The morality of the artist

[action]

when I got out of my teen years, I pretty much shifted from idolizing "the artist" to idolising "the music".

I think, when you're young you're going through the "wall poster" phase. But at some point, when you get get older and you're going through life, and you've got a job and a family, you don't need wall posters to look up to, anymore. when you set out your goals, posters and idols can help define your goal. But when you reached your goal; posters become a bit awkward

In the idolising phase, you are a nobody, and you want to become "somebody". So you see these cool artists who made it, and you want to be them too. You want to become famous someday and all that entails.

If I was still that age, and the scandals would happen then, then I don't know how fast I'd rip those posters from my wall. Because it wasn't really for the music, it was for the artist.

God knows I've listened to some garbage music back in my day. Not because it was great music, but because it was cool. Why was it cool? because kids wanted to be like them.

But nowadays, there are no posters on my wall. But I think I listen to music more than ever.

There are albums by Queen, that over the years I listened to many times I thought I knew by heart.... but today I still discover new odds and ends. I think I never really "listened" the way an adult does.

Seeing how nowadays, more than ever it is about the music, I guess the personal lives of artists have a decreasing interest to me. Even without all the scandals, I can see that famous artists are just people like you and me. They are not the ultimate beings that featured my walls anymore.

But damn, some of them came up with a nice tune here and there.

Like a good glass of wine, I can appreciate a good melody. but who made the wine? Who made up the recipe of a big mac? I don't know. Who "really" came up with all the melodies of appetite? according to the booklet: all songs are credited to "guns n roses". it doesn't matter. What you like or don't like is your choice, and yours alone.

Edited March 1, 2019 by action

[Gracii Guns]

One way this demonising of celebrities has affected people on the ground is The Life of David Gale. While it is fictional, it is a protest film aganst capital punishment in the USA. The problem is, the lead character is played by Kevin Spacey. 

From a European perspective, the death penalty is a no-brainer. But in the States the majority of people who campaign against it are mostly poor, disproportionately black and are viewed by the authorities as radicals. To them, this film can act as a weapon. It gets a wider audience having conversations about the judicial system and its prejudices. But since Kevin Spacey became a persona non grata, that good work was taken away from the movement which it acknowledged. 

[DieselDaisy]

Henry Ford was a vociferous antisemite to such a degree that Hitler had a portrait of him in his office. So whenever you buy a Ford car...

 

[Len Cnut]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

Henry Ford was a vociferous antisemite to such a degree that Hitler had a portrait of him in his office. So whenever you buy a Ford car...

 

Or an IBM computer or some Hugo Boss gear or a VW or drive down the autobahn, was the autobahn Hitler?  I think it was.

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, Len Cnut said:

Or an IBM computer or some Hugo Boss gear or a VW or drive down the autobahn, was the autobahn Hitler?  I think it was.

Yes and no. The autobahn scheme was initiated under the Weimer Republic but Hitler inherited and continued/expanded it, acquiring much political kudos as a result. The funny thing is hardly anybody possessed a car in those days, although there was a military dimension, the ability to transport armies swiftly across the Reich. 

Volkswagen - yes. Hitler personally was involved in the design of the car himself! He wanted all (working class) citizens to have access to a car as part of this scheme where part of your wage was automatically docked and you received a Volkswagen. Nobody got one given war time stringency/necessity, although Hitler was personally presented with one in 1944. The Volkswagen ''Beetle'' was resurrected post-war and become a cultural icon of course during the 1960s. It was under the British how it was resurrected as the factory was in the British zone of occupation. 

[SoulMonster]

Speaking about Hitler's accomplishments, the Norwegian metallurgy industry owes quite a but to the Nazi occupation during the war. They started quite a few factories, including the aluminium industry, as a war-time effort to support their domestic weapons programs.

[DieselDaisy]

3 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Speaking about Hitler's accomplishments, the Norwegian metallurgy industry owes quite a but to the Nazi occupation during the war. They started quite a few factories, including the aluminium industry, as a war-time effort to support their domestic weapons programs.

They also shagged their way about a bit. Her from ABBA was of such a dalliance. 

 

[SoulMonster]

23 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

They also shagged their way about a bit. Her from ABBA was of such a dalliance. 

 

And the poor girls, and the innocent kids coming out of such dalliances, usually got a hard time for it.

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

And the poor girls, and the innocent kids coming out of such dalliances, usually got a hard time for it.

I was reading that Norway had all of these German refugees from circa 1918-19, general famine and economic woes after losing world war one. This was when the Germans had only turnips to eat because of the Royal Navy blockade. Norway took in all of these German refugees - many of them women so it was often the Norwegians doing the ''shagging''. So these Germans copulated with the Norwegians. The resulting offspring was a sort of ''Quisling generation''. These were the Norwegians more liable to join Himmler's Waffen-SS, espouse ''Nordicism''.

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

I was reading that Norway had all of these German refugees from circa 1918-19, general famine and economic woes after losing world war one. This was when the Germans had only turnips to eat because of the Royal Navy blockade. Norway took in all of these German refugees - many of them women so it was often the Norwegians doing the ''shagging''. So these Germans copulated with the Norwegians. The resulting offspring was a sort of ''Quisling generation''. These were the Norwegians more liable to join Himmler's Waffen-SS, espouse ''Nordicism''.

I have never heard of this.

[DieselDaisy]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

I have never heard of this.

It is your dirty secret as a nation.

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

It is your dirty secret as a nation.

Nothing wrong in accepting refugees. 

[DieselDaisy]

3 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Nothing wrong in accepting refugees. 

Except when their offspring becomes members of the Waffen-SS!

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Except when their offspring becomes members of the Waffen-SS!

Well, shit happens.

[Len Cnut]

37 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I have never heard of this.

I knew there was something dodgy about you

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

I knew there was something dodgy about you

I can document I am of 99 % pure Norwegian stock 

[DieselDaisy]

Soul wears a pince-nez. I am certain.

[SoulMonster]

27 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Soul wears a pince-nez. I am certain.

Yes, because I am a German villain out of some cartoon.

Pure Norwegian stock. except for the Scot John Cunningham, the guy who started the brutal witch purges in Northern Norway in the 17th century.

[downzy]

8 hours ago, Oldest Goat said:

Can you point me to an article talking about/proving that? Because at the moment all I know is they were two grown women who were friends of his and both agreed to go up to his hotel room and did this willingly...and now you're telling me they apparently then went around in public gossiping about him aka trying to ruin/embarrass him? Are these two female comics successful? Nope. But he's suddenly responsible for their failed careers? From this information, the two of them sound like dumb, bitter, attention seeking cunts.

But obviously if you prove me wrong I'll change my stance. *preemptively cowers from the impending social justice*

"Louis C.K. just wants to live in a world where he can jack off in front of girls who don’t want him to jack off in front of them, and us to all just get over it. Stop being so P.C., everybody. It’s costing him a lot of money."

The headline and this whole article is just a sensationalized bullshit opinion piece jumping on a bandwagon. Louis made it clear in his apology that he was remorseful and regretted his behaviour. Also, and this is key, the grown women he was friends with gave their consent. Louis has already been punished. His life is destroyed/severely tarnished. He's lost and continues to lose many millions, despite not being convicted of anything. This isn't justice, it's just mob mentality on social media(a narcissistic cesspool) perpetuated by people like this Kevin Fallon guy who do things like transcribe snippets of a work-in-progress comedy set and spins it in an effort to turn jokes into statements.

I generally lean to the left. When I don't agree with every little thing do I suddenly become alt-right in your eyes?

I think it's holier than thou and perverse to go around judging what consenting adults do.

I think you missed the point of my post entirely.  

In the same way you can't take issue with fans continuing their support of the artist, you also can't blame people for taking issue with an artist if they feel that artist's deeds warrants their protest.  It's a personal calculation and I don't think there's a place of judgement for what others are willing to accept or reject.  

You also don't seem to have done much to investigate what CK was accused (and admitted to).  I really don't want to turn this thread into a debate about CK and his actions, but it was a little more than inviting just two women up to his hotel room (which, btw, does not obligate them or any woman to participate in any act, sexual or otherwise, that they do not want to be involved in).  Your assessment of these two women is staggeringly ignorant of what happened and frankly pretty insulting to them.  Referring to these women as "consenting adults" is ludicrous.  Again, you might want to investigate what actually happened before you make that kind of a statement.

You also seem to take criticisms of CK fairly personally.  Nobody is calling you a member of the alt-right.  But CK was always never a mean-spirited person and if his material was judgemental it was generally directed towards himself.  His new material is different in tone and direction.  But again, this isn't the place to discuss this.  If you wish to carry on this conversation please do so in the No Holds Bared thread.  

 

[downzy]

8 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

In my opinion the art stands for itself. So it is unproblematic to appreciate any piece of art regardless of who made it. If you start to let your appreciation of the art be influenced by your opinions on the artist, then you are muddling things up and will inconceivable find yourself having to resolve cognitive dissonance. Much better to keep these things separated. 

Tangentially, I am not a fan of people being fans of artists, or being fans of humans, in general. Humans tend to be flawed and fandom tends to neglect these flaws while only looking at the positives. That is a dishonest way of looking at the complexity of individual nature. Don't get me wrong, we should praise and appreciate and even idolize individual characteristics that are good (like Axl's singing or Michael Jackson's dancing), and aspire to them, but we shouldn't raise these characteristics and replace them with the individual. That is conflating things and making a cartoonish representation of the individual. Still, of of course, some individuals are just great in just about every way but we can rarely make a judgement call on whether that fits any given artist.

Similarly, if we are able to see humans for what we are, a bundle of good and bad, then we can consider art just a component of an artists personality and hence be fans of the art but not necessarily be fans of the artist.

I'm not sure separating the artist from the art is so clear cut.  It can be difficult to avoid supporting the artist if one wants to support the art.  I think it also depends on the medium and type of art.

My aunt was a big fan of Bill Cosby and would generally see him whenever he performed a show near where she lived.  That changed when the multiple women accused him of sexual assault.  She has a hard time listening to his material in the same manner as she did before and made clear she wouldn't attend another show by Cosby if he were to come back to town.  In this case I don't think her position is unreasonable.  I think the question of active versus passive support plays a role here. 

There are other mediums of art, say painting or music (especially instrumental) where the connection of artist to their work is maybe not as present as say, performance art.  One can look at a painting and not necessarily see the artist, but that's difficult to do in the case of standup comedy or movies/television.  

 

 

 

[soon]

Now this thread got me thinking, do we always separate the art from the artist to being with? Like how much projection is involved with connecting to a work? Or like in todays world of rock Brands we understand that we are being fed an image that contributes to the sale of the art, and then that sales pitch can become part of how we perceive the artist. 

A popular Canadian band was really embraced for its references to Canadian culture and nature. Young-white flag-waiving-patriots quickly became a dominant section of their fanbase. The thing is that the band and specifically the lyricist detest nationalism. At one point in the bands history, the band was involved in social movements that directly opposed the beliefs of their hardcore fans. And they never really purged fans, some just celebrated them as Nationalists and others celebrate them for their solidarity work with the First Nations and Inuit people. Kinda like separating the art from the artist in reverse.

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, downzy said:

I'm not sure separating the artist from the art is so clear cut.  It can be difficult to avoid supporting the artist if one wants to support the art.  I think it also depends on the medium and type of art.

My aunt was a big fan of Bill Cosby and would generally see him whenever he performed a show near where she lived.  That changed when the multiple women accused him of sexual assault.  She has a hard time listening to his material in the same manner as she did before and made clear she wouldn't attend another show by Cosby if he were to come back to town.  In this case I don't think her position is unreasonable.  I think the question of active versus passive support plays a role here. 

There are other mediums of art, say painting or music (especially instrumental) where the connection of artist to their work is maybe not as present as say, performance art.  One can look at a painting and not necessarily see the artist, but that's difficult to do in the case of standup comedy or movies/television. 

Of course if you pay for the art you inadvertantly support the artist. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't be able to appreciate the art separately from the artist.

And yes, there are forms of art where the artists is part of the art in various ways, and people might struggle to appreciate art without letting that appreciation be contaminated by what one thinks of the artist. Still, the ideal should be to separate these things, even if it can be easier said than done.

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, soon said:

Now this thread got me thinking, do we always separate the art from the artist to being with? Like how much projection is involved with connecting to a work? 

A lot. Some pieces or art are purely valued because they come from particular artists and not because of their independent value. So these things merge.

[soon]

13 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

A lot. Some pieces or art are purely valued because they come from particular artists and not because of their independent value. So these things merge.

Chinese Democracy and the GNR name debate comes to mind.

When I said projecting I also meant like for example I think its really sad when a fan says to a singer-songwriter that "your song about depression really helped me get though - just to know that someone else was going through the same thing I was." Only for the artist to say "Oh, that song is actually about when they bulldozed the old roller rink in my home town." That the art and artist had been a canvass for the consumer to project what they needed both the art and artist to be for them. Im sure thats really different across the forms and is likely related to ones age too.

[Dazey]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Of course if you pay for the art you inadvertantly support the artist. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't be able to appreciate the art separately from the artist.

So the obvious solution is to only listen to bootleg copies of nonce music?