/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1246854]

Do authors have a moral responsibility to censor their work if they know it could create serious social problems, or something along those lines? For example, let's say that an author wants to write a book about the inherent futility of human endeavor, but he knows that a certain number of people will kill themselves after they are finished reading it. I'm not asking if the government should ban such books, I'm only asking if someone who is writing a book should take this into consideration. What do you think /lit/?

[7FtSpleen!!wonderment No.1246870]

>>let's say that an author wants to write a book about the inherent futility of human endeavor, but he knows that a certain number of people will kill themselves after they are finished reading it

Isn't that reaching a bit? If someone reads a depressing book and then kills themselves, it doesn't follow the depressing book was the sole root cause of their suicide.

Obviously it helps to not do anything incredibly stupid, though. When Chuck P. wrote "Fight Club" he put in recipes for things like homemade dynamite that were deliberately missing a couple of stages. (Besides, it's not like people can't find the real thing if they look hard enough.)

[7FtSpleen !!uNUOgRvMaHD No.1246872]

>>let's say that an author wants to write a book about the inherent futility of human endeavor, but he knows that a certain number of people will kill themselves after they are finished reading it

Isn't that reaching a bit? If someone reads a depressing book and then kills themselves, it doesn't follow the depressing book was the sole root cause of their suicide.

Obviously it helps to not do anything incredibly stupid, though. When Chuck P. wrote "Fight Club" he put in recipes for things like homemade dynamite that were deliberately missing a couple of stages. (Besides, it's not like people can't find the real thing if they look hard enough.)

[Anonymous No.1246878]

>>1246872
Of course it's not reaching as it is not a causal argument. I am saying that if you assume that the book would have such an effect would it still be moral for the person who wrote it to publish. It's a hypothetical example.

[John !rAOwMGYtnY No.1246880]

>>1246872
I hear hundreds of teens in Germany committed suicide after reading "The Sorrows of Young Werther," when it was originally published.

[Anonymous No.1247672]

If people want to kill themselves, that's solely their decision.

[OUTRAGEOUS No.1247675]

Camus didn't seem to care.

[Anonymous No.1247677]

>>1246880
The best part about that book was when some other Author wrote a satire in which the protagonist is unable to commit suicide, so Goethe wrote a poem where the latter author poops on Werther's grave

[Anonymous No.1247681]

>>1246854

OP, your line of questioning is a complete anachronism, mainly because you confine your focus to the realm of fiction, and the potential for suicide. The more interesting questions come when you leave ficiton and talk about nonfiction. "how to commit murder for money-a how-to", etc.

To actually return to your original question, IT'S VAGUE BRO. Er, yes, an author has a moral responsibility, as a human. But then if someone's weak enough to kill themselves over a fiction that wasn't maliciously aimed at them, it's not really the author's fault, now is it. Grey area shit, and right thinking people err on the side of protecting speech.

[Anonymous No.1247682]

kill yourself op

[Anonymous No.1247688]

I am currently writing a book on my experiences building underground internment camps for 24 years under funding from the US Government program named REX-84. This was a Cold War project that was steady work in the 80's, floundered but remained funded through the 90s and is currently superfunded by the DHS since September of 2001. US Citizens are paying us to dig caves in stone under their own cities. We have 100 ways for you to eat mushrooms. No, I will not censor this. Someone needs to know before my "accidental" death.

[Anonymous No.1247689]

>>1247675

[Anonymous No.1247715]

>>1247688
Will you post an excerpt?

[Anonymous No.1247719]

did you know that news reports of suicide tend to increase the rate of suicide? they believe it's the same reason that if a school has a suicide, others generally follow - people see it and decide to follow through with their own suicidal thoughts

so, should we not report any suicides?

[Anonymous No.1247772]

>>1247715
I have already. It was a few months ago and made people think I was some dick bent on railroading citizens into granite housing blocks.

I can sum it up, as far as I have gone, in the folowing few sentences. In the early 80s, I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Geology and began work identifying rock formations and aquifers by one of the largest corporations in America--think appliances, but understand that they not only made clothes dryers and refrigerators but contracted to make mining equipment, boring devices (boring as in tunneling), military grade metallurgics, and basically anything that had electricity running through it and a metal exoframe. Years years years. In the late 80s, I was given a stipend, sent off worksites and back into school to learn the following subjects: sociology, agriculture, game-theory, and structural engineering in so far as psychology of environment was concerned. I was not working towards degrees, but a specific set of courses taught by specific professors. I really can't go too far into this here, but I mean to tell you that these classes were not taught with the same pace that I remember college having. These courses were medicinal, mathematical, pressing and long. REX-84 was both an experiment and a mission, now busier than ever. What you can find on the subject now is a laughable ghost of what it really is today.

[Anonymous No.1247796]

>>1247772
and now you're on 4chan posting about it.

rofl, cool story bro