Quote:
Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
People will read what they want to read, will think what they want to think, and will do what they want to do with it.
Although the latter is the domain that society obviously has real concern about since what is done affects others, said society may decide that it has a vested interest in prevention of those things it deems worth stopping, and may take measures to discourage thinking about such things.
Obviously, if someone never is exposed to sado-masochism, rape, murder, you name it, his chances of thinking about it are greatly reduced, and thus his chances of acting on it are as well. Each society has to decide for itself where to draw the line. And you can bet that in a free society, someone is going to "raise cain" no matter where the line is drawn.
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I'd also note that both artists and audience have their own visions and world views on how various realities work or ought to work. Tolkien knew what he was doing. He walked his own line between the beauty of fairie and the ugliness of war. How does one measure the distance between Lorien and the Dead Marshes? I'm not going to second guess that line. This isn't to say that other writers and other audiences don't have other themes.