I think you have a good point that an artist's intentions can add a lot to an audience's experience and critique.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
However, I would note that we don't always have access to an artist's intentions. And even when we do have access to their letters, journals, discussions, etc., that's still only a small glimpse into a complex mind and experience.
Absolutely. I am not saying you will ever have 100% certainty about an artist's intentions, nor am I saying there can't be valuable interpretations of their work outside their intent. And the availability of primary source material from the author will always vary, in some cases be non-existent. But I think something to consider is there are different approaches here. A lot of posters seem to have a media studies, critical studies or literary studies mindset. My background is history. In history, at least at the time I studied it, shortly after the end of the linguistic turn, intent was our focus. It wasn't the only thing. Context mattered. But I think when you come from that kind of background, you approach these things differently than someone coming at it from say a literary studies background. I tend to be very cautious, very slow, and very measured in forming my opinions about what the intentions and meaning of a document is (especially if we are talking about that in terms of something like racial and cultural issue and not simply what an RPG books meaning is in terms of how many d10s you roll). And to me figuring out the intent, assessing what the culture was like when it came, etc, those are very important to me. And I will be able to do more with some writers and designers than others because some left a bigger paper trail.
But let's imagine we could magically know exactly what an artist's intentions were. An audience member's perspective, even when it differs from an artist's intention, is still valid. Art lives in that strange space between an artist's intention and the audience experience.
I don't 100% agree with this. I do think you have your genuine reaction and that is real. However I think if you are making a moral assessment about the work, what the author intended really does matter. Now you can also consider how people overall interpreted it. For example if a game designer made a joke that anyone who likes dice pools should be burned at the stake-----you not understanding it was a joke, and assuming he literally wanted to light dice pool fans on fire, would be an invalid interpretation. However if he expressed it so poorly that the majority of gamers shared your interpretation and launched an inquisition to burn alive any who dared to dice pool, then that I think that is where stuff like the impact has to be considered (even if that wasn't the author's intent).
This means that the same piece of art can mean vastly different things to you and me. And neither of our experiences are invalid.
Sure. I mean think this is fair. We going to find much different meaning in the same book. I still think though, there are better and worse analysis of the book. If we both read the 1st edition DMG, and I come away saying it "It was a riveting manual on airplane construction" and you said "It was a guide to running an RPG", your interoperation and reaction would be more valid. On the other hand if my reaction was "A magnificent book!" and yours was "A terrible book!", sure both valid reaction because those are subjective responses.
We can then say, "You think A, and I think B. Based on what we know about the artist, does that change our perspectives at all?"
This is hard to answer without specifics. But I think what we know about the artist can change both of our perspectives, and it can also shed light on who is closer to the intended meaning of the work. Again, I think people weigh intent differently. I tend to rate it very high. And so I would advocate for factoring in intent with this stuff.
To me, that's where the richest discussions come in.
But none of that can happen if we waste our time saying, "Your perspective is not valid."
And again if we are talking about you loved the movie or book because of X, and I hated it because of Y, sure. That is fair. On the other hand, if you and I see the same movie and one of us says it is morally bad, perhaps that one of us is morally bad if we like and defend it, or don't see the moral badness of it, I think intent really becomes important. It isn't the only thing. Something can be unintentionally morally bad (though I would argue that is less bad usually than something that is intentionally so). But if you are arguing it is bad because it is saying X, then yes, we definitely need to figure out if the author was trying to say X or not.