fandomhigh | Ethics Class, Monday, 2-4pm

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ethics

Ethics Class, Monday, 2-4pm

"Over the course of this term, we've looked a lot at your personal moral stance on things. Today we're going to be looking more generally - on how morals are taught to children, often insidiously.

"A good medium for this is fairy tales. Every culture has them - stories that are told to children, bearing little moral gems to shape and guide. The first thing I want you to do is a select a fairy tale. Don't worry if it's not one I'll know, just pick one you're familiar with."

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"Okay. Got your fairy tale? Good. Now, pick it apart. What are the ethical concerns and considerations. What messages are actually being taught to children?

"To give you an example of what I mean - Goldilocks breaks into someone's house. She steals their food and destroys their belongings. And yet, she's the heroine of the story, the one that children are supposed to identify with. There are two possible messages that could be told here. One is that a hungry person in need of succour can take refuge anywhere, and that the normal laws of society are waived in such an instance. The other is that courteous behaviour is not required to those who are less than human.

"So what about yours? What does your fairy tale actually say?"

"I've always found Cinderella to be quite distasteful. Here's a young girl enslaved by her stepmother and stepsisters, forced to do all sorts of manual labor, and what is the solution of the tale? To sell her into more opulent slavery using a glass slipper as a bartering tool. Disgusting."

"As I remember the tale, she wanted that 'more opulent slavery'. Does her free and willing participation make it more, or less disgusting as a moral tale for children?"

"More. The fact that she felt that one slavery was the only choice she had to escape from another is just an example of the mindless programming that was performed on her by society since she was too young to comprehend."

"Hansel and Gretel - aside from being really, really ugly kids in real life? - were kind of greedy little brats too. Granted, in the story they fell into a trap, and the witch was hoping they'd eat her house. But she wasn't entirely out of line in saying they were rude for doing it, and taking it out of Gretel's hide in housework. The plans to eat them might be a bit overboard though.

It's got the same thing about laws not applying if you're hungry that Goldilocks does, but since it's candy and they pretty much make pigs of themselves, they're not exactly that guy from Les Miserables. It also seems to teach kids that if somebody sets up a situation where you can act like a jerk, then it's not your fault if you fall for it, even if you know better."

Tara nods, obviously pleased with that analysis. "And what about their killing the witch at the end?"

"Well, she meant to eat them, so it comes off as self-defense, which seems ok to teach kids, but it's awfully harsh self-defense," Xander says. "It's pretty eye-for-an-eye there, instead of teaching them to just run like hell if they get a chance to get out of a bad situation."

"I guess in Snow White, the message is ... I don't know, stepmothers are evil? Um. No, I guess it's that -- family is where you find it, you can't judge people by how they look, and then something kind of sexist about women needing to be saved all the time or not really being, like, alive until they fall in love."

"There's some good morals in there," Tara agrees. "Now, Snow White was written a long time ago... do you think her being saved by the dwarves and then the Prince is an issue for today's children? How would you rewrite it, if you could?"

"I think that a lot of little girls still really want to be the princess, you know? I used to," Angela says, thoughtful. "So for that reason, I would rewrite it. It doesn't really matter if the dwarves are male or female, so maybe I could make it a mixed-gender group. Or make the prince who saves her a princess, to show that gender isn't as important as love."

Bluebeard. It's about obedience and having to deal with the consequences of your actions if you step over boundaries. Like the wife in Bluebeard unlocked the door she wasn't supposed to unlock, and then she couldn't get the blood off the key, so Bluebeard knew she'd done it. You can't escape your own actions. In the end, though, Bluebeard had to die because, even though he thought he was just punishing his wives for disobedience, he still slaughtered women, so he couldn't get away with it in the end. But the point wasn't that the wife got away with her disobedience, but that bad things *could* happen if you're disobedient, so it's better not to take your chances.

"Little Red Riding Hood always kind of offended me because I don't think anyone would be that stupid."

Laughing, Tara nods. "I'll agree with that. But what about the ethics of it? Is it saying that bad things happen to stupid people?"

"Well," John started, "There's the raven and the woodpecker, or something like that. A long-billed bird and a short-billed bird are presented with a narrow vase of water. The two birds are thirsty and only the long-billed bird can reach the water. The long-billed bird laughs at the short-billed bird until the short-billed bird starts putting stones in the vase, enough stones so that the displaced water reaches the top and the short-billed bird can drink."

He exhales. "Here you have a bully, a nerd, and some idiot that leaves water in vases. And the moral is, I guess, that if you don't have the natural ability to do something, you've gotta be crafty to get the same thing done. And that snotty people suck."

~~"And the mun couldn't find a robot related one, dammit!"~~

Tara laughs softly. "Yes. Snotty people suck. So are you comfortable with the moral lessons that teaches children? Sometimes people suck, and you have to fend for yourself?"

John looks at Tara for longer than socially acceptable before stating, flatly, "Yes. And then the robots come."

"Well, Sleeping Beauty isn't so bad, I don't think. She's the victim of abuse from her stepmother...or maybe I'm getting that mixed up with Cinderella? Or Snow White? They all have abusive stepmothers, really. But Sleeping Beauty gets cursed with a curse that can only be broken by true love's kiss." Chloe makes a face. "I guess it's actually saying that love can conquer anything, even decades-long curses? Like I said, I don't think that fairy tale is so bad."

"Love conquers all is a nice message," Tara agrees. "What about her parent's reaction to the curse? They ban spinning wheels from her birth, so she's never seen one, and then when she does she's so curious she touches it, and pricks her finger as prophesied. Are there ethical issues there?"

Angel thought about it. "Rapunzel seems to suggest that all girls need to do is sit and look pretty and wait for some guy to come rescue them."

"Rumpelstiltskin kind of taught kids that lying and trickery and paying people off are the ways to succeed in life. The girl and her dad lie about her being able to spin straw into gold so she can go marry the king, and then she pays off the little guy to do it for her and barters her non-existent kid for it, and then she backs out of the deal and uses everything she's got to find out his name. And then he tears himself to bits, which is just kind of creepy. It's like, hey kids, lie about everything and sell your offspring and everything will turn out great!"

Well, I dunno any from my people, but you guys have this "Jack and the Beanstalk" story. Where some...some frelling stupid kid trades his animal for some beans that are apparently magic or something, which says that stupidity is...is rewarded or somethin'. Then he makes friends with this really tall lady just so he can steal her stuff and kill her husband. And he's the good guy I think. So...so I think it's saying that as long as you can get away with it, stealing's good. And murder too, I guess.

Tara blinks, taken aback a little at this frank description of the story - but really, it's perfectly accurate.

"Thank you, Chiana."

There's really nothing else to say.

"There was one about a frog. The Frog Prince. The princess in the story is horrible to the frog, even though he helped her. Foul woman. And then he turned out to be a prince, but she didn't know that until she tried to kill him. She's rewarded for being wicked. He marries her. I think it is supposed to show that you cannot judge by appearances, but really it's showing that someone is not worthy of consideration unless they are beautiful."

"That's a wonderful analysis," Tara replies softly. "If you could rewrite the story, how would you fix it? To send a better message?"

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Ethics Class, Monday, 2-4pm

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