[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 25 KB, 220x343, Watchmen,_issue_1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20342227 No.20342227[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What's the actual argument against black and white morality?

>> No.20342234

Nuance is a cope, it's the gap through which the devil slips in.

>> No.20342240

>>20342227
>What's the actual argument against black and white morality?
We're tired of it. It seems too much stale and unreal to us.

>> No.20342245

>>20342227
just finished reading the watchman for the first time.
the first half of the novel is fucking and really good. the setting up of the universe and introduction of the characters is top notch. The second half is also good but it loses its edge and becomes just another capeshit plot driven comic book that needs to conclude.

>> No.20342246

The fact that things never are that simple. It's reductivist and thus untruthful and self-serving, and thus people who believe in black & white morality can never be part of the white camp of their own world view.

>> No.20342263

>>20342246
Things are true or false, Aristotle proved the law of excluded middle. You're just wrong and coping.

>> No.20342272

>>20342246
>fantasy setting where there is tangible, objective evil
>lol, it's not all black and white guyz!!! you're killing nuance!!

>> No.20342300

>>20342263
are you autistic? do you not go outside much? do you only make friends with people with the same perspective as you?

>> No.20342508

watchmen isn't really saying black and white morality is bad infact watchmen isn't really "saying" anything it's more of an exploration of concepts and themes rather than a concrete statement about something

>> No.20342514

>>20342227
black people commit statistically higher amounts of crime than white people

>> No.20342518

>>20342300
>t
Have you ever thought maybe you ARE evil? Morality is simple and clear-cut. Any relativism is cope with your own inadequacies and failings as a human being.
Regardless of circumstance and or nuance, you are a bad person. So are most people out there. So were your grandparents and so was your immediate family, most likely. Their circumstances don't matter; their actions do. Accepting it is the first step. Truly accepting it, that is.

>> No.20342552

>>20342234
>he said while bashing an infant’s brains in

>> No.20342641

>>20342518
Touch grass.

>> No.20342648

>>20342227
I'm a little slow here. Is Rorschach the one with black and white morality?

>> No.20342673

>>20342227
there are many. Have you ever tried maybe reading some ethical works or philosophy more broadly?

>> No.20342674

>>20342518
>Things are true or false
>Morality is simple and clear-cut
This two statements aren't equivalent. There is plenty of stuff that is absolutely true or false but is also complex and hard to determine see math.

>> No.20342679

>>20342245

Endings are always harder to execute than the setup, many such cases.

>>20342263
>>20342518

Metaethics has grown quite a bit from Aristotle's time. I'm opposed to moral nihilism and relativism but morality isn't simple and clear-cut.

>> No.20342692

>>20342648
Yeah, he has a famous speech where he basically says that nearly everyone except him is corrupt.
Famously, Alan Moore accidentally made him too sympathetic. He grew up in an abusive household, encountered some bad shit on the streets, became a vigilante, and eventually died doing what he believed in. The only other characters you could root for where an enlightened ubermensch who basically threw away his humanity and an emotionally stunted god
So most people wound up liking Rorschach. Hes not a very good or unique character in my opinion but I love that he makes Moore seethe to this day

>> No.20342697

The religious zealots have and continue to do astonishing damage to any prospect of a future. Humanity is doomed.

>> No.20342775

>>20342692
Okay yeah, I've heard that too. Yeah Rorschach was the only character that's not extremely manipulative or mostly pathetic (I don't hate the bird guy, but he's literally impotent; he tried at least). I also agreed with Rorschach's morality at the end. Or at least, I felt that he wasn't clearly wrong (was he supposed to be in Moore's eyes?). Ozymandias's plot reminds me of people who say that the masses can't do without religion. It's infantilizing. In the watchmen world it's arguably justified, unlike ours, but it's still not obviously the moral choice.

>> No.20342788

>>20342245
>Plot driven
Anon....

>> No.20342856

>>20342227
Compartmentalization.

Everything can be black and white. The problem is seeing the entire picture, because everything is related, and as you "zoom out" and view more elements of a situation, it will often flip flop between black and white.

Example:
>I killed a man
Black

>I killed a man trying to kill another man
White

>I killed a man trying to kill another man that was raping a woman
Black

>> No.20343839

>>20342227
That it’s a childish mindset.

>> No.20343855

>>20342697
Shut up you nigger loving leftist KEKOLD.

>> No.20343857

>>20343839
Children are correct.

>> No.20343861

>>20342856
I like this answer. We're all limited creatyres and often we can't see the bigger picture of which our own actions fit into. I'd also add that the sense of what one's moral/social obligations are can depend on your position and so can conflict. So much tragic art deals with the conflict between personal obligations v.s a professional or public obligation.

>> No.20343892
File: 33 KB, 604x508, 1646238391981.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20343892

>>20342227
Because it contradicts itself, it doesn't make sense outside of its situational context. If situations were spoken about in a concrete, context-free grammar then we might be able to argue moral statements on a case-by-case basis. There are likely moral universals, i.e. it would be considered wrong to murder someone randomly, inside a civilized society. But that's just embodied cognition and behaviorism, our evolution to naturally form groups and thus create our moral standards (such as murder being wrong)

Anyway, yeah. Making black-and-white moral statements are subject to fuzzy logic. There's always moral dilemmas depending on highly specific situations. The field of philosophy just needs to boil that down further, to an ontological level.

In the most dualistic way, the categorical imperative probably works best for general judgments. But yeah, it's not going to work for everything. And generally people act out of their own self-interest, don't get me started on all of that

>> No.20343894

>>20342692
Most people are simply too stupid for Alan Moore's writing. V for Vendetta is another example.

>> No.20343907

>>20342227
Can you be a moral absolutist while also understanding im a fallen and flawed person myself, unable to fully exist within the good catagory of action in life? Only God is good.

>> No.20343913

>>20342227
In a story? It's kind of boring
In real life it's really quite useful

>> No.20343926

>>20342227
>whats the actual argument?
Reality is black and white but man can help but be imperfect creatures, ignoring this planet full of miracles each and every one of us.

Watchman affirms pro-life btw

>> No.20344009

>>20342227
Nothing wrong with it. All depends on the story being told.

>> No.20344018

>>20342692
>>20342775
>>20342648
Rorschach is incapable of nuance. He has a very bleak image of the world (not entirely unfounded, but certainly exaggerated) and has the same "the end justifies the means" attitude that Ozymandias and the other superheroes has.

The "who watches that Watchmen?" Protest fits since he refuses to be held accountable by his own actions, he's so detached from the world he cannot conceive himself being wrong. He's also extremely unstable mentally to the point he's a danger to himself and society.

Moore fucked up by making him completely right in the end. Telling the world about Ozymandias' plot was the right thing, dying for refusing to lie to the world makes him a martyr and being murdered by an amoral entity that knows Ozymandias' plan fails in the end gives even more credibility to his actions.

It doesn't help that the conspiracy theories the tabloid was publishing were mostly right in the end.
>>20342245
The best part of Watchmen is the pirate comic.

>> No.20344036

>>20344018
>The best part of Watchmen is the pirate comic.
You mean the comic itself, or the integration of the comic into the story? I really enjoyed seeing how that story paralleled the actions of ozy and maybe others as well.

>> No.20344037

>>20342300
Not same anon but this place is full of reddit stereotypes so I kind of don't have friends.

If you look at my views on abortion I stand against it because carrying a kid makes women miserable and moody, I would say increasing temporary pain serves the ends of production of vitality. That I think is a quite original moral/ethical stance.

>> No.20344074

>>20344036
The integration of the comic into the story.

>> No.20344650

>>20342679
>has grown quite a bit
Ok brainlet

>> No.20344659

>>20342263
>>20342518
You're talking to retarded zoomers who think you're a good person if you "aren't an asshole", so there's no possibility of ever reasoning with them.

>> No.20344670

>>20342300
If you're not interested in an intellectual discussion then you shouldn't chime in with your crap.

>> No.20345132

>>20343861
Well done, Anon, for understanding my point. The first battle of discourse is won.

I agree with your addition, the personal vs. social. But mostly, I just want to reiterate that, as fallible men, we don't have all the information of any given subject. Thus, we cannot with accuracy classify things as black or white, particularly if acting spur of the moment like Rorschach. This is where the illusion of "gray area" comes from. It's just the consideration of as much info as we can get our hands on.

>> No.20345149

>>20342514
but bruh its because ypipo have smol pp and then oppreshun for 400 years obama told me so

>> No.20345162

>>20343857
This.

>> No.20345205

WHOOOOOOO

IS THAT...A HECKIN...... SUPER DUPER HERO BOOK? I FUCKING LOVE MARVEL. I FUCKING LOVE DC. WHOOOAH DUDE.

DUDE WHOOOH. AWSOME LET ME READ THAT SHIT. IS THAT HECKIN OHMONOMONOPEA? IM GONNNA LIKE WOW HECK KAPOWOOOOM.

>> No.20345229

>>20345205
Touch grass or kill yourself. Either would be an absolute good for the world.

>> No.20345243

>>20345229
>defending capeshit
>with an admonishment to touch grass
oh the ironing

>> No.20345272

>>20343857
Children, without exception, are idiots.

>> No.20345341

>>20342227
Nothing, if you can base it on something coherent. That's where people generally fail.

>> No.20345725

>>20342227
Man enforces duality on the world as an evolutionary convenience and our natural predilection for that extends into our conceptions of morality which is entirely human constructed and not actually a real thing

>> No.20345940

>>20342692
>Famously, Alan Moore accidentally made him too sympathetic
He's meant to be very sympathetic, yet still irredeemably flawed. That's what a well-written character is.

>The only other characters you could root for where an enlightened ubermensch who basically threw away his humanity and an emotionally stunted god
There's also Nite Owl - the eternal spineless everyman.

>>20342775
>Or at least, I felt that he wasn't clearly wrong (was he supposed to be in Moore's eyes?)
He is clearly wrong, and the other option being just as wrong doesn't make him right. That's how Moore undoes him - serve someone who's about black and while a choice of black and black.

>> No.20346179

The way Rorschach breaks the mind of his psychologist seemed like it was rushed, the
doctor seemed to have a pretty low tolerance for mental trauma, still enjoyed that issue, just saying.

>> No.20346306 [SPOILER] 
File: 384 KB, 905x1426, 1652122967501.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20346306

>>20345940
Manhattan’s last panel. I thought the thread could enjoy

>> No.20346536

>>20345229
Cope and seethe, capeshit fan, cope and seethe.

>> No.20346572

>>20346536
Being unable to appreciate a work like Watchmen tells me you’re either insecure and pretentious or actually retarded

>> No.20346783

>>20346572
>tells me you’re either insecure
Literal shit soijack redditors say, kek.

>> No.20346824

>>20346783
Redditors HAHA kek, blaaarpp eh heh heh, another capeshitter ow—bhlaaarghrlp, owned, heh heh, THPPTPHTPHPHHPH, heh whoops just shat myself again, heh let me wipe this shit with my cape

>> No.20346887

>>20346824
You'll never be a super hero.

>> No.20346897

>>20342518
Have YOU ever thought maybe you are evil?

>> No.20346898
File: 53 KB, 413x394, drape.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20346898

>>20346783
LOL at this deflection

>> No.20346905

>>20345205
>saying this of the greatest refutal of capeshit ever written

>> No.20346922

>>20342227
If things were perfect we wouldn't be here