Shakespeare vs human

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Would you save the last copy os Shakespeare's works or a random person?

Person
109
91%
Literature
11
9%
 
Total votes: 120

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Noble Ire
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Post by Noble Ire »

Whether one really likes his style or not (of what I've read of him, the only play I really enjoyed was Much Ado About Nothing), Shakespeare's works bear signficance in that they can serve to inspire new authors in the creation of new entertainment and cultural fixtures, and for that, they do have a somewhat extraordinary value. However, the same can be said of any number of great authors, and even some not so great ones; in short, even if Shakespeare's light disappears from the world, others, many inspired by the Bard themselves, will remain. Now, if the the book in question contained the sum total of all human literature, philosophy, and culture for all time, I might have a different answer, but as it stands, the random person wins out.
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Post by rhoenix »

Knife wrote:The wording of the OP is vague, but the whole excersize is to determin which is more importent; human life or an article. That some like the article more than a vague and unidentified human life, the sick bitches are choosing it.
True. If I absolutely had to choose, I'd pick the person, but at least make the attempt to get both, is basically the view I was evincing.
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Post by Knife »

Noble Ire wrote:Whether one really likes his style or not (of what I've read of him, the only play I really enjoyed was Much Ado About Nothing), Shakespeare's works bear signficance in that they can serve to inspire new authors in the creation of new entertainment and cultural fixtures, and for that, they do have a somewhat extraordinary value. However, the same can be said of any number of great authors, and even some not so great ones; in short, even if Shakespeare's light disappears from the world, others, many inspired by the Bard themselves, will remain. Now, if the the book in question contained the sum total of all human literature, philosophy, and culture for all time, I might have a different answer, but as it stands, the random person wins out.
If all art and culture were obliterated tomarrow, new art and culture would start to spring up sometime Monday. It's not worth killing innocents for, nor allowing innocents to die from lack of action.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by Rye »

I hate people, but I hate Shakespeare more. The human survives. :P
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Post by Noble Ire »

Knife wrote:
Noble Ire wrote:Whether one really likes his style or not (of what I've read of him, the only play I really enjoyed was Much Ado About Nothing), Shakespeare's works bear signficance in that they can serve to inspire new authors in the creation of new entertainment and cultural fixtures, and for that, they do have a somewhat extraordinary value. However, the same can be said of any number of great authors, and even some not so great ones; in short, even if Shakespeare's light disappears from the world, others, many inspired by the Bard themselves, will remain. Now, if the the book in question contained the sum total of all human literature, philosophy, and culture for all time, I might have a different answer, but as it stands, the random person wins out.
If all art and culture were obliterated tomarrow, new art and culture would start to spring up sometime Monday. It's not worth killing innocents for, nor allowing innocents to die from lack of action.
Note the "might". I was simply saying that I'd probably have more reservations about my choice, but it would in all likelihood remain the same.
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Post by Zero »

I don't see a real dillema here. Art is cool and all, but... I mean... so what? Art is only useful in its ability to entertain humans, and there's such a vast body of artwork from which to draw this same entertainment anyways, so it wouldn't be missed much by anyone in particular. Not as much as a person, at least, and a person actually has the ability to want to live, unlike a piece of art. I don't see why anyone would choose the artwork.
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Post by Metatwaddle »

The more I read that thread, the more I'm convinced that saving the person is the right choice. I had a knee-jerk moment of "OMG, what would we do without Shakespeare?", but logically and morally the person is the right one to save.

The "Shakespeare has influenced literary tradition" line of reasoning is especially unconvincing, because it still holds that literature is more valuable than people.
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Post by Cyborg Stan »

They're a bunch of idiots. (Or, at least 50% of them.) A few things I'll note...

Idiots whining about how life without luxury isn't worth living. Apparently, it's okay to carpet nuke third world countries now. That, and if they want to turn Shakespheare into all luxury, I suppose it would only be fair to turn the random person into 'all humanity'.

I can really see only one person who even mentions the existence of other literature to compare in the thread. Irony!

It may be helpful to ask a slightly different question : Would you burn a person alive to become the next Shakespheare? Ask how this is any different from leaving a person inside the burning building just to save Shakespheare's works.
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Post by Ryushikaze »

I'd definitely save the person first, but if I thought I had enough time, I'd fling Shakespeare out the window. If it's large enough to pose a hindrace, it's sturdy enough to survive being flung out a window.
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Post by Kuroneko »

When I encountered this thread, I immediately recalled a similar event in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, except that Shakespeare is replaced by a (now genuinely lost) book of Aristotle. Speaking personally, that would make it somewhat more tempting, but `no' in either case. Now, if instead of Shakespeare, it was something with much more direct and beneficial potential impact on civilization, e.g., the last comprehensive book of chemistry in the world (say, this is a post-apocalyptic world), that would be a different matter.
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Post by RedImperator »

Perhaps to short-circuit clever attempts to save both, we should say each are locked in a separate windowless closet, you don't have the keys, the doors are too heavy to kick down, and you only have time to pick one lock. The point of the exercise is to decide which is more valuable to you, not find loopholes in the OP.

Anyway, much as I like Shakespeare, I'm not about to condemn a person to burn to death over a book.
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Post by Molyneux »

Query for those who would choose the person:

I would choose, if I were in the position of the person requiring saving, for the rescuer to save the book.

Is it ethical to, in this situation, assume that the person I could choose to rescue thinks the same way (assuming that I don't know the results of the poll in this thread)?
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Post by rhoenix »

Molyneux wrote:Is it ethical to, in this situation, assume that the person I could choose to rescue thinks the same way (assuming that I don't know the results of the poll in this thread)?
I would venture to say that one person's ethical code of conduct may differ from another's. Therefore, the assumption that the other person may or may not do the same for me isn't relevant - saving the other person would still be the ethical thing to do for me.
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Post by Junghalli »

Person, without a doubt.

Personally, since I don't believe in an afterlife, I view the destruction of human life as an incredibly grave matter. That's a person who will effectively cease to exist. Who will never experience another moment of consciousness. Who will never see the sunrise tomorrow, or his parents grow old, or his children grow up etc. I find that an incredibly scary thought, and it's an extremely serious matter to make that decision for another man.

In cases where other human lives may be saved or likely materially improved by his death it would be one thing. But a work of fiction, even an excellent one, simply is not worth depriving a person of life.
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Post by Molyneux »

rhoenix wrote:
Molyneux wrote:Is it ethical to, in this situation, assume that the person I could choose to rescue thinks the same way (assuming that I don't know the results of the poll in this thread)?
I would venture to say that one person's ethical code of conduct may differ from another's. Therefore, the assumption that the other person may or may not do the same for me isn't relevant - saving the other person would still be the ethical thing to do for me.
So for me, the ethical choice would be to save the book?
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Post by rhoenix »

Molyneux wrote:So for me, the ethical choice would be to save the book?
I was simply saying that an assumption cannot be made about another person's ethical code or behavior without prior knowledge. In your case, you might pick the book - or, you might not. Your reasons are your own, guided by one's ethics.

I know which I'd pick, but just because I would choose a certain way does not necessarily mean that everyone else will.
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Post by RedImperator »

Molyneux wrote:Query for those who would choose the person:

I would choose, if I were in the position of the person requiring saving, for the rescuer to save the book.

Is it ethical to, in this situation, assume that the person I could choose to rescue thinks the same way (assuming that I don't know the results of the poll in this thread)?
Absolutely not. You know full well that most people, even those who love Shakespeare (a minority to begin with) would chose to not burn to death. You can't justify saving the book by assuming your extremely unusual viewpoint is shared by a total stranger. You might as well just assume he's a serial killer, so the world is better off with him dead; the odds are about the same, I'd imagine, and you have just as much basis for making the assumption.
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Post by Sofia »

Hey, four people who voted for Shakespeare! Show yourselves!

It would be interesting to hear your reasoning.
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Post by lgot »

Of course the work of Shakespeare is worth and have more impact, as art have, than one people life (as Shakespeare was one people life after all) but just because that, it need no salvation. After that is one copy of shakespeare, not his art. Just a bunch of papers.
If you know him enough to have to make the choice, then it means, his art and impact are already there, impossible to be destroyed. Bring the human, save life and have both.
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Post by Xess »

I'd save the person, a few plays are hardly worth a person's life. And it's not like the core ideas of the plays would be lost forever anyway. How hard is it to think of "Boy meets girl, they fall in love, parents don't approve" or "Betrayed by trusted friend". The only moral action is to save the person.
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Post by Darth Servo »

Save the person.

1) People have feelings and rights. A piece of literature, however important does not.
2) Shakespear is crap. This will mean no more forcing high school kids to read this stuff even though they don't understand most of what is going on.
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Post by The Yosemite Bear »

it was all stolen from the greeks anyways, put me down for the person...
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Post by Elfdart »

With so many actors, teachers and scholars who can recite the works of Shakespeare without needing the text, why the fuck are these morons concerned about the book?
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Post by Knife »

Elfdart wrote:With so many actors, teachers and scholars who can recite the works of Shakespeare without needing the text, why the fuck are these morons concerned about the book?
Again, their shoehorning a situation so you can choose between a human life and an article, in their case an article they apperently adore. It's fairly disgusting.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by RedImperator »

Elfdart wrote:With so many actors, teachers and scholars who can recite the works of Shakespeare without needing the text, why the fuck are these morons concerned about the book?
I had assumed for the purposes of this scenario that information was somehow magically wiped from everyone's brain. If it hasn't been, then this is a complete no-brainer: there are thousands of Shakespeare companies who could reconstruct the plays from memory. That's how many of the plays were originally published to begin with: printers would pay actors to write them down from memory. Shakespeare never published any of them; he was strictly a playwright and an actor.

The sonnets and epic poems would be harder to recover, but there really weren't that many and most if not all have probably been commited to memory somewhere. I think it's cheating to answer the OP "Well, I'll save the guy because we can reconstruct Shakespeare", since the intent of the question is "Do you value the works of Shakespeare more than the life of a stranger". But in a realistic scenario, the plays are in no danger even if every written copy is lost.
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