@surreality said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel Sadly, a lot of those records are public. They're secret when you cast them in the little curtained booth, but once they're counted, welp...
That doesn't actually make any sense. How can it be secret when you vote, but suddenly not secret when they're tallied together?
@surreality said in Separating Art From Artist:
As in, if you voted for that guy that was OK with segregation in the 1950s? The person who was pro-death penalty? The one that was against the EPA? Yeah, anybody can find that out.
Uh... what the fuck?
I was under the impression that a citizen's votes were secret.
ETA: The what the fuck was at the thing being presented, not the person presenting it.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
This is such a sad derail, and so typical of a conversation on MSB, where instead of debating the issue at hand, it's devolved yet again into a semantics quibbling match about an alternative reading of what someone wrote.
It's so weird how that happens whenever you enter the fray...
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
Accusing someone of advocacy for censorship is a far cry from saying they can enact or enforce it.
And nobody has actually claimed that's what you said. Get that through your skull. Having an opinion on something, and thus not recommending that thing to your friends, is not the same as advocating for censorship of that thing.
Believe me, I know censorship.
@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:
I wonder if that's why people say "a product of his time." It feels like a deliberate attempt to uphold the power structures that existed and still exist.
In actual academic circles, the serious ones, no. It's an explanation, rather than an excuse.
If one is creating an artistic work that is meant to be sold, it needs to be popular. Therefore it is more likely to reflect the views of the time, no matter how bigoted or aberrant. It's important, too, in determining whether something is being particularly targeted at attacking a demographic, or "simply" displaying life as it was.
ETA: The phrase has its academic uses, but I honestly don't know what it means in general parlance. I only ever see it being used as an excuse, but I don't know that it's the totality of its usage.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Ghost said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
ETA: Like, I added that preface to the sentence because I thought to myself, "Self, someone is going to make the nonsensical accusation that I am saying OP can single-handedly rain down book-burnings and op-ed bannings, better make sure to close up that loophole." I am a failure.
No, we're not saying that. Stop groping that straw man.
You're the one equating personal views with advocacy for censorship.
No, Pandora added that ETA because they thought someone was gonna think they were saying that.
And then they go and say it.
At no point have I said 'omg, @Kestrel is going to get books banned'. Try harder.
And nobody is saying that's what you're saying.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
you practice Cancel Culture and would happily see authors that you politically disagree with censored if anyone could get away with it
That pretty damn clearly falls under 'advocacy for censorship.'
@Ghost said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
ETA: Like, I added that preface to the sentence because I thought to myself, "Self, someone is going to make the nonsensical accusation that I am saying OP can single-handedly rain down book-burnings and op-ed bannings, better make sure to close up that loophole." I am a failure.
No, we're not saying that. Stop groping that straw man.
You're the one equating personal views with advocacy for censorship.
No, Pandora added that ETA because they thought someone was gonna think they were saying that.
And then they go and say it.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
ETA: Like, I added that preface to the sentence because I thought to myself, "Self, someone is going to make the nonsensical accusation that I am saying OP can single-handedly rain down book-burnings and op-ed bannings, better make sure to close up that loophole." I am a failure.
No, we're not saying that. Stop groping that straw man.
You're the one equating personal views with advocacy for censorship.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
Censorship begins with someone's personal views on a work or body of works.
Censorship also takes power and enforcement. I have my personal views on art, and I wouldn't make recommendations that go against those views. That is not, in any way, the same as saying that nobody can view art I disapprove of.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:
I really hope I'm misinterpreting you here
You are, and that's okay. People who understand the words I typed get it.
Oh, no, in that example you're just being stupid. I agree with the general idea that people shouldn't seek to ban or otherwise prohibit works, but the quote you offered doesn't attempt to do that.
Your opinion is noted.
There's a difference between "It's not a name I intend to pass on to future generations" and "Nobody should ever at all ever mention this person again ever." The former is fine, if stupid. The latter is bad.
@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:
@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:
I really hope I'm misinterpreting you here
You are, and that's okay. People who understand the words I typed get it.
Oh, no, in that example you're just being stupid. I agree with the general idea that people shouldn't seek to ban or otherwise prohibit works, but the quote you offered doesn't attempt to do that.
@Pandora Agreed. Who would have thought "Censorship Is Bad" would be a controversial opinion to hold.
@surreality Agreed. Simply partaking of an art (film, book, whatever) doesn't mean tacit approval of the content or the author. I've read the Bible, for crying out loud.
@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:
@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:
I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time.
I think it's reductive to try and boil down the entire sphere of literary criticism to talking about one dude and his shitty stories.
Not the point. We should hold racists accountable for their racisms and I don't think minimising the occurrences of it has a civil place in a discussion about separating art from artists. You can advocate doing so without denying the issue, which I find disrespectful to victims of racism and antisemitism who were impacted by the influence of people who held such views, both at the time to this and day.
Lovecraft has been dead for over eighty years. Nobody is holding him accountable for anything. And yet, nobody in this conversation is saying anything to diminish his outrageous racism or the unbelievable racism in his work. Lovecraft, frankly, has no place in a "separating art from artist" discussion, because it is impossible to separate his exceptionally racist work from his exceptionally racist self.
There are two questions one must ask when reviewing the work of a bigot: 1) Is this work expressing, solely in itself, bigotry? 2) Can this work stand on its own, independent of the creator?
Harry Potter doesn't rely on the oomph of Rowling's name, but "Why Girls Can't Have Penises, by J. K. Rowling" will rely almost entirely on her name's power.
@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:
I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time.
I think it's reductive to try and boil down the entire sphere of literary criticism to talking about one dude and his shitty stories.
@Ghost True, I was keeping rather specifically to 'single artist' productions for ease. I think that work created before an actor/director/producer/whomever was revealed to be a villain is still 'acceptable.' Some people will adamantly not watch it, and that's fine, but 'cancelling' people that still watch does punish those that were involved in the work's creation but aren't to blame.
Anything created after? If you're going to work with someone demonstrably bigoted (and I'm not talking about a few tweets from a decade ago) or predatory or otherwise anti-social, you deserve to be 'punished' along side them.
Though I don't want to come across as one of those people, I don't like to condemn without evidence or confession. It's a deeply icky grey area, to which I don't think there are any absolute right answers.
All that said, cancel culture is extremely dangerous. Especially on Twitter, where a few hundred characters can easily be misinterpreted - and drama propagates faster than explanation or apology. I'm not saying that any of the mentioned authors/artists are right, or not bigots, just that the idea of summarily eradicating a person's work based on speculation is a dangerous undertaking.
There's a difference in separating the art from the artist, and supporting bigoted art.
Lovecraft's... initial inspiration over the horror sub-genre bearing his name is not the same as his work. One can enjoy the stories by other authors fitting into the same cosmos without tacitly approving of anything Lovecraft said, thought, or wrote. And his work is laden with his exceptional racism.
Bigots create art. Where that art isn't displaying their bigotry, I believe that there is more lee-way. If Wagner wrote music about anti-Semitism, that's different. If Rowling wrote works about transphobia, that's different. But one can enjoy Der Ring des Nibelungen or Harry Potter without supporting the views of their respective authors.
@GreenFlashlight said in The Work Thread:
@Auspice said in The Work Thread:
Someone put up posters all over work for a fundraiser they're doing for Australia.
And I'm like.
This is cool what you're doing but covering the poster with glamor shots of yourself plus like, two stock koala photos is weird and means I am prob just gonna look for an official foundation thanks.(p.s. Australia is more than just koalas.)
Yeah, I won't take shots at anyone trying to help, but I'm really suspicious of how basically every story I hear about the Australian fires frames it in terms of animals dead and contains no mention at all of the effects on the indigenous population. It makes me think there's a horror going on there we're not being told about.
To be fair, the fact that an estimated billion animals have been killed in these fires is really hard not to talk about. People have died, twenty-five at last report, and it is possible more unreported indigenous deaths... but that pales in comparison to a billion dead animals.
@gryphter said in The Work Thread:
@Auspice said in The Work Thread:
(p.s. Australia is more than just koalas.)
Citation needed.
