The aesthetic and the moral

D. W. Griffith

Many works of art that are wholly immoral are often championed on a aesthetic level, yet many grudges are held against their moral codes. First of all I will take as an example silent-era film director D. W. Griffith, who directed the film Birth of a Nation, which is both praised and denounced on equal measure.

Birth of a Nation, made in 1915, brought to use many of the cinematographic techniques that would be practiced in subsequent decades. In terms of innovation, it is deemed to be on a par with Citizen Kane, and it used extreme and dramatic camera angles interwoven with careful edits.

Yet its content and messages are unavoidably tactless. Griffith distorted American history to propagate racial politics, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan. Birth of a Nation was the first feature length film to receive vast public distribution, and for many years was the highest grossing film of all time. As a consequence of its popularity, it re-instigated the Ku Klux Klan sect, which had been dormant for several decades, and it garnered more members than it ever had in its previous inceptions.

Viewing it from this standpoint, is it worthy of praise? When a work of art is aesthetically innovative, can it be seen in a good light when it deliberately stirs up racial hatred?

The existentialist dictum is that, with the fall of religion and the rise of secularism, we must make moral choices. Figures like Sartre and Camus used literary forms to showcase individuals who pursue their own path of self-fulfilment whatever the cost. This is a case of the moral and the aesthetic intertwining.

But then there are people like me who are very keen in portraying depravity and pornography in literature - what is the difference between this and the unadulterated expression of racism? Griffith himself staunchly advocated freedom of speech, and in response to criticisms of racism, made the equally innovative but equally dubious film Intolerance.

Should there be restrictions and inhibitions as to how far you can take literature, film etc. without reaching the territory of racial fomentation? Many controversial writers, who deal with dark and lurid subject matter, actually saw themselves as moralists. J. G. Ballard always argued that his books in fact postulate moral lessons and cautions, despite him having written excessively about mutilation and perversion of every kind. The same can be said of Georges Bataille, author of what is quite possibly the most sordid book of all time, 1928's Story of the Eye, who at one point almost became a priest.

Perhaps I am raising more questions than I am answering here, and I think I'll leave this blog post on an ambiguous note. Personally, I think that racial hatred and xenophobia are admissible to write about if it is dealt with ironically but, other than that, I think that immorality should be taken the furthest most reaches if one is felt inclined to go there.