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Author Topic: Accidental advocacy  (Read 1044 times)

GoblinCookie

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Accidental advocacy
« on: February 26, 2019, 07:40:49 am »

When authors or artists write books or create works, they should reflect the values of the authors or artists; that is already in.  However on occasion a creator should create a work that advocates values that they don't themselves agree with and aren't necessarily even aware of.  This should be biased heavily towards the theme of the content, so a historical book concerning a battle should have a high chance of accidentally promoting pro-peace or anti-peace content, even if the author intended it to be a neutral account.

The same link between content and values should apply elsewhere.  There should be a higher chance that someone with relevant values concerning the topic should add those values in.  So a book about two people getting married should tend to reflect their authors values on romance and family, even if they are aware of their advocacy.  People with strong views on a value should also be biased towards the initial selection of topic according to that value. 

So instead of there just being specifically pro-value books, there would also be less explicitly ideological books that are still ideologically biased and the ideologically biased would be drawn towards topics in which their particular bias is relevant. 
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Detoxicated

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2019, 08:50:29 am »

Interesting suggestion.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2019, 07:26:28 am »

Interesting suggestion.

I've also thought about connecting this to spheres as well as values, it similar to connect things to values as to connect them to spheres.  Perhaps all values should also become spheres?
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Detoxicated

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2019, 08:40:02 am »

Not necessarily. For instance, a Book about a marriage could also discuss the political aspects regarding the two familiies. I guess values should interact with spheres but should Not necessarily be Set in Stone.

A Book in swords could be about swords but also about Love for swords, warfare with swords... Etc
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2019, 06:27:57 am »

Not necessarily. For instance, a Book about a marriage could also discuss the political aspects regarding the two familiies. I guess values should interact with spheres but should Not necessarily be Set in Stone.

A Book in swords could be about swords but also about Love for swords, warfare with swords... Etc

It gets worse.  Whether or not marriage is about politics will itself reflect the society's general view of what marriage means, which in turn can be influenced by previous cultural works on the topic.

When read by someone with a different culture, the meaning may well be missed; intended or otherwise.
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VABritto

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2019, 02:52:28 pm »

It could also be interesting if the books influence different societies and people in different ways in the sense that depending on their value ethics and knowledge a society or person could actually interpret the same book in different manners and thus create different outcomes depending on who is reading it.
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Blastbeard

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2019, 03:41:02 pm »

I like it.

Books can already be influenced by the author's personality, i.e. "the writing is as cruel as can be." This could be used as a means to unintentionally advocate a value. A particularly meticulous author could write a book concerning a battle, and go into such gruesome detail about it that the work comes to advocate the value of peace, when all they really wanted to do is write a historical document.
Skill, or a lack thereof, could also  be used to spread this sort of influence as well. Say a writer attempts to espouse the value of family in their work. However, with their novice wordsmith skill and perhaps further hindered by a low linguistic ability attribute, they do the job so badly they end up arguing for the worthlessness of family.
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VABritto

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2019, 03:44:59 pm »

It could also be said that a society that values cruelty could actually be influenced to be even more belligerent of the writer is so detailed in the gruesome bits.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Accidental advocacy
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2019, 06:33:06 am »

I like it.

Books can already be influenced by the author's personality, i.e. "the writing is as cruel as can be." This could be used as a means to unintentionally advocate a value. A particularly meticulous author could write a book concerning a battle, and go into such gruesome detail about it that the work comes to advocate the value of peace, when all they really wanted to do is write a historical document.
Skill, or a lack thereof, could also  be used to spread this sort of influence as well. Say a writer attempts to espouse the value of family in their work. However, with their novice wordsmith skill and perhaps further hindered by a low linguistic ability attribute, they do the job so badly they end up arguing for the worthlessness of family.

Writers with a low skill should have a greater possibility of advocating values they don't advocate.  However even skilled writers should have a good chance of advocating values they do believe in, without this being their conscious intent. 

It could also be said that a society that values cruelty could actually be influenced to be even more belligerent of the writer is so detailed in the gruesome bits.

Cruelty is not a value, it is a personality facet.  But yes if the reader *is* very cruel, it is likely that the accidental advocacy of peace deriving from an over-detailed description of the horrors of war will go over their head.  This would be written in the following manner.

"This work goes into vivid detail, unless the reader is particularly cruel it advocates the value of peace"

A lot of this is probably simplifiable to AbstractVSExplicit writing, certain topics are better advocated for in the abstract than in the explicit.  If you want to advocate FOR war, you are better off not going into too much detail, but talking about the bigger picture.  So if an author writes in heavily biased fashion towards one of these poles, there is a good chance they will end arguing for or against the value of peace. 

Writers could have an inbuilt preference for either form as well.
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