more on warnings

[schmevil]

Yes, I know you're all tired of it, but swanswan has an good post on the subject. I've already said that I do warn, and that it isn't a hardship for me, but there are other perspectives. Probably the best presentation I've seen of the 'artistic integrity' argument.

We're a community of adults. The idea of community has been invoked in a particular way in this debate; primarily, by the pro-warning side, as a way to evoke empathy: we are a community of (mostly) women, some of whom are survivors of horrific events, and we should take care of each other. I think that's laudable, but I think it's only part of what community should really mean. My fear is that "community" becomes shorthand for a group of like-minded, enlightened individuals determined to stamp out injustice. I believe that the "we" of fandom is a whole lot more complicated, fractured, and complex than that.

...

The blanket-warning argument is predicated on the suppression of the high artistic impulse in fandom, because art is not moral. I know that sounds WILDLY pretentious, but I believe it. There are valid artistic creations within fandom, and there are people who care a lot about the presentation and delivery of their work in ways which may not always fit in with a warnings culture. I do not think that they should be asked to give up the right to make what they want to make and present their work how they want to present it.