Dear Dead Authors: You Can Take Your Affective Fallacy and Shove It Up Your Intentionality
My ire was raised today reading ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kate_nepveu's writeup of her Arisia experience, specifically being on the panel of "Idols with Feet of Clay."
But specifically, I want to address one particular argumentative tack, seen in Ian Randal Strock's own recounting of the con and the panel:nojojojo respondscatvalente which sarcastically says:
I mean, when I think of "The Death of the Author," I'm thinking of an outlook that is designed to fundamentally empower readers over authors. So when it comes to, as Yuki_Onna calls it, fuckmuppetry, why is this pulled out as a defense of authors?
Clearly, these writers aren't referencing the same theory I'm thinking of. In fact, they're calling back to New Criticism. New Criticism also plays with the idea of the Intentional Fallacy, but it couples this with the Affective Fallacy, which says that an individual's reader's impressions have no place in interpreting art. Thus interpretation of art is decoupled from both the author and the reader (and history and a whole host of other things) so that it can just be capital-A Art.
And thus the sleight of hand. When writers like Strock call for everyone to divorce the art from the artist, they're actually calling for everyone to divorce the reader from the art.
Now, one can argue that this is appropriate when constructing formal criticism (though, be careful if you do so here, because there are some pretty heavey hitters reading). But the real problem is that the context of all of these previous statements—and of various other discussions regarding social justice issues and author fuckmuppetry—is not of criticism but of reading. The actual physical act of reading, and of the concommitant decisions of what books to buy or request. Reading is not a context from which one can divorce the reader.
And so this is why I'm officially calling bullshit on the "separate the art from the artist" line in these discussions. And I call for others who agree with me to not buy into the framing of our opponents, and call this tactic what it really is: separating the reader from reading.
Am I being unfair to Strock in particular in this analysis? I don't think so. From later in Kate Nepveu's report:
kate_nepveu's writeup of her Arisia experience, specifically being on the panel of "Idols with Feet of Clay."But specifically, I want to address one particular argumentative tack, seen in Ian Randal Strock's own recounting of the con and the panel:
On the programming side, I was on five panels (I was scheduled for two more, but missed them due to traffic). The most lively was the first, "Idols with Feet of Clay". It was a discussion of the question: "Can you still read the works of someone with whom you are on opposite sides politically?" The panel write-up specifically mentioned James P. Hogan's Holocaust denial and Orson Scott Card's opposition to homosexuality. Of the five panelists, I was the only one who said one ought to be able to divorce the art from the artist, and read the fiction regardless of one's view of the writer.(Emphasis mine.) The phrase "divorce [or separate] the art from the artist [or vice versa]" is pretty key in these debates, and it is singled out on both sides of the debate. For example,
nojojojo respondsNaturally he would be shocked, shocked I tell you, that people who are harmed by bigotry might not be able to divorce art from its artist, or "artistic" bigotry from its real, dangerous effect on the zeitgeist and law.Nojojojo also links to an old post by
catvalente which sarcastically says:Oh, but it should be about the art, shouldn't it? We should separate the art from the artist.But here's the thing: I think the phrase is a smokescreen.
I mean, when I think of "The Death of the Author," I'm thinking of an outlook that is designed to fundamentally empower readers over authors. So when it comes to, as Yuki_Onna calls it, fuckmuppetry, why is this pulled out as a defense of authors?
Clearly, these writers aren't referencing the same theory I'm thinking of. In fact, they're calling back to New Criticism. New Criticism also plays with the idea of the Intentional Fallacy, but it couples this with the Affective Fallacy, which says that an individual's reader's impressions have no place in interpreting art. Thus interpretation of art is decoupled from both the author and the reader (and history and a whole host of other things) so that it can just be capital-A Art.
And thus the sleight of hand. When writers like Strock call for everyone to divorce the art from the artist, they're actually calling for everyone to divorce the reader from the art.
Now, one can argue that this is appropriate when constructing formal criticism (though, be careful if you do so here, because there are some pretty heavey hitters reading). But the real problem is that the context of all of these previous statements—and of various other discussions regarding social justice issues and author fuckmuppetry—is not of criticism but of reading. The actual physical act of reading, and of the concommitant decisions of what books to buy or request. Reading is not a context from which one can divorce the reader.
And so this is why I'm officially calling bullshit on the "separate the art from the artist" line in these discussions. And I call for others who agree with me to not buy into the framing of our opponents, and call this tactic what it really is: separating the reader from reading.
Am I being unfair to Strock in particular in this analysis? I don't think so. From later in Kate Nepveu's report:
And then—well, I'm pretty sure I didn't actually shout this time. But Strock said something about sensitivity training and how it's supposed to keep people from saying offensive things, and he thinks that maybe we should having training in how not to be offended at things people say, because it just gives the speaker the power to upset you, so why not just ignore it, why get upset.I mean, this is just the logical extension of divorcing the reader from the reading—divorcing the listener from the listening. I mean, surely, there must be some sort of instruction that may be given such that, in communication, one may receive the communication without reacting to it. That's how the brain works, after all.
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But my spleen now vented, let me squee at this incredibly excellent point--because YES, the postmodern statement of the "author is dead" is about challenging the idea that there is a single authoritative reading of the text which can be linked to authorial intentionality by expert readers even though they claim they're reading the text as an object separated from biography, history, etc.
The absolutely falsely objective stance of New Criticism was one I became wearily familiar with during my undergraduate days -- and have called bullshit on ever since.
And to build on what you said: really, Stock and his ilk are trying to separate other readers from their readings in order to insert the Rational Objective Blah Blah Correct Interpretation (which involves as well the idea that somehow great art isn't tarnished by the artist's actions in any way--which really only applies to SOME artists--i.e. canonical white men).
This bullpuckey was all over the place during the early Racefail (and has reappeared since then in multiple ways).
And it still frosts me--nobody is saying "burn all the books" -- nobody is saying "keep those lousy writers from publishing," we're just saying "I don't choose to spend my money on the productions of these people because their actions are a part of my experiences that I as a reader bring to the interpretation of anything I read/view/interpret."
May I link?
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John M. Ford provided me with a lasting metaphor for reading: "Every book is three books, after all; the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight." (_From the End of the Twentieth Century_)
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In his writeup (of which I admit I only read the paragraph about that panel), he says: I was surprised when I questioned my fellow panelists if their view required them to research the background of each author before picking up a book. They all said no, that they would only avoid an author's work if they knew the author's views, but they didn't feel a requirement to seek out those views first. I was also surprised when they said they felt no moral obligation to tell others to avoid an author's work if they were so opposed to the author themselves. And the funny thing is that both of these points that surprise him are quite nicely explained, "rationally and logically" to use his term, by your statement here: knowing that you dislike an author affects your enjoyment of the text. I mean, maybe Strock would argue that it shouldn't. (I make something of that argument in the comment below, which I started writing before your comment was posted. I'd certainly consider backing down from that argument.) But regardless of whether your dislike should or shouldn't affect your experience, it's perfectly clear that if it does affect your experience, then you're not going to feel the need to research an author's viewpoints (why would you want to seek out things that will impair your ability to enjoy a text?) or tell others to avoid the work (why would your personal feelings toward the text affect others' ability to read it?). In the context of your comment here, there's nothing in any way surprising about these things that surprise him.
I'm curious about something, and I hope I can ask it without sounding snarky, which I'm not at all. Has it even been the case that you've read a book, liked it, and then found out something that makes you dislike the author? If so, did it change your feelings about the text in retrospect? (I don't mean something so facile as "I thought I liked it, but now I realize I don't", but rather a more complex change in what you call your "experience of the text".) Could you reread a book you liked before learning something about the author, and would you still enjoy the book, or would your experience be too changed?
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There seem to be a few separate connections here between the art, the artist, and the reader. Specifically, I think there are two different scenarios:
1. The Artist holds Viewpoint X. The Reader opposes Viewpoint X. The Art contains no reference to Viewpoint X one way or the other.
2. The Artist holds Viewpoint X. The Reader opposes Viewpoint X. The Art reflects Viewpoint X.
In case 2, you can separate the artist from the art, but Viewpoint X is still there in the art, so the reader isn't especially going to enjoy that book. There may still be a question of whether the reader should reject the art or judge it to be bad simply because of the differing viewpoint—there's Christian music that I (as a Jew) dislike because I think it's genuinely bad art, but there's also Christian music that I dislike for its content even though I recognize it as artistically successful. But I'm not sure that anyone would say that, for whatever reason ("separating artist from art" or any other), that a person is obligated to read, or try to read, or heaven forbid try to enjoy, something that would offend them even though it has artistic merit.
(Correction: I'm pretty sure that there are people who would say that. I just wish there weren't.)
But Case 1 is a different matter entirely. It's possible that one could argue that an author holding Viewpoint X will inevitably result in Viewpoint X being reflected in that author's art (and Orson Scott Card's politics may be a candidate for that), but let's take something a little more separable. Imagine an author named Sandy Springs whose writes a book called Atlanta Impossible, an impressively sprawling alternate history starting with the 1863 Union-Confederacy truce and telling the stories of the individuals who fought successfully to phase out slavery in the CSA in the 1890s, began a civil-rights movement in the 1920s, and so forth. The book is critically praised, wins the Hugo or Nebula (whichever award you think is the true measure of quality as opposed to a predictable sell-out that favors the mediocre), is widely recommended, they say Spielberg bought the movie rights, and so forth. Passing through the café in a bookstore on your way to the science fiction section, you notice a newspaper lying open to an interview with Springs; reading it, you learn that Springs feels passionate about abortion, frequently engaging in protests and counterprotests and writing letters to politicians and so forth. You're shocked, because Springs's views on abortion are completely the opposite of your own. Now, Atlanta Impossible doesn't mention abortion at all; there are women in the book, some with children, but no pregnancy (planned or otherwise) occurs in the text, never mind discussions of abortion. The question then is, knowing what you now know, are you still going to go buy the book, or will you turn around and leave (or just head to the puzzle section)?
I think this is where the suggestion to "separate the artist from the art" comes into play. I, personally, would suggest that while you might not buy Springs's forthcoming Future Reproduced: Ten Short Stories About Reproductive Rights, you really should set aside the personal disagreement when it comes to the question of enjoying Atlanta Impossible. ("You should set this aside" may put me dangerously close to Strock's reported "You should stop being offended", and if that's the line that I'm crossing without seeing, tell me; but I think I can still see the line and that I'm not across it.)
Of course it's still very much the reader's choice about what to buy and what to put time into, and the reader is welcome to choose to avoid a Sandy Springs book because of the author's views on abortion, just as the reader is welcome to choose to avoid a Sandy Springs book because they only read books by authors whose last names are in the first half of the alphabet. The reader can do what the reader likes, for whatever reason. But while I'd recognize that the reader can avoid the second half of the alphabet, I'd disapprove of that choice; I'd say that the reader is missing out on many good works of art in doing so (both Vinges, James Tiptree, Connie Willis, Roger Zelazny, off the top of my head). And in the same way, I think I'll tentatively stand with Strock in saying that while you can avoid the art of someone you disagree with, I'd say that you're missing out on many good works of art, and in particular (unlike in Case 2) art that the reader would enjoy.
So. Naturally there may be a point that I'm very much missing, and I'm posting this comment so that, if there is one, I can find out what it is. But that's what I'm seeing, at any rate.
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I am the night!
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Or, to rephrase this in a TV sort of way, because I am reminded of how appalled people were that I chose to watch The Vampire Diaries knowing that it's not good TV: I spend much more time watching bad TV than good TV, because it is itself a form of enjoyment. I could certainly be watching good TV, critically acclaimed TV, what-have-you; but is it a necessary ethical imperative for me to be doing so?
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Barthes' point, extremely boiled down, is that when you approach any text, you can read into it whatever you like. So, if you're "reading" Star Trek, you can damn well read K/S into it. If you're reading the Bible, you can read the Prosperity Gospel into it. The point is, the "reading into" is not a problem for Barthes. Rather, he says, the "reading into" is the entire point. Sometimes, a reader's "reading into" includes knowledge about the author and his or her intentions. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it includes no knowledge about the author's culture whatsoever, leading to vast "misunderstandings" about the text. (See: Prosperity Gospel.) But it doesn't matter to Barthes, because to Barthes, the important thing is what the reader takes away from the text.
So, for Barthes, it is pointless to distinguish between your situations 1. and 2., because if the reader brings in knowledge about the author's opinions on any topic, whether or not that topic is explicitly invoked in the text, that's their right and it's perfectly reasonable for them to respond to the text however they please. The author is "dead," not in that we need to ignore him or her, but in that he or she has absolutely no say over what the reader brings to/reads into the text. He or she wrote it, and maybe wrote paratexts that surround it and affect its reception; that's the extent of it. A multiplicity of readings is inevitable, because each reader brings something slightly different to the text.
Anyhow, that's very different than New Criticism, which claims that there is a deeper meaning that exists within a text - not the meaning the author intends for it to have, but there is a singular deeper meaning - and that all scholarship is an attempt to get at that meaning. New Criticism can be just fine and all, it's not my cup of tea, but it's not the same thing as what Barthes was saying. And if you dig New Criticism, it maybe makes sense to say that you should ignore the author's stated viewpoints, because if you pay attention to them, you're potentially unable to get at that unified deeper meaning of the text.
So as I understand it, the point of this post was to clarify that Barthes specifically does NOT suggest that we should divorce the author from the text, that that's not what the "death of the author" means. Rather, New Criticism does. So people should stop referring to the "death of the author" in this way.
As for whether or not people should be New Critics or do their own interpretations - Of course, you're allowed to disapprove of people's actions; we all are. To be honest I think that you are stepping over the line of "well, stop being offended," but I'm not really the arbiter of that. Personally, I side with Barthes. Part of why I like fanfiction is that it allows me to read back into texts that I find offensive or whose authors I can't stand, letting me reclaim them for myself. But my readings are only one of many, and as far as I'm concerned, if other people don't have the headspace or the spoons or the desire or the will to read things that are associated with douchebags in their estimation - then it's not my job to say "oh, but you're missing so many good works of art!" It really, really isn't my place to police other people's reading habits.
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1. The Artist holds Viewpoint X. The Reader opposes Viewpoint X. The Art contains no reference to Viewpoint X one way or the other.
2. The Artist holds Viewpoint X. The Reader opposes Viewpoint X. The Art reflects Viewpoint X.
... I propose that Viewpoint X is almost certain to be present in the art, whether or not the author intended it, and a reader who has been notified that it's likely to be present will be able to spot it. A non-notified reader might not notice it, because Viewpoint X, in many of these cases, is a matter unconscious bigotry to which many of us have been desensitized. We absorb those messages at the unconscious level, and they continue their damage.
There is also the possibility that Viewpoint X is not actually present in the art, but it's not worth the reader's time to find out. The world contains vast amount of art; why waste time on art that has a strong chance of containing subtly disguised toxic messages?
Those, of course, are separate from the issue of support: regardless of how good, clean, and unbiased Card's works might be, I do not wish to (1) give the man money (he's declared the government should be overthrown because some of my friends are married), nor (2) support his career by recommending his works or even allowing them to (further) influence my concepts of "what is science fiction."
while you can avoid the art of someone you disagree with, I'd say that you're missing out on many good works of art
There is more excellent art in the world than one person can absorb in a lifetime. Every choice to view, read, consider a piece of art is some level of support for that art, and by extension, that artist. And while I don't need to only support art by people I love and agree with, I can avoid supporting art by people whose values I despise.
We, each of us, have the responsibility to build the world around us. We have the responsibility to move toward the future we wish our children (bio or otherwise) to inhabit. The future I wish my children to enjoy doesn't contain homophobia, and while I know I won't eradicate it in my lifetime, I need not strengthen it by supporting art that's used to support homophobia.
The claim "but you'll be missing out on GREAT ART" implies there's some kind of art shortage.
And while there is, in fact, a shortage of available, accessible art by people who hold strong feminist, anti-racist, sex-positive, non-Christian, LGBT-friendly etc. ideals, a big part of that is because of the belief that it's reasonable to support despicable artists who produce works that are in line with publicly-acceptable bigotries. "His plots are intriguing; his worldbuilding is excellent -- just ignore the sexism; it's a product of his time," and so on.
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I don't particularly want to support people who I know are assholes. I don't care how good person X thinks asshole author Y's book is, because I have several hundred books on my to-read list already and more are constantly being written.
I don't understand why I would waste my time with asshole author Y. They're not the only author out there writing stuff.
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Also, warning to tl;dr tendencies!
You set up two different scenarios:
Both scenarios are based upon a concept of "viewpoints" that is tied to a certain theory of communication. I've seen the theory best expressed by an image in the linguistics textbooks I teach from: it's the sender/receiver theory of communication (you can see an image here: http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/c/Communication.htm.
In this model, the speaker/writer encodes a message and transmits it (speech/text) to the hearer/reader who decodes it and understands the message. Let's call this message the "viewpoint." So you're basically assuming these two models are key to this discussion (I'm not sure if you present them as most important of many, of the only two that are possible).
This model is a nice simple way that most people assume communication works. It's also a huge fiction because that's not how language works. (We want to think it works this way, and sometimes we all have to pretend it does, but the more linguistics and semioticians and scholars of rhetoric study communication, especially between actual people, the messier it becomes.).
When we apply this to the arbitrary cultural construct called "literature," a whole lot of baggage comes in, including the idea that only certain viewpoints belong in "good" or "great" literature--but that's another whole discussion!
As T noted, I'm in the roughly postmodern school of thought--and here is an example of how I think of communication as working (and some of these are too simple). The link leads to a cultural semiotics site with a bunch of different models (note please I'm not saying that there is a single correct model!) that complicate the basic coding sender/receiver mechanical model:
http://filserver.arthist.lu.se/kultsem/semiotics/cult_sem_prob.html
We're not all speaking the same language ("code")--no, not even when we all say we're speaking English (there are hundreds of World Englishes). There are huge variants in meaning, syntax, diction, and connotations. There are "meanings" built into the language systems we're born into and die out of that change over time (and change differently over time). And these meanings are complex and systemic (meaning not just a dictionary definition of one work), and often the meanings are outside our control (as individual authors/senders) because our receivers/readers have different systems/coding practices. And build in the fact that there are huge power differentials built not only into a culture as a whole, but certainly into the publishing industries, the reviewing industries, and the academic industries (in which certain groups, like straight white men, are a lot more likely to get published, reviewed, and canonized as good literature), and the situation becomes more complex. The internet, while not utopian, actually allows more people from a wider range of backgrounds to comment publicly about cultural productions--and that's what we're seeing in all these discussions about who we read, how we read, who we choose to read.
But the idea that a text (especially one as complex as a fictional work) can be reliably said to contain a viewpoint (especially about any complicated social issue)and that viewpoint can reliably be ascribed to the person who wrote the text simply does not work in my models/scenario (or in any of the theorists I read and teach).
The question isn't what viewpoint the author is said to hold or what viewpoint the text is said to hold, but, as Tablesaw says (I agree with her) what the reader thinks, wishes, enjoys, etc. That's the most important thing: without readers, the texts are just chunks of dead tree pulp sitting around (or I guess in e book readers binary code). Readers make the meanings, and those meanings differ widely (I see that every day in a class of students, and anybody active in fandom can see it on a discussion community.) And as a teacher I can give widely opposing interpretations a good grade IF the writers of the essays have supported their argument! (And yes, I am oppressive and teacherly in that I do assign students things to read--but I don't require them to agree they're GOOD to get a good grade--or even to agree with what "viewpoints" they see in them--the analytical tools I'm trying to teach aren't tied to that theory of reading.)
That doesn't mean everything is meaningless: that means readers construct interpretations of the texts they read using the tools they have in their linguisitic/cultural toolboxes, and different readers can come to very different interpretations of the same text (completely independent of any authorial statements about intention or politics). It also means that some readings have been privileged because of the social status of the artist(s) and/or the readers(s)--but privileged doesn't necessarily mean better.
When I first tried to read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse my first year in graduate school, I was bored to tears by a mundane novel about a woman and her children (I didn't get past the first chapter).
Five years later, I read it in another graduate course, and realized it was one of the most stunning explorations of the human condition that had ever been written.
What changed in that text between those two readings? Nothing.
I had changed as a reader.
And I can understand why some people will choose not to read Woolf's work without feeling that my enjoyment/experience is in any way tarnished.
That's what really gets me about some of these discussions: how much some readers have invested in believing that what they read is good (better than?) other texts that are out there, in believing that everybody should read X or read Y in that way (i.e. how dare postcolonialists read THE TEMPEST as commenting on issue of slavery and European exploitation of the "New World"), all coming down to what is in the end fairly simplistic ideas about literature and "morality."
And I'm sorry if I'm babbling to omuch--I shall shut myself up now!
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The Artist holds Viewpoint X. The Reader opposes Viewpoint X. The Author believes there are no references to Viewpoint X in the Art. The Reader can point to several examples in the Art: well, what's *that*, then?
This can turn into a vigorous debate on the internet.
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1) good grief, that panel sounds like it was filled with idiocy of the most harmful kind. I'm totally with kate on those issues.
2) I tend to think that both the Intentional Fallacy" and the Affective Fallacy" are highly flawed if not plain wrong, and am no great advocate of the New Critics.
But, that said: although both fallacies were important principles espoused by Wimsatt and Beardsley, the intentional fallacy does not entail or imply the affective fallacy. Nor does the fact that they are historically linked mean that the former is necessarily operating as a smokescreen for the latter. It's employed as a defense of fuckwitted authors, I think, quite simply because the intentional fallacy is _already_ a way to defend a fuckwitted author in and of itself.
I think this is because we have a conventional metonymy that allows us to consider an author's works as part of his self. So when I say "I can love 'Being and Time' even though Heidegger was a hateful Nazi", I am also saying-- at least metonymically-- "there is part of Heidegger that is lovable". Thus, no matter how much the intentional fallacy seems to be structured as a divorce between the author and the work, it can never be so, because our minds will automatically reconnect the work to the author, as a metonymy of the author (i.e., taking the production for the producer.)
At which point (and following along your own lines in this post), said speaker can then say "I am defending Art, you philistine!" and turn it into a straight-up critique of the particular reader who is saying "uh... maybe we might want to look at this Nazi business with respect to Mr. Heidegger...".
So... I agree with you, fundamentally, that the intentional fallacy can easily be used as a crude bludgeon, but I don't think it's likely that it's operating as a historical screen for divorcing readers from texts, because:
a) the one idea (intentional fallacy) does not logically imply the other (affective fallacy), and
b) it is unlikely that most people who are using the intentional fallacy are sufficiently familiar with the history of the linkage to be using it as a smokescreen.
I think that this is important because if someone is using an authorial-intent argument in a discussion about the ethics of reading, it will be more useful to critique it directly than to claim that all authorial-intent arguments of this kind are actually disempowerments of readers.
This is a very interesting idea to talk about, though-- which is why I am posting although I do not know you, for which I apologize if the comment is unwelcome-- and I'd love to hear any criticism or feedback you might have.
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And part of this comes down to the sociological aspects of "defending" problematic art. When a "defender" feels the need to enforce a supremacy of their favorable reading over another reader's political reading, then the "defense" is itself very political, even if it attempts to frame itself as purely aesthetic.
And as for your specific proposed argument, it has happened before, and will happen again. But from my perspective, it didn't go all that well for the New-Critic-inspired defenders. It was one of the real flashpoints of RaceFail '09, and since the fuckmuppetry I'm talking about strongly comes out of that imbroglio, I believe it to be a rhetorical evolution of the same argument. Because trying to take apart a reader response is a real political action, however much the "defender" might want to cloak it in pure aesthetics. And tearing away that cloak makes it easier to make a real answer to the argument.
While I agree with you (as also mentioned earlier in your comment) that the Intentional and Affective Fallacies are not necessarily or inextricably or intrinsically logically linked (and really, how could I, since I'm clearly very strongly influenced by Barthes' take on the death of the author, while also clearly rejecting the Affective Fallacy), I do think that they are in these cases that I'm identifying as fuckmuppetry.
More importantly, I don't think it's at all necessary for a person deploying this particular rhetorical shield to havee any knowledge of why or how it works. I mean, if it was a cohesive and logical argument, it wouldn't be rhetorical sleight-of-hand, and everyone could address things head-on. Instead, there are lots of very intelligent people slipping around their arguments.Although I haven't been particularly rigorous, I have cited a few examples, and I think that fuckmuppetry is adequately defined. I don't have handy links for others, but I suspect that
And I suspect that we're going to have very different opinions on this tactic, because I strongly disagree. I think it's more important to try to expose the hidden presumptions that rhetorical devices than to simply accept them and address what the other person in a debate consciously intends to communicate.
Especially in tricky conversations like these, I'm generally more interested in what another person is saying than what they think they're saying. This is particularly important in online discussions where there is an audience. If one person is talking to me alone, I might chose to let a particular rhetorical device slip by without comment simply because I can process it and then focus on something else in the argument. But when there may be countless readers, it's important to process these things verbally so that later readers will have them brought to their attention, rather than letting the persuasive effect stand. (An at-hand example is (
Also, you'll probably be interested in this post from two years ago: Cultural Appropriation and Frame Conflict
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* It is silly, stupid, or probably both to expect members of the audience to divorce themselves from a work of art - in fact, it seems that it's a fair statement that one of the hallmarks of great art is that there is a connection to the audience. I get that.
* It is equally silly, stupid, or probably both to divorce the work of art from the real world (the context in which it connects with the audience) which means that it is entirely unreasonable to expect the audience to disconnect some parts of the real world (in the cases being discussed here, meta-knowledge about the context of the art, which is surely relevant). I get that as well, and surely Marshall McLuhan could be brought into the conversation here if we wanted to talk theory in this regard.
* Enjoyment of art is a personal thing. We should not expect others to enjoy what we enjoy, nor should they expect us to enjoy what they enjoy. If they do, hooray, we have something in common. I understand this too.
Some thoughts:
Firstly, when it is said that one ought to be able to divorce the art from the artist, and read the fiction regardless of one's view of the writer, there are at least two possible readings of the word "ought". One is "of necessity, one should." As I mention above, I get that this is a silly or stupid expectation.
Another reading of "ought", here, though, is "in an ideal world, one would." I actually tend to sympathize with this latter interpretation. I think it's very easy to fall into a sort of personal McCarthyism if one is willing to "judge a book by its cover" in this sort of way: if X, you're blacklisted. Admittedly, that personal McCarthyism probably hurts no one but yourself, but it's hardly something worthy of emulating on principle: it stands out as one of the more egregious examples of political and institutional paranoid closed-mindedness.
I guess my real questions here are these: has it become an intellectual virtue to not only have a closed mind on certain things, but to celebrate the exercise of same? And if so, why?
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Removing institutional power from the meaning of the terms "McCarthyism" and "blacklisted" -- there's another sleight of hand for you.
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Apples and oranges.
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And as
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I said that I couldn't bring myself to use Gill Sans on a project I was doing for my synagogue, even though from a layout perspective it was ideally suited. The predictable discussion ensued on both sides.
Now I don't think anyone will argue that Eric Gill's font design reflects his sex crimes or his offensive philosophy that he used to justify them. The association is entirely in the mind of the "reader" --- I see the distinctive (and beautiful) letter shapes of Gill Sans, and I recognize them, and I know what Eric Gill was, and I shudder.
How much more so, then, when the art is expressive of thought.
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But of course, lesbian separatism is not a threat to me; if I want to find lesbian separatists saying things about men or about heterosexual sex that offend me personally, I have to practically go looking for them. By contrast, when Card displays his homophobia, he is allying himself with political forces that pose actual threats to the equality, civil rights, and safety of LGBT people. That’s an issue that goes beyond mere political disagreement.
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However, if you buy the book new from a store, you are putting money in OSC's pocket. At which point you're *supporting* a disgusting bigot's lifestyle. (I realize that royalties for one copy sold are not exactly a fortune, but it's the principle of the thing.)
Personally, if I have issues with an author's attitude, I will not read their work unless I can acquire it in a way that won't benefit them.
(That said, when I find a book at the store that sounds interesting, I don't always google the author to find out their politics before buying.)
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I get the concept of not consuming an art because distaste at the artist (ex. I don't watch anything directed by Polanski), but I'm curious so I'll play Devil's Advocate and ask what you think about this when its not positioned to be a liberal reader and a conservative writer? What if it is a conservative reader and a liberal writer? I live in a shoot 'em up, fundie, militiaman kind of area and most of these folks turn up their noses at the hint of anything resembling a progressive viewpoint.
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If we're talking about reading for pleasure, then I'd say self-defined conservative readers get to read what they want (and they do, judging by the relative size of the Christian section vs. oh say the sf and African-American section in the little bookstore down the road).
And it's not just the binary, though I know the "opposite sides" question sets it up that way--some of the authors I don't want to read self define as liberal, and probably are, as defined in the US these days--doesn't mean that I don't find elements of their work problematic, and not in the least progressive.
And "conservative" can mean lots of different things: I love Florence King's writings: her Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady has me rolling on the floor shrieking with laughter every time.(She has some great essays on how ridiculous it is to assume lesbian=liberal!).
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