The ability to separate the art from the artist, IMHO, is an extremely important skill to have. To me, it is important that I approach a piece without biases, either positive or negative, stemming from anything external to the piece itself. This includes the marketing hype, recommendations from friends, and the author and his popularity, charm, history or familiarity, etc.
This mindset helps me, I think, give better and more constructive criticism to friends, and learn more from the piece that I'm studying. It also helps me avoid becoming a "die-hard fan", which more often than not is just a better term for sheep. After all, if you reject art because of the artist, then you also accept art because of the artist, which is necessarily a bad idea.
There are many things around us: inventions, ideas, books, paintings, which were created by people who have done "bad" things. Einstein wrote a letter to the president which (supposedly) caused the Manhattan project to be started. Richard Feynman's first instinct after the bomb dropped in Japan was to party. Edison electrocuted live animals to public to demonstrate why AC is bad. Should we reject everything they've given us? I say no. The light bulb is not Edison.
People are complex and multifaceted. Their creative output does not represent their entire worldview. Whether they are morally flawed or even criminal IRL shouldn't stop me from learning whatever I can from their best work. I'll continue to study, learn from, and criticise, Neruda's poems
This particular case is no exception. I didn't know about John Sonmez and I didn't follow the Twitter drama, but I don't see why I wouldn't read his book if it's any good. Also, this revenge driven mindset (he did so and so on Twitter so I'll avoid his books, even if secondhand) is really petty and not practical at all.
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The ability to separate the art from the artist, IMHO, is an extremely important skill to have. To me, it is important that I approach a piece without biases, either positive or negative, stemming from anything external to the piece itself. This includes the marketing hype, recommendations from friends, and the author and his popularity, charm, history or familiarity, etc.
This mindset helps me, I think, give better and more constructive criticism to friends, and learn more from the piece that I'm studying. It also helps me avoid becoming a "die-hard fan", which more often than not is just a better term for sheep. After all, if you reject art because of the artist, then you also accept art because of the artist, which is necessarily a bad idea.
There are many things around us: inventions, ideas, books, paintings, which were created by people who have done "bad" things. Einstein wrote a letter to the president which (supposedly) caused the Manhattan project to be started. Richard Feynman's first instinct after the bomb dropped in Japan was to party. Edison electrocuted live animals to public to demonstrate why AC is bad. Should we reject everything they've given us? I say no. The light bulb is not Edison.
People are complex and multifaceted. Their creative output does not represent their entire worldview. Whether they are morally flawed or even criminal IRL shouldn't stop me from learning whatever I can from their best work. I'll continue to study, learn from, and criticise, Neruda's poems
This particular case is no exception. I didn't know about John Sonmez and I didn't follow the Twitter drama, but I don't see why I wouldn't read his book if it's any good. Also, this revenge driven mindset (he did so and so on Twitter so I'll avoid his books, even if secondhand) is really petty and not practical at all.