An interesting question that every person should be able to answer for themselves. We can all agree that if Hitler were alive today, we should exclude from society completely - probably by means of death. We can also all agree that if Joe Blow doesnt FB invite Ted to his birthday party because hes into My Little Pony, thats prejudiced, but probably doesnt warrant sanctions. Two ends of the spectrum. Where do YOU draw the line? If a guy talks about hating Jews, do you ban him from winning an award if he also writes good science fiction? What if he guns down three people in front of a synagogue because he thought they were Jewish? Most people would say he shouldnt, but does that mean that we cant objectively classify art as good or bad? What if new archeological evidence proves indisputably that Da Vinci murdered dozens of people who were Jewish and weve uncovered countless anti-Semitic tracts that he wrote under a pseudonym? With that altered context, do you leave the Mona Lisa up in the Louvre? The question comes up often in literary analysis. Some people simply will not take biographical data under consideration when looking at a work, others say thats the only way to approach a text. For my own part, I think Einsteins notions of relativity have indelibly altered culture in ways far beyond the technological conveniences his discoveries laid the groundwork for. We live in an age of relative values. No longer are we able to say this is good or this is bad *intrinsically*. Context matters. A child soldier in Africa taking a life is not the same as a Death Row execution is not the same as a mother leaving her child in a car on a hot day. A persons work *should* take into account the person they are and the person that they put themselves out to be. Hitler shouldnt win the Pulitzer Prize even if he wrote The Grapes of Wrath. Vox Day shouldnt win a Hugo because hes a shitty human being, though maybe he *should* win a Pulitzer if he writes something as valuable to society as Grapes - the good outweighs the bad there, to my mind. Or does that encourage the hate mongers? Art is the intersection of beauty and culture. A comedian is both artist and cultural commentator, so Im torn almost everyday with that push/pull. How much culture can I sacrifice for a joke and how much of a point can I make before it stops being funny are perpetually relevant issues for me. Even if youre not a comedian though, you should know, for yourself, where your line is. Do you still go to that Vin Diesel movie if you found out he was a racist? What if he were a murderer? How many puppies have to die before you stop rooting for the Jets? Theres no right or wrong answer, but having an answer is important.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 20:37:13 +0000
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