Moral Dilemmas Are Us

Some people have philosophy degrees, some people have qualifications in ethics, some people have Google, or You Tube, or Chat GPT. Some people have God. Well, I’ve got God, but I’ve also got Christine. Today, I need her in my corner. I have a moral dilemma.

I phone her up.

“Madam!”

“Is that Christine, Christine Jones?”

“Yes…”

“Christine Jones of Moral Dilemmas Are Us, no problem too small…?”

She laughs in a groany kind of a way.

“Oh God - what is it this time?”

I think I’m on Christine’s loyalty scheme gold package. Her services are very good. I lay out my quandary. She’s got her work cut out for her this time.

The issue is one of Story. Who owns the Story.

I’m writing something where there are several other parties involved. It’s for an essay that I’m hoping to send for publication, and there are many strands of stories from other people running through it, who I know, or don’t know, to varying degrees, and from a number of different contexts.

Emails have been sent.

One of them is straightforward. A professional who said something off hand, and I’m name checking him and his job in the essay. The correct thing to do is to check the quote with him, which I’ve done, and he’s rewritten it, taking out a degree of colour, which is slightly disappointing but fair enough.

There is another story I tell, of someone I met in the street, completely anonymised, no way of knowing who. That’s fine by my standards. One story I tell is of a film I made, which is stored in the British Library and a matter of public record. In the essay I quote from the film. No problem there.

I think I’ve negotiated this correctly so far.

However, I do have in there stories of other people, where the ownership is debatable, and to be negotiated carefully. The most difficult of them is an incredibly traumatic tale, which I came across in a professional context, where the person was disempowered and voiceless. There is also a story where through NHS error, I came across someone’s ancient mental health medical records. The further complication is that the focus of the essay is about being able to tell stories, who holds the ultimate version, is there an ultimate version, and so on.

Christine sighs. We discuss how to approach emails to be sent and permissions sought. Stories are complicated.

Christine and I back in the day (at the launch of Moral Dilemmas are Us…?)

I’ve got a story out for approval with my husband at the moment, I say, brightly.

I scan your posts for when you’re writing about me, Christine says. She’s generally happy with her mentions.

Immediate action plan resolved, but there are things I’m still mulling over.

As a firm believer that everyone should have their own voice, and as someone with a medical record inches thick, I tie myself in knots about this stuff. There’s no such thing as facts I don’t think, in history, but there is consensus of opinion. However, consensus of opinion is an utter mare if you’ve ever been mad, because either you have to abandon your own story when you recover, cross the sanity rubicon, and agree with everyone else, or you have to stick on the far side of the river, aligning yourself with the ragtag community that you temporarily made in the hospital.

I think I’ve come up with the answer to the traumatic tale dilemma, which is of genre.

I’m not going to say that the facts in the story are true. Who could say that, even if they were in the room, or had the tape recording. They’re just a version of the truth. What I am going to say, though, is that the genre of the writing is life writing. Even if it reads like fiction, it’s not. I’m not that good of a writer to make that story up.

There’s no such thing as an individual story unless you’re on a desert island. So if you’re going to tell stories, you have to think of the ethics. I’m not made up of just me, I’m all the stories I’ve found along the way, and I’m an inveterate collector of stories.

There is a safety valve here. I’ve got a self protection device that is helpful both ways, because I’ve frequently found that if someone tells me a tale of deep trauma, I’m so vicariously traumatised that I almost immediately forget it, and can’t pass it on. Your secrets are safe with me. I’d make a terrible therapist.

But I am an avid collector of interesting titbits, and people have such interesting titbits that it would be a shame to waste them. Hence my frequent dilemmas.

I’ve got to go, said Christine. She charges by the hour.

We debated whether this came under my monthly subscription or whether it was an add on. I did, she reminded me, ask for the Gold package. It sounds like an in person meeting would be more appropriate for that kind of level of service, next time.

Before you start thinking that I’m going to have to write a story of the moral dilemma of writing a story about moral dilemmas, Christine has already agreed this article in principle, and will get full approval and edits of the draft. She’s always happy to promote Moral Dilemmas Are Us and the excellent work they do in the community.

If you do phone up MDAR - no problem too small - remember that it’s patent pending. Copyright is in process, and any attempt to replicate the package structure - well, they’ll take a dim view. But I would recommend using them. The service level on the Gold package is exemplary.

PS - yes, Christine did get full approval - this is our WhatsApp exchange about the photo to share…