I don't generally fly entirely blind. I quite like researching things about different periods. For The Steampunk in particular I did some research on how clocks and watches of the period worked because we have a character with a clockwork heart and we wanted to know if there was a way we could allow him to run or become excited without overworking it. (Or without him having some sort of heart attack because his heart WOULDN'T move that quickly.) And I've done lots of research on slang and clothing for the original era, thought it will be altered some, because the world we're working in is not entirely the real world. I just don't think that keeping some things that are fanciful is detrimental to the process.
I also thought that was a bit of a ridiculous argument. While I do spend a lot of time telling my father he can't just call people niggers (because there's a difference between them and black people, didn't you know) and that he can't slag off people of differing sexualities in my presence or I may well never talk to him again, I know he's not a bad person. He's a product of his environment, and he's better by a longshot than his own father.
Arthur Conan Doyle is an interesting case. He was especially left thinking in his ideas of homosexuals. For the time anyway. I don't think I'd get away with considering it a mental problem, but that's better than most people saw it. And it's curious that people find him sexist or racist, because nothing I've read by him struck me that way. Especially next to some of his contemporaries. To, though, it was pointed out in that first panel that the people in the room were probably more educated than the general public and able to tell the difference between sympathizing with a character and sympathizing with his ideals. And also capable of reading Victorian literature with the ideals of the era in mind rather than trying to lay it over our current set.
Amis I'm not familiar with, but I'll have to look him up. I do spend more time than I should wondering how people come into their opinions. Especially when they live in the world I live in. Of course, no one lives in exactly the same world as me, so that might not be a fair thing to consider. This could go in circles all day. Some days I wonder why I ever gave up on that Psych major. ;)
no subject
I also thought that was a bit of a ridiculous argument. While I do spend a lot of time telling my father he can't just call people niggers (because there's a difference between them and black people, didn't you know) and that he can't slag off people of differing sexualities in my presence or I may well never talk to him again, I know he's not a bad person. He's a product of his environment, and he's better by a longshot than his own father.
Arthur Conan Doyle is an interesting case. He was especially left thinking in his ideas of homosexuals. For the time anyway. I don't think I'd get away with considering it a mental problem, but that's better than most people saw it. And it's curious that people find him sexist or racist, because nothing I've read by him struck me that way. Especially next to some of his contemporaries. To, though, it was pointed out in that first panel that the people in the room were probably more educated than the general public and able to tell the difference between sympathizing with a character and sympathizing with his ideals. And also capable of reading Victorian literature with the ideals of the era in mind rather than trying to lay it over our current set.
Amis I'm not familiar with, but I'll have to look him up. I do spend more time than I should wondering how people come into their opinions. Especially when they live in the world I live in. Of course, no one lives in exactly the same world as me, so that might not be a fair thing to consider. This could go in circles all day. Some days I wonder why I ever gave up on that Psych major. ;)