Should artists who glorify murder, rape, and violence in their music be held morally responsible for how their lyrics impact their impressionable consumers?

Ivan (No)

We start down a questionable path when we ask artists to self-censor the morality of their work. Morality is built into the artist’s sensibility (we all have developed some moral sense), but it may be one that doesn’t coincide with mainstream morality. To ask the artist to self-censor is then to ask them to impose a moral sense on their work that isn’t their own. The artist’s interior morality would already be at work in the artist’s composition. Any additional censoring would be external rather than internal. If the artist is held morally responsible, then the set of morals we impose is societal morals rather than the artist’s own. This sets a dangerous precedent. The very nature of art is to push the boundaries of society, to stretch the limits of conventional morality. If we ask artists to sanitize work based on conventional mores, we at best produce artists who create bland work, and, at worst, we set the stage for art that reinforces some of society’s worst impulses or that puts the artist on trial for being unconventional.

It’s important not to promote violence in any form, but to ask the artist to be morally responsible is to open the door to censorship. We live in a pluralistic society in which we navigate a wide range of moral sensibilities every day. We have to decide how we imbibe both the best and the worst moral messages we encounter, but we can’t ask others to change their ways of thinking simply to make us feel safe.

Cornelle (Yes)

Artists must have a certain amount of creative freedom in order to effectively express

themselves. That also applies to people in general who don’t necessarily consider themselves

“artists” – there’s a little bit of an artist in all of us. However, we live in a society where we must

consider how the exercise of our freedoms affect those around us. That consideration becomes

even more important when a person or group has the ability and/or desire to influence

thousands and millions – especially when those thousands and millions are in large part young

consumers.

There’s a difference between music that critiques/discusses violence present in our society and

music that makes it cool to commit violent acts. Artist that produces music glorifying murder,

violence, and rape should be held morally responsible for how their lyrics influence their

listeners. The average American between 8 and 18 years old listens to music for approximately

2.5 hours per day. 1 Narrowed down to teenagers, that number increases to around 4 hours per

day. 2 People in general are impressionable – even more so in those formative youth and

teenage years. Artists who exploit that demographic to build a fanbase and ultimately a source

of income should consider how violent lyrics affect the development of these fans. Violent

music doesn’t automatically make a peaceful person violent. However, such music can

encourage people to give in to violent impulses, and artists should be held responsible for the

violence their music can invoke.