*shrug*

The question as old as the hills and we all are doomed to forever oscillating between “separating the art from the artist” and feeling icky about the foul actions (if there was any) behind the art of creation. At that point, there is no possible solution (and redemption for that matter) that would potentially satisfy everyone.

We’re at the point when we could use a little more of the art-for-art’s-sake spirit; could let ourselves luxuriate in sensuality, beauty, and form; should offer more resistance to the pressure to find and deliver socially useful messages. I look back with a certain chagrin at how, as a young critic, I delighted in bucking my high-minded education by hunting down traces of a writer’s mixed motives, bad faith, petty and not so petty obfuscations in his writing. I took hubristic pride in my gotcha criticism and my eagle eye. But what used to feel subversive now feels like an imperative: Either scan the text for signs of immorality or be suspected of reactionary tendencies. You were hoping for aesthetic transport? Back to the consciousness-raising session with you!

[...]

When “our guy” is the target, what also becomes apparent is that the retributive process is ugly. If we must incorporate a prescriptive morality into our reception of art, at least let it rest on epistemological rigor—on doing our due diligence. Twitter hordes all too often demand that we repudiate our idols in an instant, without second thoughts, before the murk of rumor and uncertainty has been cleared up and contexts understood. Have we paused to examine the evidence? And even if guilt has been established, behavioral norms are changing fast. Maybe we should be less dogmatic about our operative definitions of right and wrong. ©