Yes, and the easy lessons of neolib mass fiction are causing us to crave real morality tales - but not the Victorian (though they were funny) cautionary tale type, but sOmething we believe represents our lives as well as envisions virtue. Ikr I'm always banging on about this, but Tolstoy figured morality as a kind of authenticity/good faith of the artist inherent in works. Thanks for writing!
Hard agree. Not that anyone needs to be didactic all the time, but having the ability to do so opens up so many more options than second-guessing whether or not you've tripped too far over some cultural eggshell.
That's definitely essential takeaway I hope people take. Not that didactic is superior, but that its an axis to consider (not to feel crowded to the moral framework obscuritinist deep end)
I think I lost track of the argument somewhere in here, but am I correct in noting that you suggest that Shakespeare expresses a "fearless moral certitude"? What reading of Shakespeare is this? What textual evidence can be mobilized to prove this point? Is his portrayal of Caliban, for example, driven by moral certitude? I certainly don't think so. That's what makes it so interesting.
There are plenty of didactic pieces of literature that would serve as a clearer foil: Aesop's Fables, or Everyman, or Pilgrim's Progress, or Uncle Tom's Cabin, or The Jungle. Although some of these are shot through with ambiguities of their own, they might at least serve as coherent examples.
Your broader point seems to be that readers have good reason to consider didactic literature as good if they agree with the didactic message. I think this has two problems--first, didactic art is by definition aimed at those who either disagree with the teaching or waver in their moral commitments. "Didactic" means to teach, and there is no point in teaching the reader something they already know. The most famously didactic book of all time, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was geared toward an apathetic public that didn't really have a moral commitment to ending slavery.
Second, this model of literature (i.e. that people like what they read because it confirms what the reader believes) ignores the power of books to shock and transform their readers. It understands literature as little more than a solidarity-building exercise among identity groups. Surely that's one function of literature, but I am depressed at the idea that this is literature's only function.
Appreciate this thoughtful comment and I chose Shakespeare over one of Aesop's Fables because he often does have moral ambiguity - but often in the sort of Greek Tragedy ways will have clear moral failings that fit with the English cultural view of the time. Not every story needs to be a baldly instructional tale, more I am trying to expand our understanding of "didactic" beyond the literal definition and into a way of viewing cultural products as necessarily containing an assumed metaphysics to them.
This "morale rules of gravity" can be obscured by adding conflicting points and not claiming it directly, and often should be to make the world feel real, but I'm arguing that creative people should not feel *required* to cover morale frameworks (or just the appearance of them) because it's "reactionary".
I definitely do not believe that culture is only a solidarity building exerciese! More that cultural products MUST contain moral assumptions to be conceivable to the human mind creating them, the question is to what degreed it's obscured (often for very good purpose). Cultural products contain the moral assumptions of the culture making them, and culture is NEVER at the global or even national level in my view (the Reproduction of Daily Live view) and is instead always the direct product of the individual people making it and engaging with it.
So cultural products can be understood as products of that culture (90's liberal/1800s Vermont farmer, 50 AD Roman soldier, etc.), indeed they can only be known in that context. What I'm trying to push back against is the concept that creative people should be striving to create common/normal culture that appeals to anyone. It's a call to retribalize culturally and understand people as tribes (not necessarily to cut off from tribes you are able to exchange art with)
>I definitely do not believe that culture is only a solidarity building exerciese! More that cultural products MUST contain moral assumptions to be conceivable to the human mind creating them, the question is to what degreed it's obscured (often for very good purpose).
Most works as far as I can tell contain an implicit morality. This is a fine observation.
Yes, it's a fine observation--all art, Hemingway included, contains an implicit morality. I think that's a really important, foundational observation. But to equate any implicit morality with "didacticism" doesn't make sense. To suggest that any critic opposed to "didactic" literature also opposes any implicit morality in literature is to construct and demolish a straw-man. When critics talk about "didactic" literature, they usually mean a particular set of textual features with a particular history: flat, non-dynamic characterization; direct expressions of political rhetoric by the novel's narrator or characters; explicit and clear valuations of a character or their actions; an episodic plot featuring a series of morally unambiguous scenarios that demonstrate the validity of a particular creed; and so on.
Most didactic literature is also universalist; this article's relativistic understanding of morality as an intra-tribal phenomenon would be anathema to a Harriet Beecher Stowe or John Bunyan--that is to say, it doesn't comport with the tradition of didactic literature as it actually exists.
I actually like a lot of this kind of didactic literature and think it is worth defending on its own terms, which is why I'm being so picky.
(By the way, ARX-Han, I've read about your novel quite a bit and am excited to check it out.)
I generally trying to tackle the creative person's self consciousness at potentially being perceived as didactic rather than trying to say all critics are going too far/don't have a right to label some things as crudely didactic.
Heinlein is another interesting example of a successful didactic writer. He has several books with really bold/clear moral frameworks (not all even in agreement between themselves over time) but very much in dialogue with their era.
And I suppose I don't see Stowe as universalist, even though I agree she would disagree with me. Uncle Tom's Cabin was essentially propaganda on the great issue of the time, and it's depictions/framing have not seemed to hold it up as a work itself, more as a mere reference point, which suggests to me it was extremely tribal and for a tribe that no longer exists (old stock American northerners).
That makes more sense, then; thanks for taking the time to explain to a wayfaring reader! I've never read Heinlein, so I'll have to take your word on him.
Stowe would absolutely disagree with you--and her many Southern American and non-American readers (including George Sand and Leo Tolstoy, who called UTC an "example of the highest art") would also disagree. But I think most contemporary readers probably would agree with you.
Enormously appreciate you taking the time to talk through it with me! I think there is still a lot of exploring on these ideas I personally need (and people in these circles are itching for)
Thank you for checking it out and the kind words Han! For my part, I do consider the moral/ideological axis be the same thing. I just don't think people are that complicated - people can only contain so many beliefs!
A very reasonable position to take and I go back and forth on how much the distinction there amounts to hair splitting vs. how these things actually function at the level of the masses & mass psychology (i.e. political liberalism writ large surely contains its own moral philosophy, etc.).
My caution in approaching didacticism is that largely those who do it - as activists, creatives, or intellectuals are hamfisted. Anyone putting on intellectual airs, at least in my eyes, looks buffoonish and mid-wit. Of course there are still real academics, but they are outnumbered by pseudo-academics.
Where the hell am I going with this? I don't know. It's a good topic and there is lots to explore. The didactic pretenses of a lot of current writers are expressions of their post-modern culture - itself pseudo-intellectual. They will deconstruct everything including their deconstruction and be left stunned into inaction and nihilism. It's boring.
So yeah, I argue that we should keep politics out of our art, but by that I mean blunt, on-the-nose stuff. As you say, Tolkien did a great job of weaving value into the story itself, but it was most definitely there.
I typed a whole response to this and lost it... but I agree I think we agree that the morality is more of an underlying ruleset rather than bold political proclamations!
I don’t think Shakespeare is a good example of “moral certitude” — he’s too free-wheeling for that — or that the supernatural creatures he uses as dramatic elements can be understood to represent any of his actual beliefs about the world. Many of his spirits’ names were plumbed from skeptical texts. He was highly attracted to them for creative and dramaturgical reasons; we can’t say what he himself understood to be real.
Agree that Tolkien is highly misunderstood, and builds a moral structure in his books with far more subtlety and breadth than most detractors or supporters give him credit for
Great article. As you pointed is not that Diadactism is better or inheritly superior to other frames, but that we should consider being more didactic and let our frame speaks for itself in the works we do. Just like LOTR didn't need to explain how evil works and that it is not substantial
Yes, and the easy lessons of neolib mass fiction are causing us to crave real morality tales - but not the Victorian (though they were funny) cautionary tale type, but sOmething we believe represents our lives as well as envisions virtue. Ikr I'm always banging on about this, but Tolstoy figured morality as a kind of authenticity/good faith of the artist inherent in works. Thanks for writing!
I agree with that take on the authenticity of the artist inherent in their works. Thank you so much for reading!
Hard agree. Not that anyone needs to be didactic all the time, but having the ability to do so opens up so many more options than second-guessing whether or not you've tripped too far over some cultural eggshell.
That's definitely essential takeaway I hope people take. Not that didactic is superior, but that its an axis to consider (not to feel crowded to the moral framework obscuritinist deep end)
I think I lost track of the argument somewhere in here, but am I correct in noting that you suggest that Shakespeare expresses a "fearless moral certitude"? What reading of Shakespeare is this? What textual evidence can be mobilized to prove this point? Is his portrayal of Caliban, for example, driven by moral certitude? I certainly don't think so. That's what makes it so interesting.
There are plenty of didactic pieces of literature that would serve as a clearer foil: Aesop's Fables, or Everyman, or Pilgrim's Progress, or Uncle Tom's Cabin, or The Jungle. Although some of these are shot through with ambiguities of their own, they might at least serve as coherent examples.
Your broader point seems to be that readers have good reason to consider didactic literature as good if they agree with the didactic message. I think this has two problems--first, didactic art is by definition aimed at those who either disagree with the teaching or waver in their moral commitments. "Didactic" means to teach, and there is no point in teaching the reader something they already know. The most famously didactic book of all time, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was geared toward an apathetic public that didn't really have a moral commitment to ending slavery.
Second, this model of literature (i.e. that people like what they read because it confirms what the reader believes) ignores the power of books to shock and transform their readers. It understands literature as little more than a solidarity-building exercise among identity groups. Surely that's one function of literature, but I am depressed at the idea that this is literature's only function.
Appreciate this thoughtful comment and I chose Shakespeare over one of Aesop's Fables because he often does have moral ambiguity - but often in the sort of Greek Tragedy ways will have clear moral failings that fit with the English cultural view of the time. Not every story needs to be a baldly instructional tale, more I am trying to expand our understanding of "didactic" beyond the literal definition and into a way of viewing cultural products as necessarily containing an assumed metaphysics to them.
This "morale rules of gravity" can be obscured by adding conflicting points and not claiming it directly, and often should be to make the world feel real, but I'm arguing that creative people should not feel *required* to cover morale frameworks (or just the appearance of them) because it's "reactionary".
I definitely do not believe that culture is only a solidarity building exerciese! More that cultural products MUST contain moral assumptions to be conceivable to the human mind creating them, the question is to what degreed it's obscured (often for very good purpose). Cultural products contain the moral assumptions of the culture making them, and culture is NEVER at the global or even national level in my view (the Reproduction of Daily Live view) and is instead always the direct product of the individual people making it and engaging with it.
So cultural products can be understood as products of that culture (90's liberal/1800s Vermont farmer, 50 AD Roman soldier, etc.), indeed they can only be known in that context. What I'm trying to push back against is the concept that creative people should be striving to create common/normal culture that appeals to anyone. It's a call to retribalize culturally and understand people as tribes (not necessarily to cut off from tribes you are able to exchange art with)
>I definitely do not believe that culture is only a solidarity building exerciese! More that cultural products MUST contain moral assumptions to be conceivable to the human mind creating them, the question is to what degreed it's obscured (often for very good purpose).
Most works as far as I can tell contain an implicit morality. This is a fine observation.
Yes, it's a fine observation--all art, Hemingway included, contains an implicit morality. I think that's a really important, foundational observation. But to equate any implicit morality with "didacticism" doesn't make sense. To suggest that any critic opposed to "didactic" literature also opposes any implicit morality in literature is to construct and demolish a straw-man. When critics talk about "didactic" literature, they usually mean a particular set of textual features with a particular history: flat, non-dynamic characterization; direct expressions of political rhetoric by the novel's narrator or characters; explicit and clear valuations of a character or their actions; an episodic plot featuring a series of morally unambiguous scenarios that demonstrate the validity of a particular creed; and so on.
Most didactic literature is also universalist; this article's relativistic understanding of morality as an intra-tribal phenomenon would be anathema to a Harriet Beecher Stowe or John Bunyan--that is to say, it doesn't comport with the tradition of didactic literature as it actually exists.
I actually like a lot of this kind of didactic literature and think it is worth defending on its own terms, which is why I'm being so picky.
(By the way, ARX-Han, I've read about your novel quite a bit and am excited to check it out.)
I generally trying to tackle the creative person's self consciousness at potentially being perceived as didactic rather than trying to say all critics are going too far/don't have a right to label some things as crudely didactic.
Heinlein is another interesting example of a successful didactic writer. He has several books with really bold/clear moral frameworks (not all even in agreement between themselves over time) but very much in dialogue with their era.
And I suppose I don't see Stowe as universalist, even though I agree she would disagree with me. Uncle Tom's Cabin was essentially propaganda on the great issue of the time, and it's depictions/framing have not seemed to hold it up as a work itself, more as a mere reference point, which suggests to me it was extremely tribal and for a tribe that no longer exists (old stock American northerners).
That makes more sense, then; thanks for taking the time to explain to a wayfaring reader! I've never read Heinlein, so I'll have to take your word on him.
Stowe would absolutely disagree with you--and her many Southern American and non-American readers (including George Sand and Leo Tolstoy, who called UTC an "example of the highest art") would also disagree. But I think most contemporary readers probably would agree with you.
Enormously appreciate you taking the time to talk through it with me! I think there is still a lot of exploring on these ideas I personally need (and people in these circles are itching for)
Truly excellent piece and very well written.
Plenty for consideration here.
The other thing that I think gets confused in this discussion is moral didacticism vs. ideological didacticism.
I think oftentimes these two things get treated as equivalents but they're certainly not.
Thank you for checking it out and the kind words Han! For my part, I do consider the moral/ideological axis be the same thing. I just don't think people are that complicated - people can only contain so many beliefs!
A very reasonable position to take and I go back and forth on how much the distinction there amounts to hair splitting vs. how these things actually function at the level of the masses & mass psychology (i.e. political liberalism writ large surely contains its own moral philosophy, etc.).
This post is about Fedbook. I look forward to reading past the title
Dante, Dostoevsky, Austen, Bellow.
Honestly the fact I didn't reference Brothers K at all was a huge oversight
Also "Demons" and Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" fall into this category, imo.
You could do a whole article just about the Russian examples.
My caution in approaching didacticism is that largely those who do it - as activists, creatives, or intellectuals are hamfisted. Anyone putting on intellectual airs, at least in my eyes, looks buffoonish and mid-wit. Of course there are still real academics, but they are outnumbered by pseudo-academics.
Where the hell am I going with this? I don't know. It's a good topic and there is lots to explore. The didactic pretenses of a lot of current writers are expressions of their post-modern culture - itself pseudo-intellectual. They will deconstruct everything including their deconstruction and be left stunned into inaction and nihilism. It's boring.
So yeah, I argue that we should keep politics out of our art, but by that I mean blunt, on-the-nose stuff. As you say, Tolkien did a great job of weaving value into the story itself, but it was most definitely there.
It's very late. I hope I made some sense.
I typed a whole response to this and lost it... but I agree I think we agree that the morality is more of an underlying ruleset rather than bold political proclamations!
I don’t think Shakespeare is a good example of “moral certitude” — he’s too free-wheeling for that — or that the supernatural creatures he uses as dramatic elements can be understood to represent any of his actual beliefs about the world. Many of his spirits’ names were plumbed from skeptical texts. He was highly attracted to them for creative and dramaturgical reasons; we can’t say what he himself understood to be real.
Agree that Tolkien is highly misunderstood, and builds a moral structure in his books with far more subtlety and breadth than most detractors or supporters give him credit for
Great article. As you pointed is not that Diadactism is better or inheritly superior to other frames, but that we should consider being more didactic and let our frame speaks for itself in the works we do. Just like LOTR didn't need to explain how evil works and that it is not substantial
Yes but this is hardly controversial
Never said I was clever tbqh
No
t. Didn't read
t. May read later
K...keep me posted