and did desecrate it just a bit (I have found it harder to talk people into reading the Mars books because of the badness of that movie). I think that the Hobbit films desecrated the Hobbit book and will stand by that position, despite liking most of the director’s works.

From both a moral and aesthetic standpoint, I would contend that if a movie is to be made from a book or story, those involved have an obligation to make the movie at least as good as the original book/story. There is also an obligation to have at least some meaningful connection to the original work—after all, if there is no such connection then there are no legitimate grounds for having the film bear that name.

 

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When a well-connected author publishes a new book, they make the rounds of various shows. Such authors also enjoy mentions in the media, as befitting their fame and connections. For example, favored authors will often be interviewed and reviewed on NPR. Authors who have their own shows plug their own books. Elite authors are also supported by other cultural elites. These are the people, such as Oprah, who tell the rest of us what is good.

There is considerable advantage to being blessed by the curators of culture. First, there is the boon of exposure. Being a gamer, I will present this in gaming terms. One way to look at this is that a certain percentage of people will buy a book if they hear about it. Alternatively, this can be thought of in terms of a percent chance that a person who hears of the book will buy it. So, for example, a book with a 5% purchase rating would be bought by 5% of those who hear about it. Or each person who hears about it has a 5% chance of buying it. While this is an abstract, game style simplification, it shows that the more people who hear about a book, the more copies of a book will be sold. This is true even for books that are not good. This is the principle that spam works on: if enough people hear about something money can still be made even if the response or purchase rate is low. Obviously when an author gets on a significant show to talk about her book, her sales will increase. Likewise for other forms of exposure for the author and the book. Equally obvious is that access to the curators of culture is limited and carefully controlled—an author must be properly connected to make it into the brightest circle of media light. This connection might even be luck: the book just happens to catch the attention of the right person, and the author is invited, perhaps briefly, into the circle.

Second, there is the gift of endorsement. If a book is endorsed or praised by the right people, this can boost to sales over and above the boon granted by exposure. While endorsement does provide exposure, exposure does not always entail endorsement. After all, the curators of culture do sometimes speak of books they dislike. While condemnation of a work might impair its sales, the exposure can increase sales. And being condemned by the right sort of people can boost sales. In the case of ideological works, for example, being condemned by an ideological foe could boost sales among ideological friends.

As discussed in an early essay on luck, the quality of a work has little connection to its success. Luck is a major factor. Exposure and endorsement add to this, and either might be acquired by luck). In an ideal aesthetic world, works would receive exposure and endorsement proportionate to their merit. In the actual world, there is often little correlation. The best books need not be the most exposed or most endorsed. Mediocre (or worse) books might garner great attention and receive unwarranted praise from the curators of culture.

This is not to say that merit never achieves success, just that merit seems a small factor in successful sales. Sometimes, just sometimes, a meritorious work does achieve success against long odds because of its merit—but this is notable in its rarity.