Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
The moralist must
not despise forms of art which have no ulterior, utilitarian value;
but he must insist that no enjoyment of art is really, in the long
run, good for man which influences his life in the unwholesome ways
we have indicated. Since morality is that way of life that gives it
its greatest worth, indulgence in art at the expense of morality is
seizing an immediate but lesser good at the expense of an ultimately
greater good. Practically, however, the censorship of art is the most
delicate of matters, because the influence of the same work of art
on one person may be widely different from its effect upon another.
A play or a picture that pleases or even inspires one spectator may
be disastrous to his neighbor. And it is always difficult to decide
between the claims of an immediate good and the warnings of dangers
that may lurk therein. But we universally acknowledge the duty of some
censorship, by prohibiting the most openly tempting pictures, plays,
and literature. And there can be no doubt that this supervision should
be carried further than it now is.
The most pressing contemporary problem is that concerning the stage.
[Footnote: See J. Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets,
chap. IV. P. MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption
of Leisure. H. Munsterberg, Psychology and Social Sanity, pp. 27-43.
J. H. Coffin, The Socialized Conscience, pp. 130-41. Outlook, vol.
92, p. 110; vol. 101, p. 492; vol. 107, p. 412. Atlantic Monthly, vol.
89, p. 497; vol. 107, p. 350.] Any number of boys and girls owe their
undoing to the influences of the theater. No other form of art now
tolerated so frequently overstimulates the sex instinct. The scant
costumes permitted, with their conscious endeavor to reveal the feminine
form as alluringly as possible, the voluptuous dances and ballets,
the jokes, stories, and suggestive gestures, and often the low moral
tone of the play, making light of sacred matters and encouraging lax
ideas on sex relations, are powerful excitants. Many theaters frankly
pander to the desire for such stimulation; and they are crowded. For
while human nature remains as it is, the young will flock whither they
can find sex excitement. Scarcely less dangerous are the magazines
and books that by their pictures and their stories play up to this
eternal instinct. Even painters in oils often use this drawing card;
the Paris salons have always a considerable sprinkling of nudes, in
all sorts of voluptuous attitudes, making a frank appeal to desire.
French literature abounds in books, some of great literary merit, that
exploit this aspect of human nature; but in every tongue there are
the Boccaccios and the Byrons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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