There has always been a big debate about art and whether or not any ethical considerations should limit artists in their scope of inquiry. Recently on March 31st 2017, a Netflix original called 13 reasons why sparked the internet with controversy, argument, and debate due to it's subject. This teen drama is about a high-school student named Hannah Baker who suicides and leaves 13 tapes to 13 different people. Each of these people had 1 tape dedicated to them, which they all heard. As the tapes continue, we go through the days/weeks before her suicide and all the events that led her to this. Almost immediately, suicide prevention experts were concerned people would suicide and follow this path. In July a research published at JAMA Internal Medicine showed that people searched about suicide almost 20% more in 19 days and 900,000 to 1.5 million more searches than normal. Of course this sparked a lot of controversy and debate. In fact, Netflix almost had to pull the show off, and ban it because of all the hate it caused, and all the increased suicide conversations going on due to this. This all leads back to the central question of whether or not any ethical considerations should limit artists in their scope of inquiry. Personally, I believe that there are many topics that are obviously controversial and artists discussing these topics in their body of work should be careful. Some of these topics include racism, and suicide. So I think that artists should take certain ethical considerations into their work however this should not stop them from releasing art even though it can cause widespread controversy. Many pieces of art help convey different emotions that can't necessarily be put in words. Art itself is a manner of self-expression and due to this I find that there should be no problem with different topics that can spark debate and argument. In fact, the emotions you feel from reading different topics can help you better understand yourself as a person. Subconsciously everyone has different opinions on different topics and seeing something talk about a topic such as this, can make you react in a way you didn't think you would. As said before, some emotions and thoughts can't necessarily be conveyed in words, and a good way to express your beliefs on a topic would be through an art form. You will learn more about yourself if you release your thoughts creatively on an art form as your true feelings will be expressed as you go along.
The somatic marker theory, originally proposed by Antoni Damasio suggests that the way we process emotions and feelings can give us a subconscious bias to change our actions, affecting our social behavior. He was a neuroscientist and based this theory off actual parts of our brain. We all have things called 'somatic markers', which are body signals sent from our brain such as a rapid heartbeat, which allow us to process emotions clearly.
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