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This approach - our morality is simply what we've been taught is simply another form of denying the artist has anything to teach us, & that all we find in a work of art is what we bring to it, everything is subjective.
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davem - I do not say that all we take from a text is that which we (consciously or not) seek to find within it:
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When a person reads, for example, a political text, they are looking for a meaning, but those parts which resonate with their own experience are the parts which they will take most away from. And, a reader will also pick up on other parts of a text and assimilate this as a new aspect of their 'truth'.
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This I view as part of the process of reading and engaging in culture in general. We view the text with our own, individual eyes and minds, and we recognise aspects which do resonate within our own experience. But we also learn
new things, new 'truths'. I wouldn't try to deny this! But exactly what these truths are that we are learning from any one text, they could well be different from what the next person is picking up on.
I for one, should hate to think that there is a right and a wrong way to understand a text, as this would reduce the pleasure in reading and re-reading, throughout the many and various stages in my life; each time I go back to reading LOTR I have been through new experiences and the text resonates in many different ways each time. Perhaps I respond to my reading on a deep emotional level to some degree, but to do otherwise would seem clinical to me.
I have one example here of how my own 'truth' changed and how it affected my reading of LOTR. Before I suffered a massive accident I had always read Frodo's behaviour as being entirely attributable to the power of the ring and thought at no deeper level about this matter; now with my new experience, I can see Frodo's actions and reactions in the light of my own experience, and I see my suffering reflected in his. Others would not accept this at all, but this is not wrong of them.
And another thing. This is a good discussion, and I am learning a lot from it, but there are people who would think it was morally wrong to discuss the nature of morality at all.