Writing About Things vs Glorifying Them
glo·ri·fi·ca·tionˌɡlôrəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/
noun
1.the action of describing or representing something as admirable, especially unjustifiably.“I don’t like the glorification of violence”
To glorify something is to show it in a good light or hold it up as an example of how things should be done. When you glorify something, you make an implicit value judgment or moral statement about the way the world should work.
Generally speaking: Glorification occurs when an action that would have consequences in real life is presented in fiction without those consequences.
This is most problematic in instances where the reader may not be aware that the real-life action has consequences, and where they might be in a position to act out the events presented in the story expecting them to turn out the way they did in fiction rather than the way they most likely will happen in real life.
Moral Judgments
There are three factors at work whenever we talk about this topic:
The way the world actually is (realism)
The way we think that the world should be (moral judgment)
The way events are portrayed in a story (fiction)
Morals inform fiction, and fiction informs our morals, and both morality and fiction inform reality, and that is an inescapable fact of the human experience.
We might prefer that our fiction be treated purely as make-believe, with no expectation of realism or moral judgment, but we must understand and accept as creators that this wish will not always be respected. A long, long history of storytelling within the human race is working against us in that regard. We are creatures wired for story, and we’ve looked to stories to provide us with a road map for life for millennia. We’re not likely to stop doing that any time soon. Whatever your intentions, when you create a story you have to accept that some people will take it as life advice, or a morality tale, or a reflection of what the real world looks like – and though the individual interpretations a person might apply to a story are not your responsibility, you do have some responsibility as a creator to anticipate how your words will reasonably be interpreted by most people…and you have to be prepared to live with that, whatever the message may be.
Now, with that foundation laid…buckle in, because things are about to get sticky.
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