June 10, 2019
Separate the Art from the Artist
No, this isn’t a post about the chaos of meaning and authorial intention. Or, then again, maybe it’s at least related to it. Today I want to talk about those peculiar readers who seem utterly unable to separate the art from the artist.
But what does it mean, to separate the art from the artist? In a sense, it’s about understanding that meaning is created by the author as well as the audience.
However, in our context, not to separate the art from the artist refers to those who cannot objectively assess a work of art as a result of their preconceptions about the artist.
Separating the Art from the Artist: an Actual Example Case
My motivation for writing today’s post came when I saw a one-star review in my Goodreads feed. The book and author shall remain anonymous.
I often take a look at one-star reviews, because I find them educating. Reading another person’s very critical review can help you approach your own reviews differently. We can call it a meta-reviewing process.
When I followed the link and reached the Goodreads page of that book, I immediately realized something was up. The book had many hundreds of reviews, and a very low average rating.
Now, this would be a sign of a very popular author and a very poorly received book, but these two things are not very compatible with each otherNotice I referred to "popular" and "poorly received". My words make no claim of quality. A very high-quality book can be popular (because it is liked by professional critics) but very poorly received by audiences failing to understand it..
“I Didn’t even Read the Book”
I quickly realized what was going on. The author in question had gained some notoriety – guess where: in social media – because of an incident. The author had apparently (I am unfamiliar with the details) had an altercation with a person in some public space.
The “reviews” were not; they were just people giving the book one-star ratings explicitly as a revenge. They didn’t even try to masquerade the fact. Indeed, many went as far as saying “I didn’t even read the book, but what [the author] did was outrageous”.
It might have been – as I said, I’m entirely unfamiliar with the details, but I’m willing to accept it.
So what? When it comes to criticizing a novel, so what?
To Err Is Human; to Publicly Humiliate without End Requires a Computer
Do you remember my article on digital dehumanization? I then said:
A crucial aspect of internet communication is its chain-reaction properties. Due to the potential for massive participation, with untold thousands of people following and participating in, say, a Twitter argument, there is a clear danger of losing perspective.
The big question then, is: When is public humiliation enough? When is someone punished enough for a perhaps momentary lapse of judgment?
The way most people seem to think, the answer is: never!
Did you mistreat an employee at a restaurant as a result of your stress? Did you offend a client at a super market as a result of, say, grief? Tough luck! You will now have your reputation or career annihilated, your name shall always be a synonym of whatever we decide it will be. Forever! Muhahaha!
Separating the Art from the Artist: what about the Rest of the Readers?
What if a reader wants to know whether the book was narratively successful or not? How can such a reader get a proper review, if every moron out there distorts the whole point of a review, in order to forward some personalIn fact it is not even that. The people leaving these ratings were not offended personally, they simply participate in this herd mentality, reacting to something they did not witness personally and which does not personally affect their life. cause that is of no importance to the rest of the readers?
Here are some news for you: The meaning and appreciation of a piece of art is almost entirely separate from its author.
Whether we can embrace that fact is another matter altogether. I make no claim of being infallible either. Sometimes I try to challenge myself and ask, would it be possible to enjoy (or, at least, approach critically) the art of a known bigot?
On some occasions I even attempt to approach the matter philosophically: Is it possible, I ask myself, for a bigot to even produce something aesthetically beautiful?
But then I smile.
You might be surprised to here that it was the same author who wrote this:
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
…yet also this:
The population should be homogeneous; where two or more cultures exist in the same place they are likely either to be fiercely self-conscious or both to become adulterate. What is still more important is unity of religious background; and reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable
After you finish hyperventilating (can’t we anymore even read something we disagree with, even fiercely?) know that the person who wrote both these texts is T.S. Eliot, “one of the twentieth century’s major poets”.
I could list several similar cases – Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, just to name three – but it’s pointless. As one of my favorite sayings affirms, it’s very difficult to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep.
Lack of Critical Thinking Is a Dangerous Sign
The inability to separate the art from the artist has also lead to cases of self-censorship (the most insidious form of all). I have seen authors of books on, say, Nazism, include a disclaimer at the beginning, in the direction of “This novel contains characters with racist and totalitarian ideologies. The author does not subscribe to such views”.
Have we really regressed to the point that writers need to actually mention that?
The question is, I fear, rhetorical. We live in a world where authors who write about racism must be racists, and supporters of LGBT rights must be gay – and if you support animal rights, I suppose that makes you a goat.
We live in a world of idiots, in case you haven’t noticed, who demand restitution for perceived wrongs that aren’t even their to claim.
2 Comments
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I think this results because of the paradigm of art enterprise that exists today. The so-called art that is funded and platformed today is not intended to be separated from the artist. That’s why the executives in control of the assets required for the art people want to create/consume feel it’s so important to scout talent from key identity groups to produce for TV shows, movies, music, art galleries. And even if they know they are committing art sin for doing business this way, if the public or their donors/funding are indicating what they want with their pocketbooks why should they decide to change course? to make room for somehow “real” art that makes them unpopular and puts them out of business?
For people to go back and criticize T.S. Elliot would be interesting. Perhaps it would be projecting onto the time period something that exists today that didn’t exist then. Well, maybe it did but especially today with the TV and phones, people are functionally brainwashed by so-called culture that is based, as a tangible business model, on the celebrity or legend status it might generate for the producers. Even intentionally anonymous art generates a fandom around trying to learn more about the real person.
The natural phenomenon of humans creating art to bridge bottomless chasm of solipsism between individuals and describe their experience with God is separate from the fact that the web developers who designed the Goodreads website included a module for reviews that includes both a text field AND a selector switch for 1 star, 2 star, 3 star, 4 star, or 5 star. kudos to his site for only including the text field.
Thanks for taking the time to leave this elaborate, well-thought comment 🙂