Reb Thomas, I think we need to address a far more important ethical question:
Is it still OK to love the Original Trilogy knowing that it was made by the same no-talent clown who would go on to make the Prequels and then sell his soul to Disney?
Well, now that I've been reliably informed that the "The Force is female" I feel less qualified to comment, but yes, I think we can forgive Lucas. When he sold out to Disney they were still, largely speaking Disney. But the Prequels and Sequels must be cast into the out darkness--except for season 1 of the Mandalorian . . . . .
I almost didn't finish your piece, when you said these words to introduce your opinion: "And how should we think about it?" It's a common new phase, to preface an article with the question-- how should we think? As if you are going to tell us how. But it's all wrong. We don't need to be told.
This said, I'm glad I did read it through. I'm an artist and also a Jew. It's interesting but also tricky to think where art begins, at what point we transcend into that holy state, and at what level of doing/making one qualifies for these transcendent qualities.
It's also hard to decide the truth about Roger's antisemitism, because of his slippery denials.
I once bought a house, next door to a lovely Catholic couple. When they found out I was Jewish, each made antisemitic remarks to me. Seemingly innocuous but truly hateful remarks, made separately, but coming from one united ugly mind. After that, I couldn't look at them. They weren't artists. Well maybe they were. He liked to build things. She liked to dance. In the back yard with her children. Joyfully in an artful, higher consciousness-type state. But I still had to sell the house and move.
The Wall is musically okay, but morally trash, and it's not surprising to me that Waters is a rabid antisemite. Why do I say that? Because his antisemitism stems from the same toxicity he propagates on The Wall. He follows the dogmatic and morally twisted oppressor/oppressed formula, victims, who can do no evil vs. the powerful privileged who can do no good. What else is 'hey teacher, leave us kids alone', but the notion that the education system, (which, by the way, he benefited from greatly), is nothing but a brainwashing tyranny to be overthrown, pure oppression and evil? With the all innocent children. Well, of course, children are innocent, that's why he gets away with his simplistic and immoral binary politics. Teenagers love it, of course, stickin' it to the man before they go off to college. He applies exactly the same rubric to Jews and Palestinians, Jews the tyrannical 'white' colonialist oppressors who tell 'filthy lies' about women being raped vs the Palestinians, who in his mind are 'children' with no agency or responsibility for their actions, no matter how evil. He's the worst of the champagne socialists, worth millions, claiming to not be a 'capitalist', and doing his best to prove it by going after the 'money-grubbing' Jews. He is truly a pathetic figure and dangerous voice at the current moment.
Great article. There are many examples of similar contradictions. Wagner, comes to mind. I saw Pink Floyd in 1975 and in 1980, at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. I love their music. It’s distressing to absorb Roger Waters hatred. I suspect he always had that Jew hatred. I don’t consider J. K. Rowling as the same contradiction as she’s protecting, not degrading, IMHO.
Well this is confusing to me on a very personal level. For one, I have been hearing for 17+ years that "EVERYTHING is art" . . . Also, I disagree with your descriptions of your "non-writer" persona (and whether you do or don't have one??). In any case, I can sympathize because I also love and grew up on Pink Floyd (among others) and it is hard to not think of something once you know it, just like you can't unsee or unhear things. And it's hard to not make the association. The moment those first few notes are heard, I am flooded with ambivalence
In the novel, Dickens repeatedly refers to Fagan as “the Jew”; and he is hung at the end. It's not like in the musical where Fagin is a charmingly wicked scoundrel. And I can tell you that when I was reading it to my son it was uncomfortable to keep having to say “the Jew,” and a few times I omitted to do so and just said "Fagin" because it was so obviously derogatory. It was obvious, including to my son, that Dickens didn’t like Jews, and he got criticized for that even in his own lifetime. That having said been said there’s clearly a spectrum of Jew hatred, and Dickens was certainly not the worst offender. And regardless, I think he is an important writer and ought to be studied and respected as such. And, yes, there is an active debate about whether Shylock is an antisemitic depiction of a Jew. I actually discuss this in a different Quillette article: https://quillette.com/2023/11/22/they-told-me-so/. But I never said Dickens was "beyond the pale," and neither is Shakespeare. Quite the contrary, they were expressing run-of-the-mill antisemitism for their time.
Separating the man from his art is a noble act, but how can a singular character like Dickens’ Fagin be considered a hot potato even during these times of political correctness? It would be different if Dickens had been a writer of repeated antisemitic screeds. Is Shakespeare’s Shylock also beyond the pale? Where does this end?
Beautifully written. I too was an enormous Floyd fan as a youth, years before The Wall was released. I still am. Thank you for this perspective on Art vs Artist. I disagree with the politics of most musicians I enjoy, and I struggle with that sometimes.
It's interesting, and I've been really compelled by this argument over the last few years about what to do when bad people make good art. I'll admit, I disassociate a bit when it comes to this. I loved Pink Floyd growing up and I loved The Wall. Frankly, it spoke to me as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. Can I take from art what I choose? Is that being selfish/immoral/self-defeating? All things to consider. Thanks for writing this.
There’s an example that’s always interested me— I read a story by Kipling that illustrated beautifully the attitude of an Indian character toward the English character who had treated him
like a lesser human. As the writer of that story, he was unwilling to be narrow or to lack empathy for that character.
What a thoughtful, lovely meditation on a tough problem. I really like your observation that often the art is better than the person.
My own difficult artist is Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 12-year-old girl and escaped having to stand trial or face consequences for his crime. And yet he has created some of the most extraordinarily beautiful and thought-provoking films ever made. I have decided to continue watching his films for a simple reason: the films, most obviously Repulsion, Chinatown, and Tess, make it clear that he knows that the rape of a child is an immeasurable, unmitigated evil. He committed that terrible crime, all the while knowing the monstrosity of his act. As you say, the work is better than the artist. And so while I would never be friends with Polanski, I choose to watch his films, guilt-free.
I was in London in 2018 for a mining conference. The sales rep for a data company was wooing the executive team and said he could get us tickets to Roger Waters who was doing a show in a few weeks. I said, "Thanks, but it'd be hard for me to be within range and unable to take a shot at the fucker.". Everyone at the table looked stunned, while a colleague tried to lighten the mood, saying, "Steady on, mate.". I said, 'Sorry, that was inappropriate in a business setting, but you need to understand that this asshole calls for the death of my children on a daily basis.". I truly look forward to his death. I hope it's a miserable one and he suffers.
I could not agree more! Waters is trash and I still do enjoy Pink Floyd music, especially the live DVDs that are after his departure from the band. “Pulse” is a great live concert DVD, and I don’t have to see Waters disgusting face while I enjoy the music
Finished your piece on Quillette and subscribed to your Substack. Don’t begrudge you continuing to enjoy Pink Floyd but suspect you’re being too generous regarding Waters in the ‘80’s — he was likely a Jew-hating terrorism enthusiast back then!
I find this a little shocking, though not for the reason you might imagine. (Waters ruined Floyd for me when he wanted to sprinkle the crowd in swastika, ✡️, and dollar sign graffiti. But I don't think that the fact that I can't enjoy their music anymore means that nobody should.) What really takes me aback is that you think the artist is a better version of the person, which suggests attaching some moral or ethical value to anesthetics that--in the words of Lisa Simpson--"embiggens" the artist in its creation. But we're both writers, and I don't know about you, but I can't identify a better version of myself as a result. The art my transcend me, but I'm still the same mess of anxieties, misapprehensions, angst, and ethical lapses I've always been. I am not a better me when I wrote. (Though I might be when I clean the bathroom without complaining.)
Well, I hope to do a deeper dive into this issue some time soon, but yes, I am saying the artist is embiggened by their art. I can think of two exceptions to this rule. One is the Marquis de Sade, whose art, from what I understand, was more debauched and evil than he was in actuality. This, of course, requires considering his work art. I don't recall that I've ever read much of it, so I'm not in a position to say. And if it's porn, that's a whole 'nother thing. The other example, might be people who are actually pretty good and kind and empathic all around, like you. Your work might more closely mirror the you when you are not writing. For my part, I maintain that man writers, myself included, rise to the occasion when they write and become better people than they are in their private lives.
Oh yes, more than that. He was written about with some admiration by lit crits as I remember from grad school in the 1990s, unless that was just part of the fever dream I had there. . . .
I've been thinking more about this since the revelations about Alice Munro hit this past weekend, in particular about the way she privileged her writing over her daughter's safety and wellbeing. I think there is real danger in ascribing moral value to making art, although I think that danger largely adheres only to the artist. It becomes possible for us to imagine we are doing something good, in an ethical sense, when I don't really think we are? For instance, the efforts I made to try to help Mot escape his homelessness were ethical actions, but I think writing a book about them--even as I hoped that book would persuade readers to work toward better policy decisions--was ethically neutral at best?
That resonates with me- that a person as an artist can be better than themselves. I’m not an expert on it, though. (That was a joke.)
I don’t know anything Roger Waters. I don’t know his music, though I’ve heard of it. He just seems hateful to me.
When actors come out as antisemites, I just find their work unpalatable. Why do I even know what they think? They have no reason to be silent, but amplifying their opinion on politics is poor form, in my opinion, with few exceptions.
“As a Jew,” eliminating every antisemite from all art, literature, music is basically impossible. Fashion too. I like to find out what people whose work I admire were doing between 1939 and 1945, but beyond that, I agree that their art has to be art.
I do think art can be better than the person because a certain person at a certain time in a certain light can be just perfection- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, like an amazing photograph of someone who is not amazing looking, but everything hits just right. Or multiple works by the same author-one work is almost Divine, and the others somewhat mediocre copies of it (before or after). I would say that the artist is the mediocre version, but the art is the almost Divine one. I want to say Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady was his magnum opus, everything else, not as much. Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence. I read both a long time ago so maybe I don’t remember.
I find a metaphor for motherhood in everything, absolutely everything. This is no different. That a parent gives their child everything- nature and nurture- but as a parent the parent rises above their previous non-parent self.
I guess it’s the idea that an artist is a kind of a conduit for art, not a creator of it. Like all creativity comes from G-d and we are just pipelines. Or to go even further out there-like a prophet accepts their prophecy through the lens of their own being, puts their own imprint on it, an artist accesses inspiration from G-d and puts their own twist on it.
I have a theory that rambling in writing is fine, though rambling in real life is not.
I also figure that on social media, interacting with someone’s post brings them visibility on some level, so rambling is ok.
I read something on Twitter a long while ago about creativity coming from G-d. It’s the most wonderful thing to think about when pressured to come up with a creative idea- the pressure can kill the creativity, but the notion that it comes *through* us, not *from* us, is really liberating.
So many fine and beautiful ideas in this reply. We're all familiar with the term "inspiration," but when you get to it's root it means something like "the breath of God." Lots of artists have reported not even knowing where their greatest work comes from of having felt like it was dictated to them or that someone else was working through them.
The Romantic poets did indeed see art as a kind of prophecy.
And yes, it's also like parenthood. It comes from us, but is not us. As for social media, I think that's another animal, maybe draws breath from a different spirit, if I can say that as a Jew. . . .
Reb Thomas, I think we need to address a far more important ethical question:
Is it still OK to love the Original Trilogy knowing that it was made by the same no-talent clown who would go on to make the Prequels and then sell his soul to Disney?
Well, now that I've been reliably informed that the "The Force is female" I feel less qualified to comment, but yes, I think we can forgive Lucas. When he sold out to Disney they were still, largely speaking Disney. But the Prequels and Sequels must be cast into the out darkness--except for season 1 of the Mandalorian . . . . .
😂
I almost didn't finish your piece, when you said these words to introduce your opinion: "And how should we think about it?" It's a common new phase, to preface an article with the question-- how should we think? As if you are going to tell us how. But it's all wrong. We don't need to be told.
This said, I'm glad I did read it through. I'm an artist and also a Jew. It's interesting but also tricky to think where art begins, at what point we transcend into that holy state, and at what level of doing/making one qualifies for these transcendent qualities.
It's also hard to decide the truth about Roger's antisemitism, because of his slippery denials.
I once bought a house, next door to a lovely Catholic couple. When they found out I was Jewish, each made antisemitic remarks to me. Seemingly innocuous but truly hateful remarks, made separately, but coming from one united ugly mind. After that, I couldn't look at them. They weren't artists. Well maybe they were. He liked to build things. She liked to dance. In the back yard with her children. Joyfully in an artful, higher consciousness-type state. But I still had to sell the house and move.
The Wall is musically okay, but morally trash, and it's not surprising to me that Waters is a rabid antisemite. Why do I say that? Because his antisemitism stems from the same toxicity he propagates on The Wall. He follows the dogmatic and morally twisted oppressor/oppressed formula, victims, who can do no evil vs. the powerful privileged who can do no good. What else is 'hey teacher, leave us kids alone', but the notion that the education system, (which, by the way, he benefited from greatly), is nothing but a brainwashing tyranny to be overthrown, pure oppression and evil? With the all innocent children. Well, of course, children are innocent, that's why he gets away with his simplistic and immoral binary politics. Teenagers love it, of course, stickin' it to the man before they go off to college. He applies exactly the same rubric to Jews and Palestinians, Jews the tyrannical 'white' colonialist oppressors who tell 'filthy lies' about women being raped vs the Palestinians, who in his mind are 'children' with no agency or responsibility for their actions, no matter how evil. He's the worst of the champagne socialists, worth millions, claiming to not be a 'capitalist', and doing his best to prove it by going after the 'money-grubbing' Jews. He is truly a pathetic figure and dangerous voice at the current moment.
Great article. There are many examples of similar contradictions. Wagner, comes to mind. I saw Pink Floyd in 1975 and in 1980, at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. I love their music. It’s distressing to absorb Roger Waters hatred. I suspect he always had that Jew hatred. I don’t consider J. K. Rowling as the same contradiction as she’s protecting, not degrading, IMHO.
Well this is confusing to me on a very personal level. For one, I have been hearing for 17+ years that "EVERYTHING is art" . . . Also, I disagree with your descriptions of your "non-writer" persona (and whether you do or don't have one??). In any case, I can sympathize because I also love and grew up on Pink Floyd (among others) and it is hard to not think of something once you know it, just like you can't unsee or unhear things. And it's hard to not make the association. The moment those first few notes are heard, I am flooded with ambivalence
I don't recall saying that "EVERYTHING" is art," but if I did, that must have been the non-writer me talking. Writer-me would never write that ;-).
Ha. I see what you did there!
Love you AND Writer You
Why would Roger Waters say such a thing? I’ve lost respect for the man because of it.
In the novel, Dickens repeatedly refers to Fagan as “the Jew”; and he is hung at the end. It's not like in the musical where Fagin is a charmingly wicked scoundrel. And I can tell you that when I was reading it to my son it was uncomfortable to keep having to say “the Jew,” and a few times I omitted to do so and just said "Fagin" because it was so obviously derogatory. It was obvious, including to my son, that Dickens didn’t like Jews, and he got criticized for that even in his own lifetime. That having said been said there’s clearly a spectrum of Jew hatred, and Dickens was certainly not the worst offender. And regardless, I think he is an important writer and ought to be studied and respected as such. And, yes, there is an active debate about whether Shylock is an antisemitic depiction of a Jew. I actually discuss this in a different Quillette article: https://quillette.com/2023/11/22/they-told-me-so/. But I never said Dickens was "beyond the pale," and neither is Shakespeare. Quite the contrary, they were expressing run-of-the-mill antisemitism for their time.
Great analysis!
Btw….. Fagin was *hanged at the end. Pictures are hung, people are hanged.
C'mon, professor 😉
He might have been both — we don’t know. 😜
Separating the man from his art is a noble act, but how can a singular character like Dickens’ Fagin be considered a hot potato even during these times of political correctness? It would be different if Dickens had been a writer of repeated antisemitic screeds. Is Shakespeare’s Shylock also beyond the pale? Where does this end?
Beautifully written. I too was an enormous Floyd fan as a youth, years before The Wall was released. I still am. Thank you for this perspective on Art vs Artist. I disagree with the politics of most musicians I enjoy, and I struggle with that sometimes.
His music is easy to like but everyone who has ever met him seems to agree that he needs to be switched off & switched back in again.
Let's not forget the interviewer here. What a disgusting pair.
It's interesting, and I've been really compelled by this argument over the last few years about what to do when bad people make good art. I'll admit, I disassociate a bit when it comes to this. I loved Pink Floyd growing up and I loved The Wall. Frankly, it spoke to me as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. Can I take from art what I choose? Is that being selfish/immoral/self-defeating? All things to consider. Thanks for writing this.
I like your piece a lot, thanks!
There’s an example that’s always interested me— I read a story by Kipling that illustrated beautifully the attitude of an Indian character toward the English character who had treated him
like a lesser human. As the writer of that story, he was unwilling to be narrow or to lack empathy for that character.
What a thoughtful, lovely meditation on a tough problem. I really like your observation that often the art is better than the person.
My own difficult artist is Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 12-year-old girl and escaped having to stand trial or face consequences for his crime. And yet he has created some of the most extraordinarily beautiful and thought-provoking films ever made. I have decided to continue watching his films for a simple reason: the films, most obviously Repulsion, Chinatown, and Tess, make it clear that he knows that the rape of a child is an immeasurable, unmitigated evil. He committed that terrible crime, all the while knowing the monstrosity of his act. As you say, the work is better than the artist. And so while I would never be friends with Polanski, I choose to watch his films, guilt-free.
I agree. Also relevant that Geimer forgave him.
I was in London in 2018 for a mining conference. The sales rep for a data company was wooing the executive team and said he could get us tickets to Roger Waters who was doing a show in a few weeks. I said, "Thanks, but it'd be hard for me to be within range and unable to take a shot at the fucker.". Everyone at the table looked stunned, while a colleague tried to lighten the mood, saying, "Steady on, mate.". I said, 'Sorry, that was inappropriate in a business setting, but you need to understand that this asshole calls for the death of my children on a daily basis.". I truly look forward to his death. I hope it's a miserable one and he suffers.
I could not agree more! Waters is trash and I still do enjoy Pink Floyd music, especially the live DVDs that are after his departure from the band. “Pulse” is a great live concert DVD, and I don’t have to see Waters disgusting face while I enjoy the music
Finished your piece on Quillette and subscribed to your Substack. Don’t begrudge you continuing to enjoy Pink Floyd but suspect you’re being too generous regarding Waters in the ‘80’s — he was likely a Jew-hating terrorism enthusiast back then!
Thanks for subscribing! At least he had the good sense to keep his mouth shut then. . . .
I find this a little shocking, though not for the reason you might imagine. (Waters ruined Floyd for me when he wanted to sprinkle the crowd in swastika, ✡️, and dollar sign graffiti. But I don't think that the fact that I can't enjoy their music anymore means that nobody should.) What really takes me aback is that you think the artist is a better version of the person, which suggests attaching some moral or ethical value to anesthetics that--in the words of Lisa Simpson--"embiggens" the artist in its creation. But we're both writers, and I don't know about you, but I can't identify a better version of myself as a result. The art my transcend me, but I'm still the same mess of anxieties, misapprehensions, angst, and ethical lapses I've always been. I am not a better me when I wrote. (Though I might be when I clean the bathroom without complaining.)
Well, I hope to do a deeper dive into this issue some time soon, but yes, I am saying the artist is embiggened by their art. I can think of two exceptions to this rule. One is the Marquis de Sade, whose art, from what I understand, was more debauched and evil than he was in actuality. This, of course, requires considering his work art. I don't recall that I've ever read much of it, so I'm not in a position to say. And if it's porn, that's a whole 'nother thing. The other example, might be people who are actually pretty good and kind and empathic all around, like you. Your work might more closely mirror the you when you are not writing. For my part, I maintain that man writers, myself included, rise to the occasion when they write and become better people than they are in their private lives.
FYI de Sade is taken seriously as a writer by scholars of the French 18th century. Haven’t read him myself.
Oh yes, more than that. He was written about with some admiration by lit crits as I remember from grad school in the 1990s, unless that was just part of the fever dream I had there. . . .
BTW I consider it entirely possible he’s as worth taking seriously as a writer as he is a vile human being — no contradiction there!
I've been thinking more about this since the revelations about Alice Munro hit this past weekend, in particular about the way she privileged her writing over her daughter's safety and wellbeing. I think there is real danger in ascribing moral value to making art, although I think that danger largely adheres only to the artist. It becomes possible for us to imagine we are doing something good, in an ethical sense, when I don't really think we are? For instance, the efforts I made to try to help Mot escape his homelessness were ethical actions, but I think writing a book about them--even as I hoped that book would persuade readers to work toward better policy decisions--was ethically neutral at best?
I read the Quillette article.
That resonates with me- that a person as an artist can be better than themselves. I’m not an expert on it, though. (That was a joke.)
I don’t know anything Roger Waters. I don’t know his music, though I’ve heard of it. He just seems hateful to me.
When actors come out as antisemites, I just find their work unpalatable. Why do I even know what they think? They have no reason to be silent, but amplifying their opinion on politics is poor form, in my opinion, with few exceptions.
“As a Jew,” eliminating every antisemite from all art, literature, music is basically impossible. Fashion too. I like to find out what people whose work I admire were doing between 1939 and 1945, but beyond that, I agree that their art has to be art.
I do think art can be better than the person because a certain person at a certain time in a certain light can be just perfection- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, like an amazing photograph of someone who is not amazing looking, but everything hits just right. Or multiple works by the same author-one work is almost Divine, and the others somewhat mediocre copies of it (before or after). I would say that the artist is the mediocre version, but the art is the almost Divine one. I want to say Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady was his magnum opus, everything else, not as much. Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence. I read both a long time ago so maybe I don’t remember.
I find a metaphor for motherhood in everything, absolutely everything. This is no different. That a parent gives their child everything- nature and nurture- but as a parent the parent rises above their previous non-parent self.
I guess it’s the idea that an artist is a kind of a conduit for art, not a creator of it. Like all creativity comes from G-d and we are just pipelines. Or to go even further out there-like a prophet accepts their prophecy through the lens of their own being, puts their own imprint on it, an artist accesses inspiration from G-d and puts their own twist on it.
I have a theory that rambling in writing is fine, though rambling in real life is not.
I also figure that on social media, interacting with someone’s post brings them visibility on some level, so rambling is ok.
I read something on Twitter a long while ago about creativity coming from G-d. It’s the most wonderful thing to think about when pressured to come up with a creative idea- the pressure can kill the creativity, but the notion that it comes *through* us, not *from* us, is really liberating.
So many fine and beautiful ideas in this reply. We're all familiar with the term "inspiration," but when you get to it's root it means something like "the breath of God." Lots of artists have reported not even knowing where their greatest work comes from of having felt like it was dictated to them or that someone else was working through them.
The Romantic poets did indeed see art as a kind of prophecy.
And yes, it's also like parenthood. It comes from us, but is not us. As for social media, I think that's another animal, maybe draws breath from a different spirit, if I can say that as a Jew. . . .