Comment by shimman

2 days ago

What's wrong with this tho? Maybe we should stop uplifting people when we find out they are nasty individuals. Acting like there aren't also artists that are good people is odd, these are the ones deserving our attention.

FWIW, I use to be a big fan of Crystal Castles (like listening to 4+ hours a day for close to a decade). It was a core part of my culture diet. Once it was known that Ethan Kath was a sexual predator that groomed teenage girls, I simply stopped listening or talking about them ever.

Why is this hard? IDK, it really feels like people put too much of their identity into cultural objects when they lack real communities and people in their lives.

Also throwing it out there, I don't really know much about Scott Adams (or his work for that matter). Dilbert comics weren't widespread memes on the phpBB forums I'd post on throughout the 00s and 10s.

edit: spelling

11 comments

shimman

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inglor_cz  2 days ago

"What's wrong with this tho?"

The thing that is wrong about it is that the purity spiral may get out of control and result in wholesale purging of art, Iconoclast-style (or perhaps Cultural Revolution-style).

I don't trust people with an instinct to purge history. They rarely know when to stop.

Plus, standards change a lot. Picasso had a teenage mistress. It wasn't as scandalous back then. Should we really be so arrogant as to push our current standards on the entire humanity that once was? If yes, we will be obliterated by the next generation that applies the same logic to us, only with a different set of taboos.

  • stetrain  2 days ago

    "Acknowledge the ugliness and try to do better" and purging art and history are different things. The comment you replied to above did not call for a purging of Adams' work or life from history.

    • inglor_cz  2 days ago

      It seems to me that, even here in this discussion, people call for avoiding work of such authors. Would that entail, say, pressure on galleries not to show such art? If so, that is more than half way to a purge.

      3 replies →

  • TheOtherHobbes  2 days ago

    The purity spiral on the other side is already batshit. "If you support that we're going to say you're bad and not buy your work" is quite a way from widespread physical and media violence.

    Adams was a mediocre bureaucrat who discovered he could make a living as a competent comedian. His success at that persuaded him that he was an Important Moral Authority.

    He started as a banker and ended as a self-harming prosperity preacher - not exactly a rare archetype in the US.

    The funny parts were funny. The rest, not so much.

    • inglor_cz  1 day ago

      "His success at that persuaded him that he was an Important Moral Authority."

      Isn't this rather common in artists? Bono of U2 comes to mind as a very pronounced example.

      The problem with being a well-known artist is that you have way too many sycophants. Imagine getting dozens of ChatGPT-like fawning messages every day, but from real people, and not just over e-mail, but whenever you stray out of your house and someone recognizes you.

      That will mess with self-image of almost everyone except the most stoic personalities.