When virtue signals flash like the neon lights of Vegas, it can sometimes slip through the cracks that artists are people, too. They lurk among us, in gyms, coffee shops and dark alleyways. They vary in form. From notorious transphobes and Twitter creeps to wife beaters and racists, the artist is rarely a perfect specimen. So what then of their art?
Separating the artist from their art can bring with it interesting moral dilemmas. When beloved creators make hateful or controversial statements, when they say and do heinous things, it can be hard not to jump to conclusions. When Kanye West began his latest and greatest onslaught of racist public remarks, it was difficult for me not to fall into the mind set that his entire catalogue should be trashed and his accomplishments tarnished.
As time has gone on, though, I’ve stepped back a bit from that position. While I won’t be listening to him anytime soon, to say that his music should never be heard again is a step further than I’d be willing to go.
In the last few years, censorship has risen to new heights. From book bannings and school curriculum invasions on the right to celebrity defamations and cancellations on the left, we live in tumultuous times.
JK Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter series, has been a source of controversy, too, in recent years. As a lifelong fan of that wizarding franchise, my appreciation for it has never dwindled even as its creator has made her share of contentious statements. While I disagree with most of her stances on the trans rights issue, they never rose to anything so abhorrent that they could negate what Harry Potter has been for me throughout my life.
This is another instance where it’s possible for me to remove the artist from the art. But are there limits? Are there lines that, when crossed, negate anyone’s achievements?
Does Harvey Weinstein’s criminality mean we can’t watch any of the movies associated with him? Can House of Cards still be enjoyed when Kevin Spacey is a pedophile? Are the Woody Allen movies off limits?
Whether the artistic works of the morally corrupt can still be enjoyed after their crimes are exposed can rise to a surprisingly philosophical conundrum. Immanuel Kant believed that our appreciation of art should be based solely on the work itself, independent of the artist’s intentions or moral character. On the other hand, many feel as though art will forever be intertwined with the character of the person who created it. Determining the value of anything in life is no simple task.
In our world, though, most of us have already developed an ability to appreciate goods of dubious origins. Whether iPhones made in sweatshops or mass-produced burgers laced with carcinogens, some moral is typically violated somewhere along the road. There are ills in this world that most of us are happy to turn a blind eye to.
Our morality on these issues is no simple matter. Surely most of us believe at least to a degree that our artists can be separated from their art. Appreciating the great minds and creators of history often demands that we look past their actions. From John Lennon and Walt Disney to Thomas Edison, Aristotle and Albert Einstein, so many of the personalities that have shaped the world have been revealed to have done and said horrible things.
And though most of us believe to some extent that artists can be separated from their art, most of us would likely agree also that there are limits. Few today espouse the merits of Adolph Hitler’s art career, after all. Some people are flatly beyond redemption. There is a line that can be crossed. But where exactly that line stands, few would hazard a guess. Mass-murder apparently isn’t a disqualifier in itself, as Christopher Columbus’s legacy has proudly shown. In fact, history has no shortages of celebrated tyrants, invaders and killers.
Even while most of us likely agree that cruelty quotas must exist, however obliquely, it’s not rare to have the lines around them blurred even further. We certainly have lenience in passing modern judgements on historical figures. But it also seems sometimes as though we’re willing to relent on our standards for a great enough convenience. Peer pressure is a powerful force, too. Entire nations could hardly resist the allure of Amazon and the next day delivery.
The understanding that very few of the tools, services and goods that make their way into our lives are ethically produced is a challenging reality to live with. So many of the moral crusades against our world’s biggest conglomerates have been utterly fruitless. And now sometimes I feel as though everywhere I go in life I’m confronted with decisions that violate my ethics.
My car needs gas, my stomach needs food, and my military needs a disproportionately huge percentage of my taxes to pay for an invasion of some foreign country. My broken political system needs funding. Half of my needs depend on environmental destruction. Because I doubt my trash and recycling will be properly disposed of, even taking out the garbage each week feels for me like a balancing act of morality.
If we try, we can find issue in nearly every facet of life. It’s a world full of problems; there are simply too many to address. Entire lifetimes could be devoted to solving just the minor ones. We each have battles to pick. It’s up to us whether it’s the battle of what we can ethically listen to and watch on TV or whether it’s the battle against climate change, artificial intelligence encroachment and biodiversity collapse.
In the grand scheme of things, J.K. Rowling’s views on trans rights don’t seem like a hill to die on. We have bigger fish to fry. Enjoying a movie that Kevin Spacey is in is certainly no crime. Appreciating the music of a bigot doesn’t mean that you condone genocide.
So continuing to enjoy the creations of a controversial personality doesn’t feel like a violation of my beliefs. People are flawed. I’ve certainly sinned a few too many times to throw any stones, so I think it’s always wise to separate the artist from the art.