I think it’s quite possible to separate the art from the artist as long as the artist does not do something that is so transgressive that it tanks everything they’ve ever done.
Rockstars that use their fame and wealth to seduce and sleep with underaged people?
You kinda can’t separate that.
It’s pretty much sex stuff.
Like, if you’re famous and you use your fame to force or coerce people to do things with you sexually that they would not have done otherwise, then you can’t separate the art from the artist.
But like, tragic poets that do a murder suicide. It’s also an abhorrent thing to do. It’s taking someone else’s life against their will and then taking your own so that you don’t face any consequences from that action. And yet, you can still enjoy the poetry they wrote, at least if enough time has passed.
I mean, there’s also the knowledge that many of the great ancient philosophers probably owned slaves in ancient Greece.
It was just a normal thing back then.
But we don’t say “fuck Aristotle that slave-owning bitch!” We still study his work and quote them to each other like it’s just a normal thing.
(I don’t know if Aristotle owned slaves. I’m just saying that chances are, amongst the ancient Greek philosophers, there were quite a few slave owners, and nobody makes a big deal of that)
So yeah, depending on what they did, you can separate the art from the artist, but if it were something that would get you lynched for non-racist reasons in the Old West, or that would cause people to cheer when the person that murdered you for your actions didn’t receive any punishment, then maybe not.
(I don’t know if Aristotle owned slaves. I’m just saying that chances are, amongst the ancient Greek philosophers, there were quite a few slave owners, and nobody makes a big deal of that)
You’re in luck, Aristotle was indeed a slavery apologist, if not a slaver himself:
He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest.
Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before speaking of the state we must speak of the management of the household. The parts of household management correspond to the persons who compose the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and freemen.
Where then there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body, and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.
Aristotle sought to reinforce the idea of slavery as inherent to the natural order of the world; that some people were pre-defined to be slaves by innate characteristics that separated them from a “master”-class (of which he was a member).
I think it’s quite possible to separate the art from the artist as long as the artist does not do something that is so transgressive that it tanks everything they’ve ever done.
Rockstars that use their fame and wealth to seduce and sleep with underaged people?
You kinda can’t separate that.
It’s pretty much sex stuff.
Like, if you’re famous and you use your fame to force or coerce people to do things with you sexually that they would not have done otherwise, then you can’t separate the art from the artist.
But like, tragic poets that do a murder suicide. It’s also an abhorrent thing to do. It’s taking someone else’s life against their will and then taking your own so that you don’t face any consequences from that action. And yet, you can still enjoy the poetry they wrote, at least if enough time has passed.
I mean, there’s also the knowledge that many of the great ancient philosophers probably owned slaves in ancient Greece.
It was just a normal thing back then.
But we don’t say “fuck Aristotle that slave-owning bitch!” We still study his work and quote them to each other like it’s just a normal thing.
(I don’t know if Aristotle owned slaves. I’m just saying that chances are, amongst the ancient Greek philosophers, there were quite a few slave owners, and nobody makes a big deal of that)
So yeah, depending on what they did, you can separate the art from the artist, but if it were something that would get you lynched for non-racist reasons in the Old West, or that would cause people to cheer when the person that murdered you for your actions didn’t receive any punishment, then maybe not.
You’re in luck, Aristotle was indeed a slavery apologist, if not a slaver himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_slavery
Aristotle sought to reinforce the idea of slavery as inherent to the natural order of the world; that some people were pre-defined to be slaves by innate characteristics that separated them from a “master”-class (of which he was a member).
(Source for quotes: https://historyofeconomicthought.mcmaster.ca/aristotle/Politics.pdf)
This made me laugh out loud because I actually once knew an armchair anarchist who felt this way hahaha
Philosophy conversations with him were always fun