This video is about a third path transcending the most commonly used dialect when considering this issue. You'll have to watch the full video to understand it. Most literature fans are programmed to deconstruct and destroy. The Literary Renaissance offers a path away from malignant behaviors, institutions, and mentalities in literature. Peace!
Lol, I don't care my man. I do immature stuff all the time on here. Plus, you were just passionate about your position and that's good. Bring that energy to your writing and you'll move mountains!
Maybe you can look at their failings as a gift to the world because they wasted their valuable lives and personal reputations highlighting the paths not to take to reach the higher plains of thought. I've come to works of people who were later found out to be unsavoury shall we say, but it was the stories and lessons in those works that mattered not the messenger. Sure I can see the signs in the works of their thought patterns including their proclivities so its never a surprise when it does come out . the fingerprints are always there no matter the medium of expression : writing, art, music etc. You can never seperate the person from the dodginess , just as you cannot with their craetive works because they both have genesis in that person's mind and life experience, so to glibly say you can is the mark of someone you doesn't understand life.
When I say separate the art from the artist I’m always meaning that you shouldn’t judge the quality of someone’s art based on what they’ve done in their personal life
My humble philosophy: comprehending the artist leads to comprehending the motive of the art better, but the artist's entire person is not poured into every piece. If the artist was a bad person and the art carries underlying bad values or vise versa, that explains it. If the artist was a good person but the art is bad or vise versa, then you're better off simply observing the art for what it is.
What is “good” and “bad”? Art is about discerning the personal values of the artist and its reflections on the work. I’ve found great art from communists, fascists and even Nazis through this. You get to see their worldview and understand that they’re not actually “crazy”. I can love Albert Speers architecture and Arno Brekers sculptures and the great films of the Soviets and the magnificent scale of Leni Riefenstahls works without wanting fascism, communism or Nazism. The most alluring thing to me as a freedom loving American about the Italians and Germans of that era is the sheer scale of the art and how quickly it all happened. We must have some form of revolutionary ethos if we want an artistic renaissance of all forms in the west. I believe it starts with the youth journeying towards confidence. The right wing, sensitive, gen-z male. I think we’ll be the best artists since the lost and the greatest generation.
Alice Monroe ignoring the fact that her husband sexually assaulted her daughter; and Monroe writing a short story about that exact situation, is a very interesting case study that people will spend years exploring.
No author wrote their name on the gospel of John. No author wrote their name on Beowulf. No author wrote their name on the Norse sagas. No author wrote their name on Genesis. No author wrote their name on the Iliad. No author wrote their name on the Bhagavad Gita. This is not a coincidence: it’s because the best literature of all time is more concerned with text and context, not authorship, and our modern obsession with authorship is our weakness, not strength.
I don't mind those bands.......but no, they do not equal to Varg's superior riffs. The hipsters cannot rival him with their pseudo-black metal riffs clearly ripped off from My Bloody Valentine (although not as good as Kevin Shields.) Perhaps the hipsters should listen to Negative Plane for inspiration rather than Smashing Pumpkins.
On one hand, a writer will always be connected with their work because they created that work. On the other hand, a work of literature deserves to have a life of its own. Both things are true.
Idk if Nabokov would agree with you. Pretty sure he thought people who tried to figure out a text based on the authors life were mouth breathers. He thought you should be able to enjoy a work of art to its fullest potential without having to know all the personal information about the artists life. I’m with you on the rest tho, endless interpretations of a text seem disingenuous.
The only reason I care about the artist at all is the art and that is ultimately what will be left, for a time anyways, once the artist is but myth, legend, dust. ;-) I'm not sure I've spoken about this, but to me as a European McCarthy scholar, I kind of felt that I could never compete with American scholars and those with close-by friends, family members, associates who knew the man in life in close reach regarding his character, or how his life shaped his novels . These are resources I, and, let's be honest, most scholars and people interested in the art, do not have. In my readings, I need to focus on what my strenghts are, where I can match-up with the best of them... Thus, I naturally tend towards "death-of-the-author", softer forms of good old new criticism, and my personal forms of theoretical syncretism. I tend to de-emphasize biographical or psychoanalytical approaches as much as I can, because they always seems to limit the piece of art, tying it to some usually rather simple and ultimately disappointing solution that then tends to become the sole, easily accepted truth and limit of what should be, to me, limitless. "Oh, Kafka had problems with his daddy. That's why his stuff is so weird." You can probably do the fill-in for McCarthy. Ian's quite right, though, that it's much easier to worship an artist the less you engage with his/her personage. You can keep that relationship clean and unburdened. Ultimately, though we must acknowledge that the reality of the best artist's life, the life that naturally will seep into the art, quite often, is a very messy and often messed-up one. When we expect perfection from them, as of any of our fellow human beings, we are just asking to be deceived.
Addendum: So, in the case of McCarthy, we're looking at an interesting few months coming when the facts of what happened will be more firmly established. Britt's age at the time makes a good deal of a difference regarding just "how big" his moral failing in that instance is going to appear to me personally. How it will impact my reading of McCarthy going forward is another matter.
Art isn’t the same as the artist. Art is a part of a context, a world, or a community, and the author is merely one significant (but not complete) piece of the context. The real debate is about whether authors have authority (those are not coincidentally the same root word) over interpretation or meaning. The best view, I think, is that authors are just one part of the context, not THE singular source of meaning. For example, I don’t care what J.K. Rowling said after the fact, Dumbledore isn’t gay because it’s not in the text. She had thousands of pages to make that clear. She didn’t, and her retrospective take is pandering, not authoritative or present in the text or context. Heidegger was a fascist. But his philosophy is not exclusively reducible to fascism, and many of its ideas are above and beyond those political limits. Nietzsche was a sexist, but most of his ideas have little to do with sexual relations. Lincoln was a racist, and MLK was a rabid adulterer, but I have yet to hear someone say that such flaws make their good ideas less good. Just follow the golden rule: if you wouldn’t want people judging your writing based upon the mistakes you’ve made in your entire life, maybe don’t do that to others either. I have yet to know anyone who thinks something they wrote when they were 10 or 15 was as good as what they wrote when they were 20 or 25. To pretend that we as readers are any different because we have this immense receptive power is the height of arrogance at best, petty envy at worst. As far as I’m concerned, the less I have to know about your life to enjoy your book the better. Shakespeare isn’t great because we know his bio. Neither is Homer, nor Virgil, nor Beowulf, nor the Bible. In fact, I’ll go further: the best books of the past have multiple or unknown authors because they were more focused on making a great text that transcended their moment, rather than the limits of one mind or life. Shakespeare wrote with others in his acting company. That’s why there are different versions. There almost certainly was no one person named “Homer” but rather many over time who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. The Bible is almost always ignorant of who wrote a text. Why? Because it’s a relatively modern concern, post-novel and post-capitalism, to obsess over “authors” for the sake of credit, profit, and copyright control. Only in that individualist mold can we produce an “oeuvre” or body of work centered around a person (modernity) rather than a community, culture, or society at large (antiquity). No author wrote their name on the gospel of John. No author wrote their name on Beowulf. No author wrote their name on the Norse sagas. No author wrote their name on Genesis. No author wrote their name on the Iliad. No author wrote their name on the Bhagavad Gita. This is not a coincidence: it’s because the best literature of all time is more concerned with text and context, not authorship, and our modern obsession with authorship is our weakness, not strength.
I felt like this only in hindsight. I always thought the judge was the best character I've ever seen written, and now after this I'm struggling to appreciate him without feeling a strange feeling about what I'm reading. I'll need some time with this one.
For the love of God, here we go. You people do know that Cormac didn't himself entirely make the Judge up, right? Blood Meridian was inspired by Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, where Chamberlain talks about traveling with the real life John Glanton and his gang - including a massive, pale, hairless man named Judge Holden who actually did have many of the attributes Cormac wrote in the novel, amd was suspected of many of the crimes described. Many characters in the book are partly based on the real-life figures recounted in Chamberlain's book. I mean this is pretty basic common knowledge to anyone who knows anything about B.M. But go ahead, read into things not there because you clearly somehow don't know literally fact one about the subject.
I think when most people say they separate the art from the person, they are defending them against being cancelled or censored for their personal life mistakes. I don't want them locking up Caravaggio paintings just because he was on the wild side in his personal life. I agree you can't do a credible critical analysis without looking at the person writing the book warts and all. No argument there from me.
If the art promotes criminality and immorality and is shown to lead to more of it, yeah, I get when you can't separate the art from the artist. Otherwise, I think we can't as a society because we're weak willed and minded and we love a good pitchfork and torch party. If you told me the bridge I drive across every day was designed by a groyper, I'd be annoyed but I wouldn't try a new route to get to work over it. "I love this recipe, it's so good... wait a minute, the chef stabbed someone during a bad trip once?! Can't eat this anymore." Don't support people if you don't want, no one's forcing you to, but to dismiss a great work because the author or creator did a no-no is just immature. If I had the opportunity to woodchip a pdf file, I would, but I'm also not getting rid of my Rurouni Kenshin DVDs, you know?
I'm fully in support of separating the art from the artist. Whether it's a painter, writer, filmmaker, whatever because that is the whole point of the endeaver--to produce art. The art is the thing that is meant to evoke a response in the audience, not the backstory of the artist. Criticism of art is to help people engage with it on the terms that best allow for an appreciation of the work on its own (e.g. if you're going to read Shakespeare, you should know some things about the Elizabethan theater). It should not be a kind of cheap psychoanalysis that provides people with easy assumptions and rationalizations for weird motifs in the work. It promotes a condescending view of artists as people who are in thrall to traumas and pathologies. Their art is great not because of endless labor on craft, but because of incidents that a critic assumes are defining moments and personal failings that are taken to be indicative of hidden darkness pushing them towards greatness.
Opening: separating art and artist = low analysis Also opening: associated with New Criticism and close-reading is HARD to do! If it’s difficult to extract meaning from close-reading wouldn’t that make separating the art from the artist and practicing that sort of analysis NOT a low form of analysis?
Love your videos, but have to disagree on this one 😊 Don't believe that there is a "right" or "wrong" way to consume ART. The goal of Art is to elevate you to another level, to show a different perspective on things, that you will never see as an npc. There should not be anyone standing between you and Art itself. It should be a very personal experience. Thanks for the discussion anyway. Good luck with Renaissance ;)
I don't think casual readers care about their "analysis" being low. You go to a bookstore, see an interesting book, buy it and read it. That's about as far as the casual reader would go (or used to). But I suppose there's no casual readers anymore? Ehhhh. Good video though! Good points.
I have never been so content to ignore popular angst and neo-puritanical opinion as I am in this circumstance. I thought it was bad when those right-wing religious nut jobs droned on about people having sex but I swear, this is even more annoying.
You know that separating the art from the artist doesn't only refer to writing right? Like we have painting, music, videogames, movies, etc, it's not just writing
Plot twist: the labels in the thumbnail are actually all appended to Ian, and the greats surrounding him are simply witnesses to the unparalleled might of his toxicity.
You can actually, other wise we wouldn't be able to appreciate tons of authors and artists. Or are we only ok with people in the past doing things we no longer find acceptable now? Is it ok to enjoy Lovecraft? Wagner? In most cases it's perfectly fine to separate the art from the artist, esp considering most artists are broken people that have something wrong with them, so we often end up finding out unsavoury things about them. As for McCarthy, even though what he did was certainly messed up. Considering that in most places the age of cnsnt is 16. And the 64 year old lady that came out with her story is grateful for having met him, I find it very strange to call him an "abuser". In a way he took advantage of her, sure, but it wasn't like he forced her into anything, forced himself upon her etc. No matter how messed up it is, he did gave her a stable home, place and was there for her when no one else was. Read her interviews ffs. It's wild to try and "cancel" a guy that's already dead and to pretend like his work is now no longer acceptable. He wasn't actively looking for 16 year olds, it wasn't a serial thing that he did. He met her, (she literally came to him while he was just chilling in the pool, with a gun and one of his books asking him to sign the book) they started a relationship a year later and then kept seeing each other for years. She was from a broken home, in and out of fostercare and clearly had a lot of issues at the time (when she recognized him she went home and got a gun to ask him for his autograph, not a very stable thing to do). He seems to have had a very positive influence on her life. Should we condone 42 year old dudes secretly dating 16 year olds. No, of course not. Is McCarthy now "Weinstein" .. no of course not. Are McCarthy's book any worse now that we know that he secretely dated a 16 year old? No
Usually I've heard this with art such as painting & music. I like Richard Wagner's music doesn't mean I agree with his anti-Semitic views - I thought that was separating the art from the artist. But I see you aren't using controversial facts about the artist to discredit their art, but instead to better understand. That's valid as long as you realize people are complex & their may be other aspects of an artist & their environment that leads to different understandings that may also be valid. Anyway what really bothers me is cancel culture.
If the thumbnail of the Video is trying to imply, that Günther Grass is a nazi, then you clearly know a Definition of the term "nazi", that we others dont. Because joining the Waffen-SS at age 17 in the last year of the war alone does not make you a nazi. Someone who takes pride in critical thinking should know that.
He has admitted that he was a nazi sympathiser in his teenage years and did believe Germany would win the war. By the time he became a significant writer, he was no longer sympathetic towards nazi ideology.
I think you're basically right. I can still enjoy a WOody Allen movie , although theres a lot of evidence that he was a pedophile, and at the same time conclude he was a rotten human being . However, I suggest that you calm down. WE can't all do the background reading you suggest however. Heidegger, NIetzsche etc. THere may be other ways to achieve greater wisdom and its questionable whether close reading of any of this stuff advances humankind. SElf -reflection is a much better method
Agreed. ‘You can’t separate the art from the artist’ is just another bumper sticker slogan misinterpreted by people sitting around getting high on their own farts.
Damm it… now I’m thinking of the young red headed girl frim “no country for old men”. An eye opening episode P. S. Still love McCarthy , don’t even try … no, no , no…
It's an unfortunate fact that tone often conveys more information than your actual words. Your passion, while in some ways admirable, makes it difficult to understand your argument. What I think most people mean by separating art from the artist is continuing to wear your Harry Potter t-shirt even though you disagree with JK Rowling's stance on transwomen, or listening to David Bowie CDs even though he slept with teenage groupies. I don't think anyone seriously objects to applying facts from an artist's life to their works. I am just a casual reader of Cormac McCarthy and even I have wondered if something happened to him as an adolescent based on the number of times he mentions the threat or worse of sexual abuse of teenage boys.
I had initially unsubscribed and only re-subscribed after hearing you out, because at first, it seemed like you were going down the tired, nonsensical route of "violent video games cause real-life violence." Let me tell you, you're lucky I stuck around to listen, because most people wouldn't have bothered. If you'd even hinted at that idea, I was ready to hit you with all the facts and call you out for pushing such nonsense. That said, I'm genuinely glad you're not spewing that kind of stupidity. However, you really need to tone down the rage-baiting approach you seem to enjoy. It’s off-putting and unproductive. I sincerely hope you don’t communicate like this in real life, because accusing people of things they’re not is a surefire way to alienate them-and worse, it makes you sound combative and reckless. Keep this behavior up, though, and one day, you're going to cross the wrong person. People generally aren’t rational, and they won’t take the time to hear you out. Acting like that could land you in a dangerous situation-whether it’s a punch, a stab, or worse.
This video is about a third path transcending the most commonly used dialect when considering this issue. You'll have to watch the full video to understand it. Most literature fans are programmed to deconstruct and destroy. The Literary Renaissance offers a path away from malignant behaviors, institutions, and mentalities in literature. Peace!
I deleted my comment from yesterday. I don't like how I represented myself. It was immature.
Lol, I don't care my man. I do immature stuff all the time on here. Plus, you were just passionate about your position and that's good. Bring that energy to your writing and you'll move mountains!
@@WriteConscious 👍
Maybe you can look at their failings as a gift to the world because they wasted their valuable lives and personal reputations highlighting the paths not to take to reach the higher plains of thought. I've come to works of people who were later found out to be unsavoury shall we say, but it was the stories and lessons in those works that mattered not the messenger. Sure I can see the signs in the works of their thought patterns including their proclivities so its never a surprise when it does come out . the fingerprints are always there no matter the medium of expression : writing, art, music etc. You can never seperate the person from the dodginess , just as you cannot with their craetive works because they both have genesis in that person's mind and life experience, so to glibly say you can is the mark of someone you doesn't understand life.
When I say separate the art from the artist I’m always meaning that you shouldn’t judge the quality of someone’s art based on what they’ve done in their personal life
So like don't judge a book by its cover? This schizo-analysis guy has you beat I think.
@ I really dont get how you can get don’t judge a book by it’s cover out of what I said
Guess it’s less about separating the art from the artist and more not letting artists personality/crime dictate wether you should view the art
My humble philosophy: comprehending the artist leads to comprehending the motive of the art better, but the artist's entire person is not poured into every piece. If the artist was a bad person and the art carries underlying bad values or vise versa, that explains it. If the artist was a good person but the art is bad or vise versa, then you're better off simply observing the art for what it is.
What is “good” and “bad”? Art is about discerning the personal values of the artist and its reflections on the work.
I’ve found great art from communists, fascists and even Nazis through this. You get to see their worldview and understand that they’re not actually “crazy”.
I can love Albert Speers architecture and Arno Brekers sculptures and the great films of the Soviets and the magnificent scale of Leni Riefenstahls works without wanting fascism, communism or Nazism.
The most alluring thing to me as a freedom loving American about the Italians and Germans of that era is the sheer scale of the art and how quickly it all happened.
We must have some form of revolutionary ethos if we want an artistic renaissance of all forms in the west. I believe it starts with the youth journeying towards confidence. The right wing, sensitive, gen-z male. I think we’ll be the best artists since the lost and the greatest generation.
Alice Monroe ignoring the fact that her husband sexually assaulted her daughter; and Monroe writing a short story about that exact situation, is a very interesting case study that people will spend years exploring.
Or, not ignoring what we now know of Munro, people may choose NOT to spend another second exploring her work.
@jeffpowanda8821 that's totally acceptable.
Good God Im grateful to not be stuck in any mode of literary analysis.
me too brother
I have always thought that great art transcends the individual flaws of the artist.
0:52 Speak for yourself pal I’m the goat 🐐
No author wrote their name on the gospel of John.
No author wrote their name on Beowulf.
No author wrote their name on the Norse sagas.
No author wrote their name on Genesis.
No author wrote their name on the Iliad.
No author wrote their name on the Bhagavad Gita.
This is not a coincidence: it’s because the best literature of all time is more concerned with text and context, not authorship, and our modern obsession with authorship is our weakness, not strength.
Thank You!
So you mean i don't have to throw out my Burzum cds?
Incorrect. You have to throw them out and replace them with CD’s by Deafheaven, Liturgy and Panopticon. Only hipster black metal from here on out.
I don't mind those bands.......but no, they do not equal to Varg's superior riffs. The hipsters cannot rival him with their pseudo-black metal riffs clearly ripped off from My Bloody Valentine (although not as good as Kevin Shields.) Perhaps the hipsters should listen to Negative Plane for inspiration rather than Smashing Pumpkins.
Yawn
On one hand, a writer will always be connected with their work because they created that work. On the other hand, a work of literature deserves to have a life of its own. Both things are true.
I'll keep reading books by horrible and tortured people until decent people get better at writing
you’re inspiring me to keep writing my novel. thank you
Idk if Nabokov would agree with you. Pretty sure he thought people who tried to figure out a text based on the authors life were mouth breathers. He thought you should be able to enjoy a work of art to its fullest potential without having to know all the personal information about the artists life.
I’m with you on the rest tho, endless interpretations of a text seem disingenuous.
The only reason I care about the artist at all is the art and that is ultimately what will be left, for a time anyways, once the artist is but myth, legend, dust. ;-)
I'm not sure I've spoken about this, but to me as a European McCarthy scholar, I kind of felt that I could never compete with American scholars and those with close-by friends, family members, associates who knew the man in life in close reach regarding his character, or how his life shaped his novels . These are resources I, and, let's be honest, most scholars and people interested in the art, do not have. In my readings, I need to focus on what my strenghts are, where I can match-up with the best of them...
Thus, I naturally tend towards "death-of-the-author", softer forms of good old new criticism, and my personal forms of theoretical syncretism. I tend to de-emphasize biographical or psychoanalytical approaches as much as I can, because they always seems to limit the piece of art, tying it to some usually rather simple and ultimately disappointing solution that then tends to become the sole, easily accepted truth and limit of what should be, to me, limitless. "Oh, Kafka had problems with his daddy. That's why his stuff is so weird." You can probably do the fill-in for McCarthy.
Ian's quite right, though, that it's much easier to worship an artist the less you engage with his/her personage. You can keep that relationship clean and unburdened. Ultimately, though we must acknowledge that the reality of the best artist's life, the life that naturally will seep into the art, quite often, is a very messy and often messed-up one. When we expect perfection from them, as of any of our fellow human beings, we are just asking to be deceived.
Addendum: So, in the case of McCarthy, we're looking at an interesting few months coming when the facts of what happened will be more firmly established. Britt's age at the time makes a good deal of a difference regarding just "how big" his moral failing in that instance is going to appear to me personally. How it will impact my reading of McCarthy going forward is another matter.
Thanks Ian - your videos are a real gem. This channel should have waaaaaay more followers
It’s pretty easy to separate the art from the artist, you most likely are affected by a piece of art before even knowing anything about the artist.
Art isn’t the same as the artist. Art is a part of a context, a world, or a community, and the author is merely one significant (but not complete) piece of the context.
The real debate is about whether authors have authority (those are not coincidentally the same root word) over interpretation or meaning. The best view, I think, is that authors are just one part of the context, not THE singular source of meaning.
For example, I don’t care what J.K. Rowling said after the fact, Dumbledore isn’t gay because it’s not in the text. She had thousands of pages to make that clear. She didn’t, and her retrospective take is pandering, not authoritative or present in the text or context.
Heidegger was a fascist. But his philosophy is not exclusively reducible to fascism, and many of its ideas are above and beyond those political limits.
Nietzsche was a sexist, but most of his ideas have little to do with sexual relations.
Lincoln was a racist, and MLK was a rabid adulterer, but I have yet to hear someone say that such flaws make their good ideas less good.
Just follow the golden rule: if you wouldn’t want people judging your writing based upon the mistakes you’ve made in your entire life, maybe don’t do that to others either. I have yet to know anyone who thinks something they wrote when they were 10 or 15 was as good as what they wrote when they were 20 or 25. To pretend that we as readers are any different because we have this immense receptive power is the height of arrogance at best, petty envy at worst.
As far as I’m concerned, the less I have to know about your life to enjoy your book the better.
Shakespeare isn’t great because we know his bio. Neither is Homer, nor Virgil, nor Beowulf, nor the Bible. In fact, I’ll go further: the best books of the past have multiple or unknown authors because they were more focused on making a great text that transcended their moment, rather than the limits of one mind or life.
Shakespeare wrote with others in his acting company. That’s why there are different versions.
There almost certainly was no one person named “Homer” but rather many over time who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey.
The Bible is almost always ignorant of who wrote a text. Why? Because it’s a relatively modern concern, post-novel and post-capitalism, to obsess over “authors” for the sake of credit, profit, and copyright control. Only in that individualist mold can we produce an “oeuvre” or body of work centered around a person (modernity) rather than a community, culture, or society at large (antiquity).
No author wrote their name on the gospel of John.
No author wrote their name on Beowulf.
No author wrote their name on the Norse sagas.
No author wrote their name on Genesis.
No author wrote their name on the Iliad.
No author wrote their name on the Bhagavad Gita.
This is not a coincidence: it’s because the best literature of all time is more concerned with text and context, not authorship, and our modern obsession with authorship is our weakness, not strength.
A welcome guest (or two) enters at 9:56 in the lower-left
Im no expert but the Judge changed my perception of Cormac forever. Who writes that? Only him.
I felt like this only in hindsight. I always thought the judge was the best character I've ever seen written, and now after this I'm struggling to appreciate him without feeling a strange feeling about what I'm reading. I'll need some time with this one.
@@GoldenPendulum88 the horror the horror
For the love of God, here we go. You people do know that Cormac didn't himself entirely make the Judge up, right? Blood Meridian was inspired by Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, where Chamberlain talks about traveling with the real life John Glanton and his gang - including a massive, pale, hairless man named Judge Holden who actually did have many of the attributes Cormac wrote in the novel, amd was suspected of many of the crimes described. Many characters in the book are partly based on the real-life figures recounted in Chamberlain's book.
I mean this is pretty basic common knowledge to anyone who knows anything about B.M. But go ahead, read into things not there because you clearly somehow don't know literally fact one about the subject.
@@nl3064do you feel better now?
Give it up for the third (middle) path 🔥
It's the childish fear of not knowing how to digest information and separating good from bad. The world is a lot greyer than their ideals.
I think when most people say they separate the art from the person, they are defending them against being cancelled or censored for their personal life mistakes. I don't want them locking up Caravaggio paintings just because he was on the wild side in his personal life. I agree you can't do a credible critical analysis without looking at the person writing the book warts and all. No argument there from me.
If the art promotes criminality and immorality and is shown to lead to more of it, yeah, I get when you can't separate the art from the artist. Otherwise, I think we can't as a society because we're weak willed and minded and we love a good pitchfork and torch party. If you told me the bridge I drive across every day was designed by a groyper, I'd be annoyed but I wouldn't try a new route to get to work over it. "I love this recipe, it's so good... wait a minute, the chef stabbed someone during a bad trip once?! Can't eat this anymore." Don't support people if you don't want, no one's forcing you to, but to dismiss a great work because the author or creator did a no-no is just immature. If I had the opportunity to woodchip a pdf file, I would, but I'm also not getting rid of my Rurouni Kenshin DVDs, you know?
Generally I say "you should separate the artist from the art" just to hide my power levels.
I'm fully in support of separating the art from the artist. Whether it's a painter, writer, filmmaker, whatever because that is the whole point of the endeaver--to produce art. The art is the thing that is meant to evoke a response in the audience, not the backstory of the artist. Criticism of art is to help people engage with it on the terms that best allow for an appreciation of the work on its own (e.g. if you're going to read Shakespeare, you should know some things about the Elizabethan theater). It should not be a kind of cheap psychoanalysis that provides people with easy assumptions and rationalizations for weird motifs in the work. It promotes a condescending view of artists as people who are in thrall to traumas and pathologies. Their art is great not because of endless labor on craft, but because of incidents that a critic assumes are defining moments and personal failings that are taken to be indicative of hidden darkness pushing them towards greatness.
Please do some T.S. Eliot stuff on this theme. Impersonal/personal art.
Y'all should read Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Alfred Rosenberg. Wild stuff
Love Ian and his tough love. Let’s transcend brothas
Art is the artist and vice versa, "separating the art from artist" is just a way to protect yourself from thinking about something deeply.
I think you can separate the art from the artist it’s just hard to do it
Opening: separating art and artist = low analysis
Also opening: associated with New Criticism and close-reading is HARD to do!
If it’s difficult to extract meaning from close-reading wouldn’t that make separating the art from the artist and practicing that sort of analysis NOT a low form of analysis?
Love your videos, but have to disagree on this one 😊
Don't believe that there is a "right" or "wrong" way to consume ART.
The goal of Art is to elevate you to another level, to show a different perspective on things, that you will never see as an npc.
There should not be anyone standing between you and Art itself. It should be a very personal experience.
Thanks for the discussion anyway.
Good luck with Renaissance ;)
Man you sure are making hay out of this Cormac thing
Ian I have a joke for you. What do you call a person who is attracted to young bread. A Pita-phile.
I don't think casual readers care about their "analysis" being low. You go to a bookstore, see an interesting book, buy it and read it. That's about as far as the casual reader would go (or used to). But I suppose there's no casual readers anymore? Ehhhh. Good video though! Good points.
What a video. Thank You!
Interesting how we justify keeping the art.
People use Marvel films as a tool for personal transformation
I always saw it as art is artist but not a person
I want to, I want to! Haha 😂 I feel like I just need someone to help me bloom...idk
Thanks!
Great video, now I just need to learn how to read
Top quality post mr. concious
Well said!
I have never been so content to ignore popular angst and neo-puritanical opinion as I am in this circumstance. I thought it was bad when those right-wing religious nut jobs droned on about people having sex but I swear, this is even more annoying.
You know that separating the art from the artist doesn't only refer to writing right? Like we have painting, music, videogames, movies, etc, it's not just writing
Plot twist: the labels in the thumbnail are actually all appended to Ian, and the greats surrounding him are simply witnesses to the unparalleled might of his toxicity.
RHCP says "Knock me Down".
You can actually, other wise we wouldn't be able to appreciate tons of authors and artists. Or are we only ok with people in the past doing things we no longer find acceptable now? Is it ok to enjoy Lovecraft? Wagner? In most cases it's perfectly fine to separate the art from the artist, esp considering most artists are broken people that have something wrong with them, so we often end up finding out unsavoury things about them. As for McCarthy, even though what he did was certainly messed up. Considering that in most places the age of cnsnt is 16. And the 64 year old lady that came out with her story is grateful for having met him, I find it very strange to call him an "abuser". In a way he took advantage of her, sure, but it wasn't like he forced her into anything, forced himself upon her etc. No matter how messed up it is, he did gave her a stable home, place and was there for her when no one else was. Read her interviews ffs. It's wild to try and "cancel" a guy that's already dead and to pretend like his work is now no longer acceptable. He wasn't actively looking for 16 year olds, it wasn't a serial thing that he did. He met her, (she literally came to him while he was just chilling in the pool, with a gun and one of his books asking him to sign the book) they started a relationship a year later and then kept seeing each other for years. She was from a broken home, in and out of fostercare and clearly had a lot of issues at the time (when she recognized him she went home and got a gun to ask him for his autograph, not a very stable thing to do). He seems to have had a very positive influence on her life. Should we condone 42 year old dudes secretly dating 16 year olds. No, of course not. Is McCarthy now "Weinstein" .. no of course not. Are McCarthy's book any worse now that we know that he secretely dated a 16 year old? No
Wound up much? 🎉 Power to the passion!
Usually I've heard this with art such as painting & music. I like Richard Wagner's music doesn't mean I agree with his anti-Semitic views - I thought that was separating the art from the artist. But I see you aren't using controversial facts about the artist to discredit their art, but instead to better understand. That's valid as long as you realize people are complex & their may be other aspects of an artist & their environment that leads to different understandings that may also be valid.
Anyway what really bothers me is cancel culture.
If you dont mind me asking, who's the guy in the bottom right of the thumbnail?
Gunter Grass
@mirrorsaw thanks, never heard of him
@@voltairedentotalenkrieg5147 He wrote the Tin Drum
Agree, well said!
read Death of the Artist
4:54 AYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo... wtf
If the thumbnail of the Video is trying to imply, that Günther Grass is a nazi, then you clearly know a Definition of the term "nazi", that we others dont. Because joining the Waffen-SS at age 17 in the last year of the war alone does not make you a nazi. Someone who takes pride in critical thinking should know that.
He has admitted that he was a nazi sympathiser in his teenage years and did believe Germany would win the war. By the time he became a significant writer, he was no longer sympathetic towards nazi ideology.
I think you're basically right. I can still enjoy a WOody Allen movie , although theres a lot of evidence that he was a pedophile, and at the same time conclude he was a rotten human being . However, I suggest that you calm down. WE can't all do the background reading you suggest however. Heidegger, NIetzsche etc. THere may be other ways to achieve greater wisdom and its questionable whether close reading of any of this stuff advances humankind. SElf -reflection is a much better method
Agreed. ‘You can’t separate the art from the artist’ is just another bumper sticker slogan misinterpreted by people sitting around getting high on their own farts.
I feel that is too sensationalizing to stigmatize them before even arguing about it
Damm it… now I’m thinking of the young red headed girl frim “no country for old men”. An eye opening episode
P. S. Still love McCarthy , don’t even try … no, no , no…
great video. keep going with this fallout from McCarthy- gate!
It's an unfortunate fact that tone often conveys more information than your actual words. Your passion, while in some ways admirable, makes it difficult to understand your argument.
What I think most people mean by separating art from the artist is continuing to wear your Harry Potter t-shirt even though you disagree with JK Rowling's stance on transwomen, or listening to David Bowie CDs even though he slept with teenage groupies. I don't think anyone seriously objects to applying facts from an artist's life to their works. I am just a casual reader of Cormac McCarthy and even I have wondered if something happened to him as an adolescent based on the number of times he mentions the threat or worse of sexual abuse of teenage boys.
These thumbnails been great lol
I had initially unsubscribed and only re-subscribed after hearing you out, because at first, it seemed like you were going down the tired, nonsensical route of "violent video games cause real-life violence." Let me tell you, you're lucky I stuck around to listen, because most people wouldn't have bothered. If you'd even hinted at that idea, I was ready to hit you with all the facts and call you out for pushing such nonsense.
That said, I'm genuinely glad you're not spewing that kind of stupidity. However, you really need to tone down the rage-baiting approach you seem to enjoy. It’s off-putting and unproductive. I sincerely hope you don’t communicate like this in real life, because accusing people of things they’re not is a surefire way to alienate them-and worse, it makes you sound combative and reckless.
Keep this behavior up, though, and one day, you're going to cross the wrong person. People generally aren’t rational, and they won’t take the time to hear you out. Acting like that could land you in a dangerous situation-whether it’s a punch, a stab, or worse.
Your best video.
Thanks Jesus😁
Great video I totally agree
Thanks!