Can you separate an author from his or her work?

[tomBitonti]

Well, aren't there really no rules for this? As a question of whether a particular person can or should modify their view to a work or their behavior with respect to a particular artist and their works, isn't that an individual question? One is free to make what adjustments one see's fit, with the constraints that particular adjustments may be easier or harder to make.

There is a different matter, of how well an individual's views convey to ones peers, or to society (either in the small or the large), but that is a different matter.

As an extreme example: One might be put off by airport searches, and find them to be an governmental overreach. Then, one can choose not to fly. Well within ones prerogative, but with clear consequences. A person can choose to not patronize Orson Scott Card, Woody Allen, or Roman Polasky, based on their actions, with smaller but still real costs (say, alienation of some folks who make different choices).

One can study the technical artistry of a work while accepting the flaws (perhaps the very great moral failings) of the artist. Indeed, the juxtaposition of great artistry and great flaws, and the study thereof, can provide a lot of deep insights into people and generally how our minds work. But, that study doesn't need to imply any approval or any deep patronage.

Certainly, one is expected to weigh the meaning of an artist's work in the context of the artist's life experience? Why should the meaning of a work be impacted only in changing our understanding of the work, and not change our behavior towards the artist and the work as well?

Actions have consequences. As well: no information is truly independent of any other information; there is only a separation in degree.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

TV, friends, school yard, listening to adults talking, etc. What she said wasn't very complicated. He put fingers in me.

Perhaps I wasn't clear before. This is heading in the direction I mentioned upthread, with fans going at each other over their beliefs on a case, and we shouldn't go there. We will not determine the facts here. And I severely doubt either of you will convince the other. This is unlikely to go anywhere other than acrimony.

So, please stop this line of discussion.

 

[Mikaela Barree]

To answer the original post, this is something I wrestle with. There are a lot of brilliant creators who are horrible or just jerky people in their day to day lives. I often remember the story about Thoreau. The only one who gave a damn about him was Emerson, because Thoreau was known as a lazy jerk to everyone around him. Emerson spoke at his funeral, which was sparsely attended.

Then on the other end of the scale are creators like Lovecraft, Polanski, Card, etc. etc..

I can sometimes separate the artist from their creation - to say that they had a brilliant mind and were excellent creators, but not people I'd likely be friends with or even support.

In other cases, I feel like their bad behavior colors my opinion of the creation too much for me to be an empirical critic, or to enjoy their work; I don't want to support that behavior even incidentally.

As a rule in my own life, during workshops and meetings with other creators, I try to keep an eye more to the work than the person. In college, a woman I was attending with usually picked on me and was very negative toward my own work. One time, she made me cry. That same day, we were workshopping her piece and the professor had some negative and in my mind ungrounded things to say about her work - I was outspoken in defending the piece and how much I liked it, because, irrespective of my relationship with the creator, I thought it was a very good piece of writing. Needless to say, she was very surprised, and later apologized for being rude to me. We struck up a friendship a few years down the road.

 

[Umbran]

Well, aren't there really no rules for this?

If there were rules, we wouldn't need to discuss the matter much. There are, instead a bunch of personal guidelines. The diversity is what makes it worth discussing.

One can study the technical artistry of a work while accepting the flaws (perhaps the very great moral failings) of the artist. Indeed, the juxtaposition of great artistry and great flaws, and the study thereof, can provide a lot of deep insights into people and generally how our minds work. But, that study doesn't need to imply any approval or any deep patronage.

Certainly, one is expected to weigh the meaning of an artist's work in the context of the artist's life experience? Why should the meaning of a work be impacted only in changing our understanding of the work, and not change our behavior towards the artist and the work as well?

Except that changing your behavior towards the artist, in the general way suggested here, means you don't study the work while accepting the flaws. You don't study the work at all. There is a fine line, between including the person of the artist to glean meaning and learn something, and excluding the person of the artist, to not pre-judge the work.

I'll take Card as an example. I'd read several of his books, when I noted that the more recent of them were skewing in ideological directions I didn't find particularly valid or enlightening. I'd already not bought any of his work for quite a while when I heard about his public dissertations, and I haven't bought any of his work since.

But, I did see the movie. And, I still like the original book - I don't find it problematic, and it doesn't seem to me to contain much of his hateful dogma. But I don't think I can read his later work, and judge it fairly. Is he including his objectionable dogma, or am I reading it into his work, because I expect to see it, and maybe want to think poorly of him to justify my own position and feelings?

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm not proactive. But as I said earlier, I can and do separate author from work. Which is good for me as a music nut, since- if I couldn't- I'd have to get rid of my Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, James Brown, The Who and a whole bunch of other stuff...

Which reminds me of a Bill Hicks quote I know from a Tool song (Third Eye):

"See, I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor; go home tonight, take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CD’s and burn em’. 'Cause you don't want the musicians who’ve made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years?..
Rrrrrrrreal in' high on drugs."

So, yeah.

 

[doghead]

So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?

The things you buy, the work you do and the taxes you pay all contribute to a level of economic prosperity that allows people to make living by writing. So if there are people who write whose views are objectionable, the only option is to you give up consumption, work and paying taxes and go back to subsistence living?

I'm sure that there is a cool latin term with words like absurdum and infinitum for this sort of argument. If there isn't there should be.

thotd

 

[doghead]

Right. "How to be an ethical consumer?" is an important question. My wife and I think about it a lot. It's also a terrifically complicated question in a contemporary consumer economy. I don't have a good answer for how to do it (merely the answers I'm using for now). Which is why I asked you questions. I'm curious how other people answer them. Maybe I can improve/refine my answers, or at least come to a better understanding of how I go about answering the question.

Let me switch gears and make a statement: participation in a contemporary consumer economy involves an unavoidable amount of complicity in actions I find unethical. ....

I'm trying to figure out where I draw the line, or perhaps just make peace with the fact the line is arbitrary.

Very nicely put. I think you are right, the line is arbitrary. Or perhaps subjective is a better word. You do what you think is right as best you can.

thotd

 

[tomBitonti]

If there were rules, we wouldn't need to discuss the matter much. There are, instead a bunch of personal guidelines. The diversity is what makes it worth discussing.

Except that changing your behavior towards the artist, in the general way suggested here, means you don't study the work while accepting the flaws. You don't study the work at all. There is a fine line, between including the person of the artist to glean meaning and learn something, and excluding the person of the artist, to not pre-judge the work.

I'll take Card as an example. I'd read several of his books, when I noted that the more recent of them were skewing in ideological directions I didn't find particularly valid or enlightening. I'd already not bought any of his work for quite a while when I heard about his public dissertations, and I haven't bought any of his work since.

But, I did see the movie. And, I still like the original book - I don't find it problematic, and it doesn't seem to me to contain much of his hateful dogma. But I don't think I can read his later work, and judge it fairly. Is he including his objectionable dogma, or am I reading it into his work, because I expect to see it, and maybe want to think poorly of him to justify my own position and feelings?

The difference is between the question "can you separate an artist from their work" (with "you" meaning each hearer specifically), and the question "should you separate an artist from their work" (with "you" being a wildcard, with the question one regarding general behavior). We can all answer how we individually handle the matter. There is also a meaning of the first question which puts the focus on the "can": Not whether one can choose to or not, but is one mentally capable of making the separation, if if they tried?

But, I wanted to point out that, in the US at least, there is no clear sense of "public shaming" or of disallowing a person from conducting day to day business because of their moral character. (Although, there are consequences of having a criminal record.) That is to say, this is an individual matter, with impacts confined mostly to immediate contacts. I imagine there is a bit more to say in this space, say, in China, or Iran. I have no clear idea of the European attitude(s) on the matter, nor for other areas (anywhere in South America, or Africa, or India).

"Accept" (from "accepting the flaws") was poor word choice. I'll see if I can phrase that better.

Also "technical artistry" was in reference to truly technical issues: An artists use of color; their brush strokes; their quality of writing. I do think that these qualities can be evaluated as separable details (or so it seems) while other issues (the meaning of the work as a whole; whether to patronize the artist) are harder to evaluate separably. That tells me a lot about how we think about artistic works. And one can certainly study the artists technical attempt to convey an emotion and whether that is successful or not, while finding the work horrible. (Transformers: Age of Extinction has a lot of technical artistry, and works very well on our emotions; but, the treatment of women, especially young women, is terrible.)

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

So if enough intermediary agents exist between the consumer and the artist, then it's okay? The consumer is no longer complicit?

That would depend upon the relationship between the artist and the agent. Generally speaking, if the artist is a significant portion of the agent's business, then choosing to not support that agent may be a reasonable ethical choice. If, however, the agent's business is very large compared to the artist, the ethical value of not supporting the agent becomes smaller.

Let us say you don't like Orson Scott Card, and don't want to support him. You have one small movie theater in town - it shows two movies, and one of them is Ender's Game. With only two films, you can imagine that the two screens are highly economically interdependent, so that sales for one screen may effectively subsidize the other. It might make sense to boycott the theater.

But for Amazon, the same tactic makes little sense. Amazon is so large, that individual products are not effectively interdependent. No measurable amount of your purchase of the 5e PHB from Amazon goes to support Card's work, so boycotting Amazon on account of Card seems pretty silly.

Also, we have the issue that the undesired artist may not be the whole story for the agent. You must beware unintended consequences.

Amazon sells countless items of positive ethical value - hurting Amazon enough so that you effectively remove support of Card means you *also* remove equal support of those good products. If your local theater is small, and running on a shoestring budget, a large boycott might sink them, and leave their employees without income. What's more ethically important - not giving Card some tiny amount of support, or having folks in your home community lose their jobs?

If you must throw out the bathwater, you really want to consider carefully how you do it, so as to not toss out the baby!

 

[Umbran]

But, I wanted to point out that, in the US at least, there is no clear sense of "public shaming" or of disallowing a person from conducting day to day business because of their moral character.

No clear sense, perhaps, insofar as it isn't institutionalized or part of official law enforcement. There is, however, a pretty strong tradition of doing so among the public, however ineffective it may be.