Twain, Part One and more

[David Morris]

>From: Bandwraith at aol.com
>Is it exploitative to make a career out of portraying the misfortune of 
>others and selling the product to those responsible for that misfortune- 
>either actively or passively- under the guise of being a writer of fiction, 
>and then to lead a comfortable upper class life with black servants, some 
>of whose tragic real life stories Mr. Twain even capitalized on?

In the same regard then it it exploitive of YOU - either actively or 
passively - to do anything other than model your life after that of Mother 
Teresa.  Going to your nine-to-five is capitalizing on the fact that the 
poor and uneducated can't get your nine-to-five.  Such a criticism is both 
hypocritical and silly.

>
>[I think you are playing fast and loose with words and analogies, and are 
>thus wrong in your charges.]
>
>And I think you are playing fast and loose with how you are snipping up my 
>posts!

How so?  Where have I mischaracterized your words by my snipping?

>Twain was cultivating his own reputation. I do not think him
>"evil" but I am not persuaded that he wasn't as interested
>in his own aggrandizement as he was in "helping" the plight
>of the characters he was portraying. He would be the last
>person to cast himself in the saintly light you are trying to
>shine on him. He lived well. What happened to Jim?

Jim was a fictional character.  Twain was a writer, not a nun.  Were real 
black people hurt by his writing?  Were they helped?  What have YOU done to 
help lately?

David Morris

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