I agree with this mostly, Although once I know of an author who has hateful opinions, it does make me not want to support them financially. J.K. Rowling for example, the books were obviously great. In fact, Harry Potter was my first love (first series I ever read). I will never stop loving those books, they were great. But I will no longer purchase anything by her since I know, and I cannot just forget or ignore it.
@@SnowDaemonI wish you would actually listen to what she said and educate yourself on the situation. Nothing she said or believed was hateful. And you not buying her stuff because of your own bigotry your own hate filled views is fine. I hope one day you don’t just hate people for being different, which ironically is why you think you are justified in your hatred for jk Rowling. Life is too short to be filled with so much hate and intolerance I honestly feel sorry for you. Have that much hate in your heart is emotionally taxing.
@@brettlarsen4650 You are talking about hate while J.K Rowling uses her platform for years to spread hate against trans people going as far as to become holocaust denier and then SLAPP critics? I can't know if you are an actual transphobe engaging in crybullying or you simply don't know what she said or why it's harmful but calling someone a bigot for boycotting bigotry is absurd
@@SnowDaemon You seem like one of those people who rides the waves of hatred without even bothering to check where this hatred came from. How about you look up what actually happened before you blindly follow those woke fanatics. And I say this without even being a fan of J.K. Rowling, never read Harry Potter or anything from her.
OMG LMAO I didn't even finish the video yet but I need to share this: My mom walked in while I was watching this video so I asked her, just to test it out, "mom, who wrote The Lord of the Rings?", and she said "J. J. K. Martin" not a hint of hesitation in her voice omg i'm wheezingggggg help
Bloody, hell, my mum was a fan of all three writers! Although she began to dislike Ms. Rowling personally (though not her work) when her transphobic views became known. My mum was an awesome geek.
If you enjoy a book written by a "bad person" it doesn't in turn make you one as well. I would say it's healthy to read content by people you don't agree with to expand your own perspectives and ideas. Like mentioned in the video, sometimes "bad people" create good art and ideas. We can't just live in echo chambers our whole life ignorant to the fact that there are others that don't think exactly as we do.
And it’s definitely an internet phenomenon to assume people have all the opinions of the people they read. Unfortunately negative opinions and loud voices stay with us longer and so it can be hard to ignore!
I think what you've said needs to be said more, a very reasonable and intelligent way of thinking. I think what you've said is especially true in the movie industry right now. For example, I think Kevin Spacey is one of the best actors alive when it comes purely down to talent. Do I think he is a good person? No way, but I can separate the art from the person.
@Bookborn lmao he didn't say shit, stop drinking the CIA coolaid, cixin liu is one of the mildest authors out there. i like how you mentioned scot orison the author of enders game, well him and Robert A. Heinlein have said far more worse shit. whats next are you going to start getting pissed at Iain banks as well for his more conventional depictions that don't align with the west? most sci fi authors and sci fi in general is extremely related to politics its only natural for the authors to also be political, if you don't like it I suggest you go back to reading kids book of fantasy.
if your talking about the Uyghur internment controversy, its funny that you in the west care so much, because every muslim country even usa aligned ones like UAE and saudi arabia voted against it, and even the un already unclassified it as only "cultural genocide" which is funny because julian assange is still in jail for speaking out against us warcrimes against muslims, and australian soldiers caught commiting warcrimes in afghanistan are still praised lmao, don't pretend you give a shit about muslims. I love you bleeding hearts be very selective on it, when are you going to boycott all of these british and canadian authors for depictions of the native americans? or supporting integration through residential schools lmao @@Bookborn
That's been more or less my experience with books. I don't pay attention to the author name unless i'm really enjoying the books and want to know who wrote it so i can get more by that author -- or i really hate it and look at the name so i can avoid further work. But never does it occur to me that i should look at who the author is as a person. I just want more of the thing they made.
Hard relate. I mean, in fairness, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which is like one of my favorite books of all time - I couldn't tell you anything about her except she's British. A lot of times I just don't care, I just love the work.
That's how I feel about actors as well. The main reason I learned about Brandon Sanderson as a person is cause of how active he is in answering questions about this stories (look up his response to how shardblades would interact with a cheese wall)
Eh sure but I've personally never seen much wisdom in it. I do get wanting to avoid the general discomfort and pain of finding out a hero or idol sucks but also fuck it meet your heroes. Find out some of them suck. Find out even impressive people can suck. Find out that even your heroes aren't perfect so you don't have to be perfect to be someone's hero. Find out that even if they suck the good things you got from them are still valuable even if THEY were hypocritical. I do agree with her point on not having to vet every single creator because yeah that's exhausting but I've always seen the approach of "never meet your heroes" as kind of inherently flawed. I just find it encourages keeping your blinders on when it comes to questioning people you look up to and discourages a lot of chances at growth from the times you do
Another thing to consider is that human views on what is good/right and what is evil/wrong changes over time. I guarantee that future generations will judge us for perceived faults that are lauded today as virtues. And with how connected the world is, those shifts come faster than ever before. There is something to be said for taking the good we see in a person’s art while understanding that they are just human. We have faults too. Some people just have the misfortune of being more widely known/published so their closet skeletons are on more public display.
Yes, I agree with this. I think it can be hard when those faults seem to be really harming OTHER people... like when an artist donates money to hate groups. That's when I think we all just have to individually decide how we are going to deal with it.
I don’t research any authors prior to reading their book - I figure that is on the individual reader if they choose to do so. If I researched every author I read, I’d never have time for actual reading!
A don't research authors even AFTER I read their book. I don't really care who the authors are and what they like or dislike. They might be a serial killer, for all I know, but if I like the book i'd still buy and read their next book.
@@BookbornYeah, I saw that, which is good, though not as «clarified» as you think. You seemed more concerned about how you sounded and how often you repeated the word, rather than truly respecting people with other opinions.
My husband and I actually had a very similar conversation when we were discussing wired article. Our summed up conclusion was when we find out an author, actor, etc is a good person it makes us want to consume their work even more. When we find out a person is an awful human being it makes us like their works less. I don't stop consuming their works necessarily but I have a tendency to gush about the less.
Totally. And when you find out beforehand, it's easy to dismiss it. I'll probably never read Avalon because I didn't read it as a kid and now I know the author sucks. It's only after you love a work that it becomes harder to dismiss
*returns from checking the web* Oh hell. I'm now deeply regretting the Avalon Priestess tattoo I got back in the early 90's. I really hope nobody makes the connection anymore.
whether in music, movies, books sometimes you need to separate the art from the artist...if I only read, watched, and listened to things written by people who I agree with, I would have nothing to watch, read, or listen too.
Cixin’s views are commonplace in China. It’s very hard to understand unless you grew up and lived in China. I think we all tend to underestimate how much our environment and upbringing influence our views and when someone’s views drastically differs we often jump to the conclusion that they are a bad person rather than thinking through what circumstances led them to view the world this way.
I've not found anything controversial in what he has said, apart from seemingly making one generalising comment about Muslims in that New Yorker interview. But it's such a hatchet job and so US-centric in its thinking it's hard to tell what he actually meant. And the journalist is so blinkered and biased - she genuinely thinks that Liu is brainwashed and that she is immune from it: "The implication was clear: years in the West had brainwashed me. In that moment, in Liu’s mind, I, with my inflexible sense of morality, was the alien." This after a whole interview of her grilling this author on all the tired old anti-China propaganda tropes. It would be like a Chinese interviewer attacking George RR Martin for an hour asking him to defend the American government and the history of American Imperialism. It's the same thing that happens to any Chinese person any western media comes into contact with and that to me is far more offensive than the, as another commenter mentioned, perfectly commonplace and legitimate political views that Liu expressed (under duress). What I definitely didn't see is anything "evil" as Bookborn said. Would hate to think she swallowed the anti-Chinese propaganda after having such a connection to his work.
I don't care who the author is and what they did. At all. If I was entertained, their contract with me was fulfilled; and until I stop liking their work, I will be willing to be their customer. Period.
You brought up some very valid points! I will say that I responded about the wire article. Because Brandon Sanderson is my favorite fictional author ever! And is a very nice person, I found it very unkind! Brandon Sanderson's books have changed my life! As someone who has been abused, sexually, verbally and physically, the Cosmere is a lifeline for me! And for the first time in my life I can look in the mirror, and I like the person staring back at me! That's due to Brandon's incredible mental representation! Through therapy, Brandon Sanderson books, and my own personal growth, I like being me! If that's not great art I don't know what is!
In theory, I agree with what you say. In practice, I honestly do tend to read at least a little about the author before I engage with their books. It's not that I can't deal with a little controversy, but if the author has consistently said or done things I can't defend, then I'm not eager to enjoy the book, hear the bad news and then have an argument with myself about the validity or reasonable extent of my appreciation of their work. I can't deny, there's a certain amount shame involved in that thought process. In a world where social media doesn't push the conversation about the personal ethics of authors, I would probably better tolerate reading a 'good book by a bad person.'
Interestingly enough I feel like being a child is when you don’t consider/know about the author, but as an adult, these things change as you’re more aware of the world. And, it’s easy to say you don’t care when it’s not affecting you - what if an author said they hated you? (I don’t know anything about you but say religion, skin color, whatever, take your pick). It might be harder to ignore. Not saying there is a right answer - I tend to read completely blind if author. But I don’t think it’s childish to ask the question.
@@Bookborn the thing is most Autor you do not know, you will most likly never know the bad stuff they do, much worse things then have a different Worldview. I hate stephin kings writing becouse his writing is mysoginistic, i do not know the man, he says he is a feminist, but is it true? I do not know, can not stand his writing. So i junge his work. If people say -ism stuff and then save a Person they Do not like becouse of there -ism, still there believe is you should help everyone, are they that bad?
I find this line of reasoning is strange. It's like children being scared of cooties, reading and enjoying someones work isn't going to somehow infect me with their worldview. Art is interpreted through the eye of the viewer not it's creator. How are people ever going to expand their horizons if all they consume is the same? Imagine a world were art is gatekept by the requirement that you be a "good person" and apply this in a historical context, like really apply this to some authors now deceased... Also it attributes a strange worldview it's like these instances I'm not seeing that this is a connection to real division, I actually find it sort of strange that the critic sees a connection between some real societal group and the fictional people who sacrifice children to their strange otherworldly deity or some such.
People aren't black & white (good/bad). Separate art from the artist. You don't know someone is like from how they're portrayed by (an increasingly activist) media. Read what want to read.
And you are always bad in someone else’s eyes no matter what you do. For example someone could even point out your own connection in this comment like black & white (good & bad) dichotomy as racist. 🤷
Honestly, If we were to demand great artists to be outstanding people we'd be left with very few. Picasso, Mozart, Beethoven, Norman Mailer, Hemingway, just to name a few, not to mention a lot of rock stars weren't exactly models of ethical behaviour. Should we give up their incredible art? I won't. Regarding present artists, I think I can be critical of the person while still enjoying their work.
yeah, I was even thinking of inventors/tech giants...that have been known to be big ol' jerks (Steve Jobs comes to mind). It would be hard to engage with much period. That said, I realize there is a scale, and that's why everybody's personal views come into it; I"m certainly not going to judge anyone though for what they choose to read, but rather their own individual actions.
I kinda agree but I think the thing is that all the people you’ve listed are dead lol so they aren’t profiting off anyone buying their work and using said profits to fund hate groups. I think we can admire the work they’ve done while critiquing their behavior but imo people eager to shout praise but are real quiet about the person’s wrongdoings and and are quick to brush them off ie almost everyone knows who Picasso is and about his art but a lot of people are surprised to learn that he was an abusive misogynist and cubism, which he helped “pioneer “, was heavily influenced by African art which he later tried to deny
@@Bookborn In the Book of Genesis, the inventors of musical instruments and harnessing metals were from the line of Cain. Also, the line of Cain introduced polygamy, spousal abuse, and murder too. Something about the freedom of creativity also taps into debauchery as well. If you examine people in artistic fields, tendencies for drug use or sexual promiscuity are much higher.
@@dionnadays8908 Even with artists that are still alive, I feel the same. I loathe Mario Vargas Llosa’s political views with intensity but he’s still a great writer. Same happens with many musicians or movie directors or actors. Criminal activity against people is where I would draw the line.
I don't go out of my way to research an author. However, if I learn something about the creator that makes me lose desire to keep reading their books, I will just drop them. I also take in account if they are actively affecting things today.
I avoid author info like the plague. I enjoy my reading and leave it at that. Someone once said you should never meet your celebrity heros because they will bitterly disappoint you. I apply this to my reading as well. I read to avoid this stuff. I’m not doing deep dives on everything I read.
The only author I have banned from my shelf after learning somthing about her was Marion Zimmer Bradley - having actually done terrible things seems more relevant to me than having terrible opinions.
Yes, I agree that actions are definitely things that make me pause more than just speech. I’m also not interested in Avalon anymore, although it’s easier since I never read them in the first place.
@@Bookborn tbh as someone who read it at a very young age - 12 - one of the worst moments for me when I found out what she did was the way it explained certain scenes in the book that always felt odd and deeply uncomfortable to the point where I didn't even have to reread it to find them. I just remembered them the very instant I read the accusations. So, yeah, it's not really one where you can separate art from the artist, tbh I'm not very good at that in general, but especially not with Avalon and MZB.
Yeah, I bought one of her books from a charity shop because I thought it looked interesting. I was planning to read it and one day just decided to look her up, and I am glad I did so before getting invested in her stuff. Not sure whether to just bin that book or give it back to the charity shop.
I read the wired article last week after another video popped up in my UA-cam feed that discussed it. The writer of that article comes off as completely condescending and just clueless. Brandon Sanderson’s fans love him because he is so accessible and so open and so giving of himself and his time. Not to mention we love his stories as well. When Mr. Sanderson was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, I sent him a message on his blog giving him encouragement because I had seen some of the nasty things that had been written about him and how he wasn’t experienced enough and who was this guy to be taking over this Herculean task. He wrote me back quite a long email thanking me for my support. That was at a time when he would’ve been up to his eyeballs in rereading all the books and going through all of the notes. I got to see him at one of his book signings and the talk he gave was really interesting. Highly recommend attending one of his signings at a book release if you get the chance.
I'm a giant, giant sanderson fan lol! I've attended a few signings! I absolutely detest that article, I just didn't want to talk about it in the same way since everyone already had it covered haha.
I like that you added the little insert about "bad people". The way i see it is that the concept itself is problematic, too simplistic and mostly used to "other" people. Human beings are complex, they are able to do 'bad' things and 'good' things all at once. Disqualifying another person because of y being bad fails to recognize that they most likely do a lot of 'good' too. People are a product of their environment and influences, categorizing them simplistically as 'bad' or 'good' does a disservice to understand the nuances of the human condition. Now ofc there are extreme situations where this proxy idea is useful, i don't need to look at some of the worst people in human history and say "well actually" (even though the logic might still apply somewhat), so what transgressions are 'bad' enough? That is most likely down to some personal interpretation in most cases, though i think it is important to consider the following: You are rightfully saying that the internet gives us more information than ever, but what it also does is make it easy to 'other' people based on the information we want to see, or even just information which is missing context or might even be flat out wrong (or INTERPRETED FOR YOU by others with their own biases). There are social pressures, there are echo chambers for any opinion, there is a certain push towards making people think the same about any given topic. What i am getting at is that for all the information we have, i think it became more and more difficult to come to conclusions which are solid because there is a lot of noise from all sides. This was somewhat of a tangent, but i think it is important to at least acknowledge and think about, people are complex beings, 'othering' shouldn't happen as fast as it does these days, judgements are coming rather fast and to me at least the 'othering' has mostly one function, to feel better about oneself. (THEY ARE BAD = I am not).
I think HP Lovecraft is a great example of this. He was a gross, disgusting, hateful human being, which is where his style of writing and the ideas he came up with sprang from. However, Cthulu and Cthonic ideas is something our culture (and our SFF genres) took and ran with and made their own in a lot of ways, and not once in any of those adaptations have I seen Cthulu's hateful themes and ideologies pushed. We took the product of a bad person and made it cool and took away that hateful origin in the eyes of the general public.
Right. It's not as though human beings can be neatly divided into Good People and Bad People. Nor that people who advocate views that I find incorrect, misguided, or even abhorrent are thoroughly bad people in all respects.
Thank you theredviper! People ignore the reality of how psyches of sentient beings work and based on superficial understanding they engage in distress-managing in a destructive way.
Yes, and I really like how you bring up that our penchant for sound-bites and headlines today also is where nuance - and understanding - often come to die. Not that there aren't evil people (hello Hitler, just to name an easy picking there) but I do think we throw around the phrase perhaps easier than we should.
I only care if they get charged for a serious crime. I don't need artists to be my friends, I need them to make art that I enjoy. They are entitled to be whoever they want to be outside of that. As for virtual signaling, in my country we have a saying - a person's heart is a forest - you never know what some stranger online is doing/saying/etc behind closed doors.
Just came across this video. An author's sphere of influence is generally those who read their books. In that sphere, judge the book. By purchasing the book your judgement is related to the book, not the author. If an author becomes an influencer in a larger space...as has JK Rowling, in that space it becomes appropriate to judge their personal views. However, Harry Potter was hugely successful and loved by millions of people. JK Rowling created that work and she deserves all the credit for the quality of the work. The thing people ought to remember is that Rowling is more than that one opinion she has that you happen to disagree with. She created a world and people that you found uplifting...which suggests that, taken as a whole, there is probably more you like about her than the one thing you don't like. Endorsing Harry Potter doesn't mean you agree with every aspect of her life. All it means is that she created a worthwhile work of art.
Love your videos! I’d say confusing the message with the messenger is a common mistake. If every work you read and value must be written by a flawless human being, you’re done reading. It’s part of a greater trend I’ve begun to see in that “Internet age“ you reference. Because we can research increasing details of any author’s life, readers can get hooked on pursuing “offense archaeology”. And because many folks increasingly struggle with nuance, they must label a person “good“ or “evil”. People are mixed bags (though, certainly some mixtures are more homogenous than others). “Good guys“ and “bad guys“ are judgments for toddlers. Adults can do better. Judge an idea or an action. People are vast collections of these things. Edit: I posted this before finishing the video (which is never a prudent move). I see that you are also uncomfortable with the term “bad person“ in general, and seemingly for the same reasons) My condemnation of that perspective above was not directed at you. It was directed at the perspective. Once again: thoughts and actions, not people. 🙂
I don't care about an author's political or social opinions if they're a good writer, unless they bring those things into their work. I am not a fan of Orson Scott Card in the least, but still like enders game. I love the Cthulhu mythos, hate the racism that HP Lovecraft had. If i rejected authors based on their opinions, how much would i have missed out on? Frankly, this whole rejection of authors based on their morality is just two steps below censorship imho.
Totally agree. We live in a world where no one is perfect and we’re not going to ever agree on absolutely everything. People need to get over themselves with that nonsense.
Sure, but you argument falls short when you use lovecraft as an example .Becaudse his racism is essential to his mythos. It´s why he created it in the first place. His fear of anything that wasnt (white) like him.
@@Alexander-kc8oq ancient outer space gods that dwarf humanity's limited understanding of reality? I think there's was more to his writing than just racism. I'm thinking you read articles about Lovecraft and not his full catalog .. or you just read the controversial pieces spoonfed you in a college course
A few years ago I saw a UA-cam video declaring you need to cancel these fantasy authors because for a fact they give their numbers out at book signings. Now you have to question another fantasy author because he personally believes you are happiest being monogamous. I can go on, but the thing is no matter who you are ‘you’ will be canceled according to what the flavor of the month is
1. All that matters is the writing. Everything else is marketing. The author should not have to change their views or lifestyle to suit some theoretical reader. Anything else is censorship. 2. If you only read books by people you already know you agree with, you will never learn anything. 3. When I was young, libraries and bookshops used to stock Mein Kampf. The people who were reading it were not endorsing Hitler, they were trying to learn from history. Public libraries would stock Marx, Trotsky, Gramsci; historical figures from the extreme right and the extreme left. Because the purpose of libraries is to broaden peoples' ideas. 4. If your generation does believe you should only read from authors you "approve", then you have more in common with cult members than you would like to think. Tellling people what they can and cannot read is censorship. Isn't that happening in Florida just now? What is the difference? Cancel culture isn't new - authoritarian regimes have always burned and banned books, after all. It's just finding it among people who presumably believe they are "progressive" that is confusing for people of my generation. What happened to the idea of respecting other peoples' views? You can do that without sharing them. Indeed, that is the test of your belief in freedom of expression.
Readers have no responsibility to research anything. If you don’t separate the art from the artist there is no way to genuinely connect with a piece of art, because a subsequent action of or discovery about the artist can completely alienate how you perceive the work that you connected with. The bottom line is that it’s difficult to really know people even people you interact with on a daily basis (think coworkers) so we have zero chance of knowing any particular artist even if we think we do.
yes! this! I think a lot of people forget about the 'persona', how we present ourselves based on situation/circumstance. So there's not a full-truth grasp on what an individual is like.
I actually fundamentally disagree with this principle. While no-one is under any obligation to research the artist and art can be appreciated just fine without knowing where it comes from, to actively try to divorce a piece of art from its creator does a disservice to both art AND artist. While I'm only someone who creates as a hobby, I am surrounded by creatives who do it as a job. People who create pour a part of themselves into whatever they make, be it a handcrafted mug, a dance or a full length novel. To try to divorce someone from what they've created just because their association offends your sensibilities is IMO possibly the most disrespectful way you can treat a piece of art, short of actually trying to deface or destroy it. Critique a piece based on your opinion from an author all you like, but don't ever do the disrespect of trying to remove them from it. It's basically saying that this piece of art could exist without that person, removing the human element entirely. At which point, we may as well just pack up and let AI do all of our creating for how much we respect it.
@@jakerockznoodles yes it seems like we do fundamentally disagree. Glad you posted this here as I feel this view point certainly should accompany my comment.
@@jakerockznoodles didn’t Bookborn prove at the beginning of the video that usually the art transcends the artist. People know LORDS OF THE RINGS, but most likely have no idea who Tolkien is. I think most artists would prefer it that way. They want their work to be in the limelight, not their lives.
You make very good points here, and I totally agree with what you say at 17:14. It feels like ever since the JK Rowling controversy, there's been a surge of articles/videos saying "Actually, HP was never really good to begin with." Which, to each to their own, but it comes off like people trying to sound smart rather than actually being analytical.
I live in the West of Edinburgh. I have personally met a number of women who JK Rowling has helped privately when they found themselves in financial difficulties. She's been loyal to the people (especially women) she knew when she was struggling, and when she was becoming successful, but not famous. I do wonder how many of the virtue-signallers have ever parted with a penny to help someone. As to the "HP as never any good" - there seems to be an entire generation who expect the stuff they enjoyed as children to stay with them through to their thirties, and I don't understand it at all.
Ok this is totally what I was implying LOL like I don't think everyone needs to like Harry Potter - and certainly, if you first read it as an adult, there may be a larger chance you won't like it because you aren't it's primary audience: but the idea that because people don't agree with JK Rowling makes her work automatically bad is just sooo silly and really isn't adding anything to the conversation.
As a conservative that loves to read, it seems that, from my perspective, I don’t ideologically agree with any author I read. That’s mainly because most authors who hold any conservative stance (particularly on cultural issues) are either pushed out of the industry or have future works boycotted and ridiculed. Therefore, if I want to read modern popular literature, I must read the works of those I totally disagree with. While none of these books have changed my mind about what I believe, and I am continually frustrated that there are very few popular books being written from someone who believes what I believe, I find it healthy to be open to hearing from other perspectives.
The Internet in general, and social media in particular, has given rise to this strange idea that, if you disagree with someone on a single topic, you must disagree with them on all topics. This is an extremely counterproductive attitude. Successful societies depend on finding common ground, even with people with whom you disagree. When it comes to literature and performing arts, I care a lot more about a story's message than the views of the creator. I believe that consumers do have an obligation to think critically about the products they consume. But actually researching something beforehand I reserve for big ticket items like real estate and automobiles, or high impact items like food or medication. I have sufficient confidence in my own critical thinking to engage any art without worrying about being "infected" with "wrongthink." In the words of Aristotle, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
This an incredibly nuanced conversation. For myself I don't go out of my way to research authors before I read them, however if something comes to light and the author actively physically hurt or abused people, or is spreading hate in the form of trying to take basic human rights away from people, then I tend to avoid talking about them on my channel. Or if I do mention them, I try to remember to have the caveat about what they have done. For other controversies that arise that are more open to interpretation, such as the controversy surrounding TJ Klune, I tend to not mention the controversy as much. Those lines are constantly evolving and changing, but the one thing I cannot stand is when people extend you reading an author with you supporting their views, like the viewer/commenter did to you with Cixin Liu. Like...we can consume works from racist people without being racist so I just need people to stop being so reductive in their arguments, and accept that it is only by having open honest conversations such as this that we can better understand each other. I strongly disagree that you should only mention controversies that directly affect you though (one of the comments was saying that's what they do), because allyship is real and sometimes having people that aren't directly impacted mentioning it can be very powerful for marginalized groups.
Yeah I don’t think that person was saying you shouldn’t, but rather that they notice they tend to talk about issues that affect them more, which I think can naturally happen. But I totally agree that this whole “I see a book on your shelf and so you must agree with them” trend is really annoying and slightly disturbing. It’s never that black and white.
@@Bookborn 100% never that black and white. Sometimes you don’t know there was something (like someone in my bookshelf tour last year brought up the author of mists of Avalon and I had no idea), or sometimes it’s more nuanced then that and it’s ok if someone had a different opinion
The problem (for me) with Cixin Liu is that the outrage is coming from Westerners who assume he has the same freedom of speech as they have. A lot of what Chinese "celebrities" do and say is rooted in what the party wants them to say or do. Sometimes their life will quite literally depend on it. Sometimes they will risk getting harassed or losing income or becoming socially isolated. Sometimes their families get threatened. I find it disgustingly ignorant when people judge others who belong to different cultures, but without actually understanding that not every place has the same rules or laws or morality. Only Cixin Liu knows whether he actually believes the things he said. But what I can say with certainty is that no one in their right mind would say anything to damage the Chinese government. It's easy to point fingers from the outside, but I'd like to see how many Westerners would cling to their morality if their life and livelihood was on the line. Instead of using this opportunity to bring light to the Xinjiang situation or starting a discussion on morality and how culture affects it, people are doing what they do best. Try to cancel this guy as if that will do anyone any good. At this point it feels to me that cancelling people left and right is what brings some people most joy, and that they're not actually trying to raise awareness or help anyone.
If i dislike an authors views, but also really like their writing on a surface level, i try to find outif their views make theirs ways into the writing. If it does, im out. There are many more great authors out there. If it doesnt, im fine with keep on reading.
If their views make it into their writing, they are not good authors to me, no matter what those views are. Even for literary fiction. An author tells a story, and might want to say something with it, but in the end, he just lets you experience the story and come to your own conclusion, not just tells you what to believe, because this would break the most basic rule of writing. Show but don't tell! And to say it with the words of Marcel Proust: “Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.”
Great discussion - and I think Ves' (Hi Ves!) comment's pretty great. I don't have a great answer myself beyond a vague "Try to limit the harm I do/spread" - but what I try to do, and what I'd always appreciate from creators is just information - if you know something, share it. I'm not necessarily going to think less of someone if they read a book from a homophobic author (for example), but if they knowingly hide that information, making it so others might accidentally engage with something they don't want to - that's a problem. It's providing information and facts widely such that individuals can make their own decisions - AND better decisions on whether to buy, get from a library, etc. there's a commercial component as well as the artistic one, and both might have different approaches.
and oh god the "No one with bad thoughts can make good art" is one of the most annoying, prevalent beliefs out there. Both wrong, and actively harmful for understanding and grappling with these issues when awful people *do* surface!
I always appreciate the way you think. I might not always agree, but you make a great effort to look at an issue from multiple angles. I was a literature major in college and was interested in how authors from different places and times dealt with social issues and moral questions. I guess I always understood that the authors were constrained and influenced by the time they lived and the places they were from. I hate current efforts to "sanitize" their writings. I want to know how they thought about issues and how their society viewed them. The same is true for present day authors. I judge an author on what they write, not on the life they live. I judge a person on how they live, not on what they write.
I think it’s fine to enjoy what you enjoy and not feel the need to stress over vetting every author’s beliefs before you read them. That being said, it is reasonable to allow for the added context of a person’s character to color your perception of their work in hindsight. I think a great example of this, for me, is Harry Potter and JKR’s transphobia. HP does a lot of things well, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a kid/teenager growing up, partly because its messages fit my “Judeo-Christian” value system at the time. For example, the morality within the HP universe is very tribal and pro-establishment. Good guys and bad guys are clearly coded, often reinforced by visual cues. The wizarding world makes the conscious choice not to use magic to help the general population. And while there is some racial diversity present, their inclusion is regularly undermined by stereotypes and cultural insensitivity. These and other aspects to the work lend its overall feel a decidedly conservative bent. This isn’t in itself a huge problem for me, there are plenty of people I disagree with politically whom I consider good people and enjoy the art they produce. The problems start to develop when the worst parts of that ideology start tangibly affecting the real world. This author is a British person with actual real life financial and political clout, who doesn’t seem to even acknowledge the lingering effects of literal and cultural colonialism on the world we live in today. I honestly believe that there is a direct parallel between HP’s moral obsession with the status quo, and JKR’s fanatical passion for defending cis-het normativity at all costs. It’s the same conservative logic. The world and the way things have always been done are generally good, so we must defend it, with violence if necessary. I find I prefer a more progressive mindset, and that’s not even accounting for the more insidious “natural order” aspect of conservative ideology, which is routinely used to justify casual racism, sexism, and even genocide in extreme cases. It’s not unreasonable to think that a young person could read JKR’s books, be inspired by them, look her up in real life, and be swayed into active transphobia by her hateful rhetoric. And frankly that’s horrifying. For me, it’s more than enough real danger to justify boycotting the series and affiliated products indefinitely. But I also just can’t enjoy the books for themselves anymore, because I’m just too aware of the damage Judeo-Christian morality has done to me personally and people I care about. So I do think it’s somewhat normal for your opinions on art to change over time as your own personal values do, if that makes sense. Thanks for bringing up such an interesting topic!
If you were using a Mac product and you honestly are going to say that you have a consumer responsibility to look into every aspect of a book or a movie then you’re being a hypocrite. Just enjoy the book a person can be a shitty person and still have written an amazing piece of art or something that could’ve changed somebody’s life. The amount of actors, politicians, corporations, authors, and everybody else that does anything that are going to turn out to be jerks or assholes are infinite. The line that somebody considers good or bad is also so different for every situation/person. Focus on the content of the material not the person who wrote the material when doing a review. I feel like that’s the simplest easiest way.
I don't research authors before diving into a book unless Im trying to actively diversify my reading( i.e reading from authors from a particularly country, reading books by trans authors etc) and as a woman and person of color I often do find myself reading books by authors whose views I don't agree with. I often also don't mind reading from authors whose views are different from my own. Part of why I read is to dive into different perspectives. HOWEVER when I do become aware that an author/artist is actively using their platform/resources/money to cause harm then I can no longer support them i.e JK Rowling.
Great video as always. Cixin Liu is an interesting example. I was talking with Ben about this a while ago and he brought up a good point. For context Ben is Chinese and has spent time in China visiting his family several times growing up. He pointed out that China has state controlled media that often feeds you a certain narrative and the people living in China don't really have a reason to question their government. I know this in itself opens up a can of worms but it made me wonder if Cixin Liu actually believes what he said or if he's just regurgitating a msg he's been immersed in
Oh, good point - I have definitely researched authors to try and find own voices, or to make sure I'm reading from a source I trust, especially with non-fiction. What Ben said is sort of some thing I've been thinking about a lot in relation to Liu. It's hard though; we don't know the story, and we also don't know what it's like to live in other countries that have different perspectives/challenges/censorship levels.
Rowling's opinion on trans women not being women somehow negates all her generous charity works? Rowling donated around $200 million dollars to charity and actively works on helping children around the world. She holds an opinion that 99.9% of the world agrees with.
@@Bookborn There's also the fact that in China you need to be very careful what you say in public, particularly if you have a high profile (actor, writer, influencer, etc.). You WILL get not just yourself but also your family in trouble if you say the wrong thing. (Trouble = anything ranging from cyber-bullying to harassments to jail for the rest of your life) (source: am Chinese)
@@thomasc9036 Your percentage is inaccurate. There are indigenous communities that embrace trans individuals and it's actually a part of their culture. One example are the Muxes of Mexico. Anyways Im not keeping "tabs" or a running list on the good vs bad things authors do. Im just choosing not to support JK Rowling which is fine. My choice does not impact you.
Enjoy the art. A recommendation of an artist’s work, regardless whether it’s a book, film, music, etc., is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything (or anything) that the artist has ever said/done in his/her personal life. There’s lots of authors, actors, directors, producers, and musicians whose art I thoroughly enjoy and would even recommend despite my strong disagreement with their lifestyle, their expressed moral/philosophical/political views, etc.
I appreciate you having this as a public discussion. I'm sure that as a Booktuber you juggle more pressures in this area than most readers. My personal stance is that I want to know before giving money to an author whether I can support them in good conscience, or recommend them to anyone. I don't research my $0.99 ebook purchases, and get most of my books used, so it isn't much of a time sink for me when I do want to find out what an author is like. Then there are times authors make their views perfectly clear in their work, and save me the trouble. 🙃 What really sucks is when you fall in love with someone's work beforehand, as with you and Cixin Liu. We can engage with something critically and still love it for what it means to us as individuals.🖖
If there was going to be ANY line I draw in the sand, it's where the art reflects the artist. I'm thinking Goodkind (who I haven't read) who included some heavy political themes and opinions, basically using his work to preach. Don't get me wrong, a writer can have some spicy opinions and still write something good. If you want to avoid the author I totally respect that but I won't demonize you for enjoying something you enjoyed. But if someone has icky views and writes a book about their icky views, I'm out. The description for Galbraith's last release gave me this vibe - it was very clearly a self-insert. The only other consideration would be when the "badness" isn't a matter of views and is more criminal (*cough* David Eddings *cough*). I found out about his past (it's very upsetting so tw) as i started the Belgariad which was a really.... really weird experience. But in that case the art and artist were very different and, as weird as it is to say, i didn't hate the books. Even if i was a bit extra critical of them. I may have lost focus a time or two while writing this comment but who knows. I loved the video. This was really thought provoking and actually helped me in figuring out how i feel about this. It's been a messy process with Hogwarts Legacy and some other media the last several months.
I feel like if you're a person who can't at least somewhat separate the art from the artist in certain medias, then you're just terminally online and in the nicest way I can say it need to get off your phone and go outside. This video is amazing
I agree that to pre-check authors, actors, musicians, etc. before we consume their work is unsustainable. It can also become a performative “gotcha” by people who want to virtue signal, which isnt helpful at all. (“Oh… you like Liu Cixin? I guess you don’t care about cultural genocide against the Uighurs.”) If you go back far enough in history (50, 100, 200 years?), essentially every artist is misoginistic, racist, or homophobic to some degree by modern standards. That shouldn’t mean that we shouldn’t be able to enjoy the art they produced.
For me personally. If an author is public in how bad of a person they are currently and are alive or recently dead, I will avoid their work. There are a million other books I could be reading. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to research every author I read. I rarely care about who the author is
Ok, so I didn't know about the comments you were talking about so I went to look them up and... they were pretty underwhelming tbh. Like, there's this weird hypocrisy at work at the moment where we in the west demand "authentic voices" and then the moment that voice says something that doesn't gel with our ideas of what they should think about their culture we cast them out. Like, I don't agree with the policies of the CCP, and I think China and the world would be better off under a different government (... or no government), but I dont expect the vast majority of Chinese people to agree with me, and they're the ones who actually live there so I'm not going to get mad at them when they have a vastly different opinion than I do. Whether we like it or not most Chinese people are probably either indifferent towards or vaguely pro the CCP, in much the same way that in most countries the vast majority of people are either indifferent towards or vaguely pro the concept of having a government. They havent been brainwashed or any of that Jordan Peterson nonsense, they are just ordinary people who are just as inclined to support or justify the actions of their government as your typical democrat is to support Biden despite his massively increasing police funding and walking back on the vast majority of his progressive promises, or Obamas use of drones. I am so very tired of being asked to make moral judgements on the private opinions and relationships of people I don't know, and having my own morality called into question when I say I don't think it's any of my business and I am going to engage with the art based on it's own merit. We all have our own priorities and limits. If I know someone is actively causing harm on a social and legislative level like JRK then yeah, they dont get my money. But if it's just they have fairly predictable and normal opinions for someone of their background and made the mistake of speaking publicly about that then... I really couldn't care less any more.
I'm busy enough I struggle to find time to read as consistently as I want to. I think of I had to research every author's history, Interviews, and social media posts going back years I probably would run out of what little time I have. If an author I enjoyed reading came out and made some wild claims and offensive statements I would probably pack up their books and get rid of them in some way. Until something becomes quite public and known I probably won't find out about it and most likely won't start researching every person who writes a book or creates some of the media I enjoy. I'm sure it will come back to bite me someday, but I just don't have the time to worry about it preemptively.
John Scalzi was one of my favorite authors, but then he became very public about his TDS (some of his comments have been extremely hateful towards people he's never met, which I find petulant at best.) But that doesn't detract from his talent. My compromise is to buy his books used or at a significant discount. There are people who actually hate you if you vote a certain way or chose not to be medically experimented upon and it's probably best to not fund their behavior, if possible.
in at the jump ^^ Great subject. I personally DO read from authors I disagree with. Partly bc it's dumb to do otherwise, bc where's the line? There's not a SINGLE person I agree with entirely (my father was my best friend. Over 10 years since he passed at age 49 I still talk about him regularly. One of the best men I've known. Loving, generous, smart, passionate, kind... but also an alcoholic with a trad/con jealous streak. He was never nasty, even when my mum socialised with other men, but he would complain. Which is dumb. Still the best man I've known, bc people are flawed, even the best of us) Rowling isn't a particularly great author imo (Potter is enjoyable YA lit. But hardly comparable with fantasy greats imo) & I only read her work after reading a few articles/essays from her that revealed a smart, self aware woman. The fact she ALSO has baggage due to past trauma that leads her to faulty assumptions and misguided activism doesn't invalidate her work to me. Terry Goodkind was an objectivist moron. The only things I've learned of the man are rather odious. But I still enjoy the Sword of Truth, I don't think it goes so far as plagiarism even if it IS absolutely derivative. And I even appreciate learning the values of his brand of libertarian, because they really aren't all that different from my own. Merely misguided by some faulty assumptions (the nature of freedom, the inherent nobility of people and what it means and how to promote it, even what constitutes hard work. Small differences end up with wildly different conclusions) John Norman is probably the most controversial author on my shelves (displayed prominently bc I like to provoke :P) and as much as I STRONGLY disagree with his quite apparent assessments of human psychology and the nature of society I find that exploration *utterly* fascinating. As soon as people start demanding purity checks for their art, they're building a cell for themselves. I think it's natural and human to set CERTAIN limits... but even those are hard to justify bc the lines will ALWAYS be arbitrary, personal and subject to bias. Now to learn your perspective ^^ See you after the jump!
Your last sentence is really great. We will ALWAYS be setting limits for ourselves, and because we are human, they WILL always be arbitrary and perhaps even contradictory at times. It's life.
@@Bookborn Aye, on the pushback you've gotten over Cixin Liu in particular I think people reveal JUST how hypocritical and shallow their thinking is. (edit: rant ahead, skip for your own sanity! Sorry, not sorry ^^) The man was raised in Communist china during the cultural revolution and resides in that nation now. Are people GENUINELY shocked that somebody who has by all appearances got a comfortable middle class life doing what they love wouldn't be enormously critical of the regime he lives under. That he might consume media and be informed by ideologies that grant him a WILDLY different perspective of the west? Folks can hate the CCP, but literally no nation is blameless when it comes to things they're condemned for. Internment camps for ethnic minorities? Wasn't all that long ago that was happening in the west and I really don't see much handwringing about it. Democracy sucks? Sure does. Anyone gonna dispute the statement when democracy is delivering terrible outcomes and governments that effectively operate just like a one party state. It's a case of people in glass houses throwing stones, ignoring the broken glass that rains down upon them. I could seriously go on for days deriding my own country (the UK) or America for our own bullshit. Censorship, worse here in the UK but not exactly rare in the US just differently justified and practiced. Media bias/manipulation. Military industrial complex Prison industrial complex. Corporate capture. Greed as a moral virtue... etc etc. The point isn't that China is great, or that Cixin Liu shouldn't be criticised for his opinions. It's that failure to account for his personal and political context is VERY dangerous if people bother to be at ALL consistent. Soon everyone becomes "the bad person" (in a global context, America is routinely seen as the greatest danger to world peace. With that knowledge, any "patriotic American" could be dismissed as a bad person. That's not something I could sign off to. Most people are okay. Even ones that support shitty governments) There simply a marked difference between "person has opinions that upset or anger me" and "person is nasty or has done bad things" I have a great deal more sympathy for dismissing the works of the latter, but even that is often not so easy. (Joss Whedon springs to mind for me. I was disillusioned with the man almost a decade before "woke" people came for him. Still like his work, and think he's simply a creative, talented... arsehole. And I have family that latter description applies to, and I can put up with their flaws :P)
Honestly, I think not being able to see the humanity and goodness in people just because they have flaws and different opinions is far more harmful. Not a single person in the world is perfect or flawless. It’s okay to dislike certain aspects of people without hating or dehumanizing them entirely.
Not really a surprise that not that many people know any particular author of any genre. I mean, a NYT "bestseller" is what, something like 50,000 books sold? So 50,000 people out of how many tens of millions of people in the US alone? Not a lot of people read books, even fewer read books often, and those numbers are probably dwindling with younger generations. And no, I don't personally care about an author's politics or whatever when it comes to fiction. I also think it's sacrilege that publishers are now subjecting classic authors and their books to "sensitivity readers" and butchering them to remove anything that younger generations find offensive. You could do a video about that. EDIT: Never mind, I see you already have! Great! gonna go watch that now ;)
I don’t often go looking, but if info comes my way, I do take it into account (since I’m not likely to forget the problematic behaviour). Generally, if I can no longer respect the person I have a hard time enjoying their creations.
I agree but like even sometimes someone with just an annoying persona can ruin things for me. It’s never happened with an author but there have been a few actors that I got really had interview vibes from and it soured me on them 🤣
I realize that there is something I disagree with about every person. I don't care. I read their books because I like their writing. I may or may not agree with the author about any given topic. Means nothing to me. In particular, I agree with Rowling on her controversial statements. With Sanderson, I am not an LDS member. Stephen King is a far left "progressive" which doesn't effect his writing.
When i find an author has opinions i disagree with i take a loose approach based on approximately three factors 1: How extreme is the position i disagree with? Being a TERF or anti-LGBTQ+ is pretty extreme. For better or worse, in America being pro-second amendment is not that extreme (within reason.) 2: Are they (or their estate) using their fame and/or income to actively promote the views i disagree with? 3: How personally impacted do i feel by their activities? JK Rowling and OSC hit #1 and #2 pretty hard. There's another author (who got on the NYT list a couple times but i wouldn't generally consider famous) whose books i used to quite like until they said that if they could make a certain demographic group "go away" that they would, and followed it up by saying something vaguely threatening to a friend of a friend. (Something along the lines of "i'd like to demonstrate my second amendment rights to you", not _quite_ a blatant threat, but...) Depending on the combination of the above i might actively campaign against the author and/or i might stop buying new books but continue to enjoy the older books i read before i discovered the unpleasant truth and/or i might stop reading and rereading their books entirely. But if it's a low-fame author who doesn't make the news cycle and just has some relatively mild political views i disagree with that they occasionally express on their personal blog, i'll probably just let bygones be bygones. (Assuming those views don't influence their work so much that it affects my enjoyment.) On the other hand if they're dead and their estate (literal or figurative) isn't actively campaigning for anything (and they didn't personally piss me off too much while alive) then there's no harm in enjoying their work.
I should add that Sanderson is a difficult case. He himself seems like a great guy. Apparently he had some anti-LGBTQ+ views at some point, but has since walked those back. So i have no problem with him personally, and i do enjoy his books. But by all accounts he still continues to tithe millions of dollars to the LDS Church, which does have views i very much disagree with, even if they try to be less blatant about it these days.
That’s you, don’t push your opinions and call them bad cause they are not the same as yours, some of use don’t agree with misogynistic bullying and the thinking that men are allowed in private places and threatened with violence if disagree.
I strongly beleive in the importance of seperating the art from the artist. Nobody is wholly good or wholly evil, we're all human, we all have the capacity for both inside us. And an author like Lui having what I find to be disgusting political views, that doesn't take away with how creative he the world he built was and how much I enjoyed consuming those stories. Recognizing the bad I don't think means you have to ignore or can't appreciate the good.
I don't think you should worry about how much your views align with the author in reading or recommending fiction. I don't think it leads to a better world when we only listen to people we agree with.
One of my favorite things about books is that it kind of forces people to interact with ideas that they might be unwilling to talk about otherwise. Books, also, make it easier to open up discussion on said complicated topics. Books like 1984 and Atlas Shrugged are intentionally controversial, and you still should read them. Point is, you should be engaging with authors that have a different philosophical viewpoint.
Yeah, and in the case of this issue, a lot of times the authors views sincerely aren't in the book itself, because it doesn't relate to anything within the book.
@@Bookborn And in some cases the views implied in the narrative can seem quite contradictory to what they say, as if writing fiction is how they try to work through their issues - I think some Lovecraft stories singled out find positive traits in otherness, and some people think Orson Scott Card may be closeted from some of his stories.
@@Bookborn I actually also just finished The Three Body Problem books. I found the talking points well thought through and justified. Regardless of what he has said outside of the text, I'm happy about my purchase.
And when it's not just a 'different point of view' (a cowardly phrase considering some of the things authors are doing) , but actively trying to commit harm on a specific group of people?
Orson Scott Card is a very good writer, especially from a child's perspective. I don't like some of the things he says about the adult world at all. Same with JK. (Some of it is really only just annoying, and sounds like someone in the process of making up their mind. They could change it later.) Authors are NOT celebrities in the same way that movie, media, influencers and sports stars. They are not supposed to be. *That's more like the job of celebrities. Writers write. Read their stuff and enjoy it or not.* And, sorry, folks, most celebs you think you love because of their personal life or politics or faith? They are not really that person. It's an image. It's PR. The real person is some mixture of good and awful.
6:38 it is probably important to realize that the authors opinions often bleed into their work. Even if we don’t know exactly what the author believes IRL, we see it in the books. If they simply tell the story with many different belief systems held forth then the author is truly able to go with that flow. A master writer that taps into what makes the world and characters breathe.
It’s an unfair standard, no one questions the values of dickens, or Dostoyevsky. Be smart,use your logical brain and separate the art from artists. I loved three body and didn’t even know Liu was controversial. I still don’t care, his book is a masterpiece. Your loss if you wanna have an ego and think you are so important that you would actually influence the public opinion. No one cares that much about what you say, and you close your mind off from reading a fantastic piece of art.
I agree with your basic point in my mind, there is also a difference between being a bad person and being an excellent creator of total fiction. If I registered the "approval" value of every artistic creator I watch or enjoy then I'd likely never watch anything, ever. Now if the author has laced the artistic work with their own agenda and viewpoints that is a more complicated question, I have put down books that were narrow-minded, bigoted and instead of making me think made me feel I was being subjected to their moral sermon. You deal with this in a different video, on propaganda in writing.
I’ve had this exact conversation with myself, and specifically about Cixin Lu’s work. Basically what I’ve come to (for myself) is that if I know of an authors views I disagree with, I’ll do my best not to support them with my money - so I get the books from the library, a book swap, or a used-book store… Honestly there are SO many good, non-contentious authors on my TBR, the few I’ve cut out haven’t been very noticeable… Actually, instead of re-reading Harry Potter I decided to read the Nevermoor series, and it’s a fantastic alternative middle-grade that I might not have otherwise discovered, so there’s that angle to consider as well!
I can *100% GUARANTEE* that every single one of your "good, non-contentious" authors have skeletons in their closet that you don't know about and they don't want you to know. They wouldn't be human if they were genuinely flawless. And don't make the mistake of thinking that those who say all the "right things" publicly, actually believe all of those things privately. You'd be surprised.
@@CarrotConsumer Liu cribbed memes then got angry at his biggest fan Phenixus/Baoshu for using memes in fanfics, wrote an arc based on racist misconceptions of Japanese tea culture, missed the entire point of capitalism, etc
One thing I absolutely love about reading is specifically that you get a window into an author's mind more than you do in other art forms. You can really tell what someone believes, how they feel, who they vote for, their morality, ect ect from their work. You're in an in depth conversation with that person specifically from reading their work. They're pouring out their heart to you in a way that they probably don't usually do for their friends and family. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has morals of some sort. Those morals will naturally make it into the mouths of their heroes. Of course they will. If they're writing someone who they think to be a good person, that will reflect their ideas of what is good. And vice versa, what they think is bad will make it into the mouths of their villains. That's why I'm not a big "death of the author" person. Why an author believes their heroes to be good or villains to be bad is absolutely fascinating to me.
If everyone refused to monetarily support, in any way, any sort of art involving someone with whom they disagreed philosophically / politically, there would be a whole lot less art in the world. Generally speaking, people should get over themselves and learn to appreciate the art itself. With a little introspection, everyone will find that they, themselves, are imperfect hypocrites who couldn't stand up to the type of scrutiny that they want to apply to others.
I don't have to engage with the products of assholes committed to doing active harm to groups of people either. I find alot of the backlash to the idea of scrutinizing the beliefs and acts of artists a very cowardly way of saying that you can't be bothered to care about the well being of people and the culture you live in. There's plenty of great work out there and we don't need to deal with poisonous ideology to read/view/whatever it.
I really like that there are lots of different people and views. The world is better for people having a lot of views. In fact it never would have changed and improved if people didn't have different views. I will go further to support authors I like, but really, more power to folks having different views. There is a limit on how bad but for the most part I will read it anyway. The best stuff was made by actually terrible people in my experience.
I don't understand the impulse to try and disassociate one's personal enjoyment of a work from the creator's personal opinions. If a creator is, say, bigoted, doesn't someone who opposes those views enjoying something about their creations that doesn't reflect their bigoted opinions serve as a fundamentally rebellious act? For example, Roald Dahl had allegedly said some straight up anti-Semitic stuff. I'm Jewish. Dahl remains one of my most cherished wordsmiths. And if I were to think that he would have disapproved of my existence simply because of my ethnic background, that just makes me feel even more successfully like one of his fantastically unruly heroes which I remain inspired by. I think the majority of the "background check" pearl-clutching is based around a fear that others will see us enjoying a work, and therefore imprint all of the personal values of its creator on us. As long as we can full-throatily reject that moronic notion at all turns, we should be able to love the art we love, and tell the bigots (who may have created some of it) to universally suck it.
Your last paragraph is a huge thing. It’s fear. Fear we will be judged for enjoying a book when an authors views are suspect. It’s hard to separate from even when recognizing it’s a silly notion
@@Bookborn Which is precisely why HONEST videos like this one you made are so important. Thank you ❤ Fear doesn't require people to be afraid, it just needs them to remain silent. Speak up, and it's broken instantly.
It’s almost a pointless question because every author is going to have a belief or have said something or done something problematic that we disagree with or straight up hate. At some point people need to stop giving a shit about the author and just enjoy reading.
Steven King is a great example though: I am baffled by the great majority of the opinions he expresses today, to the point I can't believe he's the same person who wrote some of these books I grew up with, so I guess it's pretty easy to separate him from his work lol ....Especially when it's a very recent development.
It's not a reader, or a movie watcher, or a music listener's obligation to police artists' opinions. If someone disagrees with me on something, I don't care as long as they're not doing something horrible that my patronage of their art or business will help them continue to do. In fact, there is far too much of policing others' ideas online, and the expectation that everybody constantly live their lives in that mode is doing more to divide humanity than to solve the problem of "bad ideas." The act of boycotting used to be a method of stopping egregious activity by businesses that were making money from those bad acts. Now, it's degenerated into "Oh, that writer said he liked ________ politician of _________ party," or, "she expressed an opinion on ________ issue that I disagree with, so I'm going to stop reading his/her books." This is a pointless endeavor because we have neither the time nor the intellectual omniscience to research every single artist and make perfect ethical judgements regarding their opinions.
You are agonizing over a non-issue. As you correctly pointed out, it is utterly impractical to fully research the ideas and opinions of everyone you do business with. Do you research the opinions of every employee/executive of every company you buy products from? What are the political opinions of the people that own the grocery store you shop at? Do you ask your auto mechanic about his/her thoughts on every political issue - or do you simply ask how much it will cost to fix your car? Are we to boycott a store, movie, product, book, etc based on the views of all of the people involved or are only certain people's views important? If you are going to boycott a book by some author - did you consider the publisher, editior, printing company, etc.? Maybe you don't like the views of one actor in a movie, but what about everyone else that is a part of that production? This entire issue is nothing more than a discussion of people's selective outrage that is utterly nonsensical. Regardless of the product or services we could discuss there is someone involved with the product who will hold opinions that other people will strongly disagree with. Ultimately there are only two options: (1) engage in nonsensical hypocrisy through pathetic selective outrage or (2) evaluate products on their merits alone and recognize that the unrelated opinions of those providing the product/services are irrelevant when considering the merits of the product itself.
It may be impractical to do research on everything and everyone you engage with on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't act according to your values when the information is presented to you or stumbled upon, or the issue is important enough to have done some looking into. I'm not going to refuse to buy a book from an author because they might be published by a company I don't like, but I'm not going to buy from an author I know I find reprehensible just because I like the publisher either. Not everyone in a chain of people need to agree with my values for me to associate with them or their work/product, but it certainly doesn't hurt if the key people like the author or CEO aren't morally bankrupt.
@@Michael-ee4uz so you have chosen option 1. Inconsistent, unprincipled, hypocritical selective outrage that is the result of morally bankrupt laziness. I am by no means saying you can’t choose to live your life that way. I am merely identifying it for what it is. You do you.
@@kylebaird1724 you began by saying it's impractical to research everything and everyone, then you tell me I'm being inconsistent and hypocritical for applying my morals to the information I do have? How does that make sense?
I have a standard that you may not understand, but your lack of understanding doesn't make it morally bankrupt laziness, inconsistent, or unprincipled. If that is what you call people who do the best they can with the time and information they have then you are a judgemental, egotistical, absolutist with a deeply pessimistic outlook.
@@Michael-ee4uz I could be wrong, but I think I have a fairly sound understanding of your standard. I am pointing out that your standard is internally inconsistent which makes it morally bankrupt. You try to justify your standard by saying it is "the best they can," but this actually is an admission of the flaws in that standard. What you are seeking to accomplish with your line of thinking is to justify yourself in persecuting people for having opinions you don't like, so that you can virtue signal to the world how wonderful and moral of a person you are by comparison, but you lack the commitment to apply your standard to everyone you do business with because that would be hard and you don't actually want to do something that is difficult. You profess to have a certain "standard" that you expect others to adhere to and you selectively apply that standard based on how much of an imposition that burdens you with. If actually applying that standard is burdensome, well then those are the people whose opinions it is ok to ignore. I am judgmental? I said you can live your life however you want - I am merely pointing out that the sky is blue, water is wet, and morally bankrupt laziness is just that. If you don't want to live your life by a morally bankrupt lazy standard then by all means don't. I honestly don't care how you choose to live. Egotistical? Hardly - facts are facts and it isn't ego to state facts. Absolutist? Again - facts are facts and they aren't subjective. Pessimistic? I'm not the one advocating for boycotts and cancel culture. My position is that the world is a better place through the exchange of ideas and that by engaging with opinions and ideas I don't agree with is how we develop and mature intellectually. If I focused on single issues I am sure that the vast majority of people hold at least one opinion that I would find deeply morally distasteful, but instead of focusing on my disagreements, I choose to focus on the far greater number of things that I agree on with people and see them for all the positives they create rather than choosing to punish them for the few points of disagreement I have with them. Between the two of us - I am not the pessimistic one.
If I threw away every music album of artists that I morally object to, I would have no music to listen to. We have to be able to separate the art from the artist. We have too accept that they are less than perfect, and thats OK, because so is everyone else. To do other make you a hypocrite.
So you admit you used the term "bad person" to refer to "authors who I have determined have views very different than mine, and who I personally do not agree with" while filming this video, but you only caught that you were casually equating "different opinion" with "bad person" while rewatching the footage during editing... Well, at least you caught yourself doing it and felt uncomfortable about it. Let's flip things around to put them in perspective. I am on the polar opposite of the socio-political opinion spectrum from someone like G.R.R. Martin, who, as we all know, is a massive progressive hippie. Wouldn't it be crazy if I just casually categorised him in my mind as a "bad person" because of that? It's evident to me he is fantastically skilled as a writer and is an amazing storyteller, whatever his opinions are. And even though his worldview obviously shines through in his books, I still appreciate his work for its own merit and see no problem at all with buying his books and justly rewarding his work and creativity, regardless of his political opinions. That people entertain this question at all seems just... crazy to me. It's insane how much flak J.K. Rowling got for simply expressing her opinion. As if having a different opinion on some social issue has the slightest impact on someone's skill as an author and storyteller, or their right to be justly compensated for their creative work. I don't know, but this "wow these authors are such BAD PERSONS for expressing a different view, am I even allowed to like their work?" question seems so... alienating to me. I can't even imagine thinking of G.R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling as "bad persons" and questioning whether their art is "good or bad" because I'm not a progressive or a feminist like them and I disagree with their social or political views. Am I the crazy one for thinking it's nuts that people think like that? I'll make up my own damn opinion on whether I think something is good or not, based on its own merits, not based on whether the creator's opinion is out of step with whatever the general view of my peer group happens to be.
If we judge art by its artist, you'll quickly run of out movies to watch, books to read, music to listen to, and physical art to appreciate. No one is perfect. No one is required to align with everything you love and agree with in order to be considered "relevant." Appreciate the art for what it is and what you take away from it, and stop CSI'ing everyone and everything in your life to seek out things to be outraged by. You'll be a lot happier, and so will the rest of the people in your life, because to the rest of the world, we just don't care is someone had a garbage take online or if they once said something that was taboo, or if they once elected someone other people cannot stand, and these people who do make up 99% of the world find that the people who are outraged by this stuff are far more damaging to society and far more insufferable to be around than the provocateurs themselves, because unlike the outraged army, these artists, sucky or not, actually contributed something to society.
for me it mostly depends on 1. what exactly they've said/done AND 2. whether they're alive to profit off of the support [if I find out through other people, I don't care to look it up myself]
I read and listen to things I dont agree with and I can separate the art from the artist. I came from the political debate and psychology scene so being able to listen to what someone is actually saying is important. Most of the people that conduct themselves in a way where they never have anything to do with anyone they possibly disagree with are either religious to an extreme degree or embracing woke ideology which is really just extreme religious beliefs again while viewing yourself as a god like existence. If I did not listen to what those people say then I could not understand them, I even enjoy hearing them talk about themselves and their beliefs. It still does not mean I have to agree, but it gives me something to think about and to challenge myself. Besides hating someone because you heard something you think you dont like even though your dont really know anything is almost puritanical in practice. Isolating yourself from "sin" in a sense which is why I have as much distain for the ultra religious that push their beliefs on others as I do people who believe in the collective ideas that fall under woke ideology.
it depends on what you're disagreeing with them about. if they feel strongly enough that all the Jews should be baked in an oven that they're willing to go to war to do it, yeah I think you can say they are. if they're just willing to drop edgelord tweets about it they're probably more of a grey character like most of us
What about if they're actively going after a group of people's civil rights through rhetoric and financial and social support of groups dedicated to ending those rights?
i feel like each decade has a “thing” and i think one of the things the 2020’s will be known for is *the decade when almost everyone was chronically online,* judging others based on skewed, immature viewpoints. coming from a left-wing liberal who has done a lot of that. lol don’t get me wrong, a lot of the judging is valid.. 😂 but i don’t think it’s healthy or sustainable. 99.9% of people do not give a 💩 about who said what or who got canceled, they just want to consume the art. which, to me is… normal. but there are subsets of communities online who become paranoid about these things because we are constantly hit in the head with them. “don’t support this person! don’t read this book! don’t talk about that series because it’s the same thing as promoting which makes you just as guilty as the offender!” when i first joined the book community in 2020 i used to get stressed out because i wanted to enjoy the things i enjoy but i didn’t want people thinking i approve of what the “creator” said or did, which is so insane to me because now i don’t care. so many authors on my shelves are problematic. i don’t have the time nor the desire to research every source of entertainment i consume. life is *way* too short. is it good to be mindful of who you’re supporting? sure… but to what end. anyway i’m going to bed now but i’ll finish watching tomorrow 💞
Chronically online is the best phrase and I definitly have fallen prey to it. It’s nice to get a different perspective and just relax about art. I like to be responsible but it just can’t happen all the time. I totally agree!
Great video.. "bad" people can make good art.. I am against censorship in any form.. There is too much of this in our world. People trying to rewrite history or rewriting Roald Dahl's books to be more PC.. Just crazy.
I think we definitely have a distorted idea. The general public typically only come to know of an author once something has been adapted. Gaiman had a bit of that with Stardust for my generation. Martin became that with Game of Thrones (even though A Song of Ice and Fire has been in publication since the 90s). Rowling I feel like may have been a household name for households with children but then became known to most of the world with the release of the films. It is super unfortunate finding out retroactively that the author is a terrible person. I think the one that hit hardest for me was after reading The Mists of Avalon. Great video! Loved what you had to say.
I feel like I’m probably just reiterating what you and others have said in the comments but most the time I feel like people are just virtue signaling when it comes to topics like this. What bothers me about that is that they are never logically consistent. The person who’s comment you referenced probably posted that from their phone which has a lot of troubling things in the supply chain to make it, but they would never ditch their phone. Ultimately it’s nice in theory but the amount of stories, inventions, etc we would lose because of ‘problematic views’ would make us worse off. All that being said I find it rather admirable to boycott things that you find bad/evil but trying to force others to do the same gets us nowhere. Great video!
This is a really interesting and complicated topic. I liked the comment you quoted about everyone having to pick their own battles in terms of what content/products/companies etc. you feel comfortable with recommending and financially supporting. It would be exhausting to do a thorough vetting on everything you interact with and the bad view/action will affect people in different ways. Eg. An author being homophobic will naturally upset a LGBT+ person more than a cis/straight one. It’s hard to imagine that there’s a perfect person out there that will only buy or recommend things they know have no controversy. Seeing the change in the Harry Potter fan base over the past few years has been interesting. Some previous die-hard fans have completely lost their love for the franchise whilst others take the “separate the art from the artist” approach. Most recently there was a lot of debate over whether it is morally wrong to buy the new Hogwarts game that came out in Feb.
Personally, I find the whole JK Rowling situation to be very interesting. Because based on what she has tweeted most conservatives would not think that she is against the lgbtq or trans group specifically, however, the left has the opinion that she is against the lgbtq specifically the trans community. When the game came out in Feb it furthered this contradiction because the left was staunchly against the game even though they created a trans character and then on the other side people were buying the game due to people saying that they should not buy the game. Finally, with this new reboot coming out, it faces this problem even more because most people do not want a reboot because the studio has claimed they will add to the story to make it more diverse, however, the reason they are making it more diverse is for the left who will not watch it because it will fund JK Rowling so overall an excellent view on how social politics play into the creative sphere.
Often when we judge others too harshly, we are merely projecting our own shadow onto them. That being said, I was genuinely stunned by the child abuse allegations against David and Leigh Eddings. I think actions involving violence or abuse are much more significant than contentious perspectives.
I was sad when I learned about that. Even though the authors have done some awful things, I still think the Belgariad is a cozy and heartwarming fantasy series with lots of great comedy and banter.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 Yeah I fell in love with that series as kid. I loved The Malloreon, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress as well. It was all part of that early magic of discovery. That’s why the revelations hit so hard.
if I avoided authors I don't agree with I would never read anything and I would be missing out on great works. same is true about actors and directors or studios. If I enjoy a book I will recommend it if not then I will not. If someone wants to worry about not supporting someone who they don't agree with that is on them. Im glad you put in the edit about them not being bad vs disagree, I really appreciate it. You and I dont agree on a few ideas around culture but we agree a lot on books, I am willing to put aside your ideas because you are interesting and have good topics. in my opinion, It's actually very good to read ideas from multi viewpoints to help change or strengthen our own views. Thanks for the good videos, keep it up. Thanks
Should I go into a restaurant’s kitchen to ask the chef’s views before ordering food? Before I hit the dance floor should I google the musician.? Before I read a book should I see if the author is a good person? I think if I did it would say more about me than the artists.
Of course any of us can make the personal choice to not partake in a source of entertainment because we really struggle to separate it from the artist, but it's clearly crossing a line to say, "You shouldn't like this because I don't like something the author said." Why we think we have that kind of authority is beyond me. Holding yourself to a standard of agreeing 100% with every view of an author in order to "support" their work will mean that you must read nothing. Ever. From anybody. Not even your former self. I disagree profoundly with the ideas and practices of many people in my life, not just the artists or entertainers I find enjoyable. If I were to demand such ideological homogeneity, I would end up a very lonely person, and maybe even blame that loneliness on others for not changing their opinions to more match mine. One day, the zeitgeist will shift away from this mindset of thinking that we must all agree about everything all the time (I mean, how many dystopias warn against that very thing?), but it is not this day. In the meantime, I encourage people to drive to their local pharmacy and ask on which aisle they can find the chill pills. 😋
My first time being confronted with a problematic author of books that I had read that meant something to me was with Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead really had an impact on me but Card's extreme views disturb and sadden me deeply. I no longer read his new work and debate with myself if I'll ever return to his old work but I'll never regret having read them or disavow the good things I took from them.
Francois Villon was a petty criminal what doesn't make him worse poet. My favourite composer, Richard Wagner was a horrible person but his music can be angelic. I used to separate the author from the book, there are really good persons who wrote awful books. I am pretty sure that J. K. Rowling's words are deliberately misinterpreted by an influental minority and her case will be remembered as an example of a 21st century witch trial.
Great video! Humans are complex. We all have our boundaries and limits. We won't, nor should we, all agree on everything. Heck, we may even contradict ourselves depending on the subject. I'm going to keep reading what I like, and if I find something or someone too offensive I'll deal with it in my own way.
What might be interesting to hear your opinion on is the editing of older books that remove *currently* derogatory points of view or language, thereby attempting to edit the work into something more politically correct and separating it from the context and social-situation of the time it was written in. In *my* opinion, that's basically trying to whitewash our history.
I don't care about the artist. I enjoy art for the art. The problem is mankind is prone to hero worship, and people love to worship artists for their art. I just don't do that, so it is no big deal for me to separate the two. Also, as someone with traditional values, I would live in a world where I couldn't enjoy any art. Now, if their art is obviously slanted with their agenda, I will avoid it because I don't want to be preached at. I also hate this idea of "good people", because that is completely subjective. So, am I only a "good person" if I agree that Men can be women and women can be men? Am I only a "good person" if I believe it's moral to give puberty blockers to children, even against their parents' wishes? I would argue that anyone who believes that is a member of a cult.
As Stannis Baratheon put it "A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward".
I agree with this mostly,
Although once I know of an author who has hateful opinions, it does make me not want to support them financially.
J.K. Rowling for example, the books were obviously great. In fact, Harry Potter was my first love (first series I ever read). I will never stop loving those books, they were great.
But I will no longer purchase anything by her since I know, and I cannot just forget or ignore it.
@@SnowDaemonI wish you would actually listen to what she said and educate yourself on the situation. Nothing she said or believed was hateful. And you not buying her stuff because of your own bigotry your own hate filled views is fine. I hope one day you don’t just hate people for being different, which ironically is why you think you are justified in your hatred for jk Rowling. Life is too short to be filled with so much hate and intolerance I honestly feel sorry for you. Have that much hate in your heart is emotionally taxing.
@@brettlarsen4650 You are talking about hate while J.K Rowling uses her platform for years to spread hate against trans people going as far as to become holocaust denier and then SLAPP critics? I can't know if you are an actual transphobe engaging in crybullying or you simply don't know what she said or why it's harmful but calling someone a bigot for boycotting bigotry is absurd
@@SnowDaemon You seem like one of those people who rides the waves of hatred without even bothering to check where this hatred came from. How about you look up what actually happened before you blindly follow those woke fanatics. And I say this without even being a fan of J.K. Rowling, never read Harry Potter or anything from her.
So what's the reward for the bad? Did you forget about that part of the line?
OMG LMAO I didn't even finish the video yet but I need to share this:
My mom walked in while I was watching this video so I asked her, just to test it out, "mom, who wrote The Lord of the Rings?", and she said "J. J. K. Martin" not a hint of hesitation in her voice omg i'm wheezingggggg help
Wow, she combined three authors into a single name. There's a talent. lol
STOP LMAO she really nailed all of them in one go, I'm proud of her
@@williamerickson520 Well, it is a trilogy
Bloody, hell, my mum was a fan of all three writers! Although she began to dislike Ms. Rowling personally (though not her work) when her transphobic views became known. My mum was an awesome geek.
That's hilarious!
Or maybe your mother is secretly a fantasy nerd and trolled you masterfully. 😅
If you enjoy a book written by a "bad person" it doesn't in turn make you one as well. I would say it's healthy to read content by people you don't agree with to expand your own perspectives and ideas. Like mentioned in the video, sometimes "bad people" create good art and ideas. We can't just live in echo chambers our whole life ignorant to the fact that there are others that don't think exactly as we do.
And it’s definitely an internet phenomenon to assume people have all the opinions of the people they read. Unfortunately negative opinions and loud voices stay with us longer and so it can be hard to ignore!
I think what you've said needs to be said more, a very reasonable and intelligent way of thinking. I think what you've said is especially true in the movie industry right now. For example, I think Kevin Spacey is one of the best actors alive when it comes purely down to talent. Do I think he is a good person? No way, but I can separate the art from the person.
@@westlink1985 yes, but Spacey doesn't really say anything that was created by him. Books are different.
@Bookborn lmao he didn't say shit, stop drinking the CIA coolaid, cixin liu is one of the mildest authors out there. i like how you mentioned scot orison the author of enders game, well him and Robert A. Heinlein have said far more worse shit. whats next are you going to start getting pissed at Iain banks as well for his more conventional depictions that don't align with the west?
most sci fi authors and sci fi in general is extremely related to politics its only natural for the authors to also be political, if you don't like it I suggest you go back to reading kids book of fantasy.
if your talking about the Uyghur internment controversy, its funny that you in the west care so much, because every muslim country even usa aligned ones like UAE and saudi arabia voted against it, and even the un already unclassified it as only "cultural genocide" which is funny because julian assange is still in jail for speaking out against us warcrimes against muslims, and australian soldiers caught commiting warcrimes in afghanistan are still praised lmao, don't pretend you give a shit about muslims. I love you bleeding hearts be very selective on it, when are you going to boycott all of these british and canadian authors for depictions of the native americans? or supporting integration through residential schools lmao @@Bookborn
That's been more or less my experience with books. I don't pay attention to the author name unless i'm really enjoying the books and want to know who wrote it so i can get more by that author -- or i really hate it and look at the name so i can avoid further work. But never does it occur to me that i should look at who the author is as a person. I just want more of the thing they made.
Hard relate. I mean, in fairness, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which is like one of my favorite books of all time - I couldn't tell you anything about her except she's British. A lot of times I just don't care, I just love the work.
That's how I feel about actors as well. The main reason I learned about Brandon Sanderson as a person is cause of how active he is in answering questions about this stories (look up his response to how shardblades would interact with a cheese wall)
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 there's a lot in that closing statement i do not understand but am terrifyingly curious about LOL
There's a reason the saying "never meet your heroes" became common wisdom.
Eh sure but I've personally never seen much wisdom in it. I do get wanting to avoid the general discomfort and pain of finding out a hero or idol sucks but also fuck it meet your heroes. Find out some of them suck. Find out even impressive people can suck. Find out that even your heroes aren't perfect so you don't have to be perfect to be someone's hero. Find out that even if they suck the good things you got from them are still valuable even if THEY were hypocritical.
I do agree with her point on not having to vet every single creator because yeah that's exhausting but I've always seen the approach of "never meet your heroes" as kind of inherently flawed. I just find it encourages keeping your blinders on when it comes to questioning people you look up to and discourages a lot of chances at growth from the times you do
Liu Cixin told me I'm too positive to write scifi, while John Scalzi only told me my choice in burrito has too little starch!
Never, unless your hero is David Cronenberg. He's a really great guy, no matter what he's written and filmed.
Another thing to consider is that human views on what is good/right and what is evil/wrong changes over time. I guarantee that future generations will judge us for perceived faults that are lauded today as virtues. And with how connected the world is, those shifts come faster than ever before. There is something to be said for taking the good we see in a person’s art while understanding that they are just human. We have faults too. Some people just have the misfortune of being more widely known/published so their closet skeletons are on more public display.
Yes, I agree with this. I think it can be hard when those faults seem to be really harming OTHER people... like when an artist donates money to hate groups. That's when I think we all just have to individually decide how we are going to deal with it.
I love this we often hold other people that lived in different times and cultures to our own lofty standards.
That's a bad take. General human respect is really quite a universal virtue.
@@kinrateia Very wise take. The Liberal values I still hold from the 90s make me an alt-right nasty today. But I do not renounce those values.
@@kinrateia Taking into account people's circumstances is a bad take?
I don’t research any authors prior to reading their book - I figure that is on the individual reader if they choose to do so. If I researched every author I read, I’d never have time for actual reading!
For real lol
But sometimes we're personal friends of yours, and you can't help but know about us...
@@jcmberne And in those cases - why, those are the best possible outcomes!
A don't research authors even AFTER I read their book. I don't really care who the authors are and what they like or dislike. They might be a serial killer, for all I know, but if I like the book i'd still buy and read their next book.
People are not bad just because they have a different opinion
I clarify that later in the video actually! I say that I was being glib with the word bad and felt very uncomfortable with how it sounded
@@BookbornYeah, I saw that, which is good, though not as «clarified» as you think. You seemed more concerned about how you sounded and how often you repeated the word, rather than truly respecting people with other opinions.
One of my favorite authors is Orson Scott Card. I don’t agree with a lot of his views. I don’t care. I enjoy his work.
My husband and I actually had a very similar conversation when we were discussing wired article. Our summed up conclusion was when we find out an author, actor, etc is a good person it makes us want to consume their work even more. When we find out a person is an awful human being it makes us like their works less. I don't stop consuming their works necessarily but I have a tendency to gush about the less.
Totally. And when you find out beforehand, it's easy to dismiss it. I'll probably never read Avalon because I didn't read it as a kid and now I know the author sucks. It's only after you love a work that it becomes harder to dismiss
What about the wired article made you dislike Sanderson? My reaction was that the journalist was a mean girl.
@@BookbornAvalon as in "Mists Of"?
Is this a Marion Zimmer Bradley issue?
*returns from checking the web*
Oh hell.
I'm now deeply regretting the Avalon Priestess tattoo I got back in the early 90's. I really hope nobody makes the connection anymore.
Bot brain
whether in music, movies, books sometimes you need to separate the art from the artist...if I only read, watched, and listened to things written by people who I agree with, I would have nothing to watch, read, or listen too.
Cixin’s views are commonplace in China. It’s very hard to understand unless you grew up and lived in China. I think we all tend to underestimate how much our environment and upbringing influence our views and when someone’s views drastically differs we often jump to the conclusion that they are a bad person rather than thinking through what circumstances led them to view the world this way.
He says that there's no such thing as a soul. Think he was talking about himself.
@@Blue-xk8vq that's the "problematic" thing he said? lol
@@BeingThePaul He also supports slavery and is pro genocide. Don't LOL about ppl like that, nothing funny about it.
I've not found anything controversial in what he has said, apart from seemingly making one generalising comment about Muslims in that New Yorker interview. But it's such a hatchet job and so US-centric in its thinking it's hard to tell what he actually meant. And the journalist is so blinkered and biased - she genuinely thinks that Liu is brainwashed and that she is immune from it:
"The implication was clear: years in the West had brainwashed me. In that moment, in Liu’s mind, I, with my inflexible sense of morality, was the alien."
This after a whole interview of her grilling this author on all the tired old anti-China propaganda tropes. It would be like a Chinese interviewer attacking George RR Martin for an hour asking him to defend the American government and the history of American Imperialism. It's the same thing that happens to any Chinese person any western media comes into contact with and that to me is far more offensive than the, as another commenter mentioned, perfectly commonplace and legitimate political views that Liu expressed (under duress).
What I definitely didn't see is anything "evil" as Bookborn said. Would hate to think she swallowed the anti-Chinese propaganda after having such a connection to his work.
@@RBTVN Americans are so easy to dupe that even our leaders regurgitate the anti-Chinese propaganda on a daily basis.
I don't care who the author is and what they did. At all.
If I was entertained, their contract with me was fulfilled; and until I stop liking their work, I will be willing to be their customer.
Period.
I agree unless they are trying to feed me propaganda through their work.
You brought up some very valid points! I will say that I responded about the wire article. Because Brandon Sanderson is my favorite fictional author ever! And is a very nice person, I found it very unkind! Brandon Sanderson's books have changed my life! As someone who has been abused, sexually, verbally and physically, the Cosmere is a lifeline for me! And for the first time in my life I can look in the mirror, and I like the person staring back at me! That's due to Brandon's incredible mental representation! Through therapy, Brandon Sanderson books, and my own personal growth, I like being me! If that's not great art I don't know what is!
In theory, I agree with what you say. In practice, I honestly do tend to read at least a little about the author before I engage with their books. It's not that I can't deal with a little controversy, but if the author has consistently said or done things I can't defend, then I'm not eager to enjoy the book, hear the bad news and then have an argument with myself about the validity or reasonable extent of my appreciation of their work. I can't deny, there's a certain amount shame involved in that thought process. In a world where social media doesn't push the conversation about the personal ethics of authors, I would probably better tolerate reading a 'good book by a bad person.'
I don’t support authors. I read books.
I also don’t care about other people’s viewpoints, whether I like them or not. Why? Because I’m not a child.
Interestingly enough I feel like being a child is when you don’t consider/know about the author, but as an adult, these things change as you’re more aware of the world.
And, it’s easy to say you don’t care when it’s not affecting you - what if an author said they hated you? (I don’t know anything about you but say religion, skin color, whatever, take your pick). It might be harder to ignore.
Not saying there is a right answer - I tend to read completely blind if author. But I don’t think it’s childish to ask the question.
@@Bookborn the thing is most Autor you do not know, you will most likly never know the bad stuff they do, much worse things then have a different Worldview.
I hate stephin kings writing becouse his writing is mysoginistic, i do not know the man, he says he is a feminist, but is it true? I do not know, can not stand his writing. So i junge his work.
If people say -ism stuff and then save a Person they
Do not like becouse of there -ism, still there believe is you should help everyone, are they that bad?
I find this line of reasoning is strange. It's like children being scared of cooties, reading and enjoying someones work isn't going to somehow infect me with their worldview. Art is interpreted through the eye of the viewer not it's creator. How are people ever going to expand their horizons if all they consume is the same? Imagine a world were art is gatekept by the requirement that you be a "good person" and apply this in a historical context, like really apply this to some authors now deceased... Also it attributes a strange worldview it's like these instances I'm not seeing that this is a connection to real division, I actually find it sort of strange that the critic sees a connection between some real societal group and the fictional people who sacrifice children to their strange otherworldly deity or some such.
People aren't black & white (good/bad). Separate art from the artist. You don't know someone is like from how they're portrayed by (an increasingly activist) media. Read what want to read.
And you are always bad in someone else’s eyes no matter what you do. For example someone could even point out your own connection in this comment like black & white (good & bad) dichotomy as racist. 🤷
Honestly, If we were to demand great artists to be outstanding people we'd be left with very few. Picasso, Mozart, Beethoven, Norman Mailer, Hemingway, just to name a few, not to mention a lot of rock stars weren't exactly models of ethical behaviour. Should we give up their incredible art? I won't. Regarding present artists, I think I can be critical of the person while still enjoying their work.
yeah, I was even thinking of inventors/tech giants...that have been known to be big ol' jerks (Steve Jobs comes to mind). It would be hard to engage with much period. That said, I realize there is a scale, and that's why everybody's personal views come into it; I"m certainly not going to judge anyone though for what they choose to read, but rather their own individual actions.
I kinda agree but I think the thing is that all the people you’ve listed are dead lol so they aren’t profiting off anyone buying their work and using said profits to fund hate groups. I think we can admire the work they’ve done while critiquing their behavior but imo people eager to shout praise but are real quiet about the person’s wrongdoings and and are quick to brush them off ie almost everyone knows who Picasso is and about his art but a lot of people are surprised to learn that he was an abusive misogynist and cubism, which he helped “pioneer “, was heavily influenced by African art which he later tried to deny
@@Bookborn In the Book of Genesis, the inventors of musical instruments and harnessing metals were from the line of Cain. Also, the line of Cain introduced polygamy, spousal abuse, and murder too. Something about the freedom of creativity also taps into debauchery as well. If you examine people in artistic fields, tendencies for drug use or sexual promiscuity are much higher.
@ThomasC what about the drug use and sexual promiscuity of conservatives?
@@dionnadays8908 Even with artists that are still alive, I feel the same. I loathe Mario Vargas Llosa’s political views with intensity but he’s still a great writer. Same happens with many musicians or movie directors or actors. Criminal activity against people is where I would draw the line.
I am more on the conservative side so if I only read books with authors I agreed with, my reading list in Fantasy/SciFi would be very short
I don't go out of my way to research an author. However, if I learn something about the creator that makes me lose desire to keep reading their books, I will just drop them. I also take in account if they are actively affecting things today.
I avoid author info like the plague. I enjoy my reading and leave it at that. Someone once said you should never meet your celebrity heros because they will bitterly disappoint you. I apply this to my reading as well. I read to avoid this stuff. I’m not doing deep dives on everything I read.
The only author I have banned from my shelf after learning somthing about her was Marion Zimmer Bradley - having actually done terrible things seems more relevant to me than having terrible opinions.
Yes, I agree that actions are definitely things that make me pause more than just speech. I’m also not interested in Avalon anymore, although it’s easier since I never read them in the first place.
@@Bookborn for a second, I thought you were talking about Avalon the webcomic.
@@Bookborn tbh as someone who read it at a very young age - 12 - one of the worst moments for me when I found out what she did was the way it explained certain scenes in the book that always felt odd and deeply uncomfortable to the point where I didn't even have to reread it to find them. I just remembered them the very instant I read the accusations. So, yeah, it's not really one where you can separate art from the artist, tbh I'm not very good at that in general, but especially not with Avalon and MZB.
Yeah, I bought one of her books from a charity shop because I thought it looked interesting. I was planning to read it and one day just decided to look her up, and I am glad I did so before getting invested in her stuff. Not sure whether to just bin that book or give it back to the charity shop.
Boycotting dead people is basically pointless unless they left their estate to some sort of evil organization.
I read the wired article last week after another video popped up in my UA-cam feed that discussed it. The writer of that article comes off as completely condescending and just clueless. Brandon Sanderson’s fans love him because he is so accessible and so open and so giving of himself and his time. Not to mention we love his stories as well. When Mr. Sanderson was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, I sent him a message on his blog giving him encouragement because I had seen some of the nasty things that had been written about him and how he wasn’t experienced enough and who was this guy to be taking over this Herculean task. He wrote me back quite a long email thanking me for my support. That was at a time when he would’ve been up to his eyeballs in rereading all the books and going through all of the notes. I got to see him at one of his book signings and the talk he gave was really interesting. Highly recommend attending one of his signings at a book release if you get the chance.
I'm a giant, giant sanderson fan lol! I've attended a few signings! I absolutely detest that article, I just didn't want to talk about it in the same way since everyone already had it covered haha.
I completely agree with all of this. The idea that we're supposed to monitor/research everything we consume is insane
I like that you added the little insert about "bad people". The way i see it is that the concept itself is problematic, too simplistic and mostly used to "other" people. Human beings are complex, they are able to do 'bad' things and 'good' things all at once. Disqualifying another person because of y being bad fails to recognize that they most likely do a lot of 'good' too. People are a product of their environment and influences, categorizing them simplistically as 'bad' or 'good' does a disservice to understand the nuances of the human condition.
Now ofc there are extreme situations where this proxy idea is useful, i don't need to look at some of the worst people in human history and say "well actually" (even though the logic might still apply somewhat), so what transgressions are 'bad' enough? That is most likely down to some personal interpretation in most cases, though i think it is important to consider the following:
You are rightfully saying that the internet gives us more information than ever, but what it also does is make it easy to 'other' people based on the information we want to see, or even just information which is missing context or might even be flat out wrong (or INTERPRETED FOR YOU by others with their own biases). There are social pressures, there are echo chambers for any opinion, there is a certain push towards making people think the same about any given topic. What i am getting at is that for all the information we have, i think it became more and more difficult to come to conclusions which are solid because there is a lot of noise from all sides.
This was somewhat of a tangent, but i think it is important to at least acknowledge and think about, people are complex beings, 'othering' shouldn't happen as fast as it does these days, judgements are coming rather fast and to me at least the 'othering' has mostly one function, to feel better about oneself. (THEY ARE BAD = I am not).
I think HP Lovecraft is a great example of this. He was a gross, disgusting, hateful human being, which is where his style of writing and the ideas he came up with sprang from. However, Cthulu and Cthonic ideas is something our culture (and our SFF genres) took and ran with and made their own in a lot of ways, and not once in any of those adaptations have I seen Cthulu's hateful themes and ideologies pushed. We took the product of a bad person and made it cool and took away that hateful origin in the eyes of the general public.
Right. It's not as though human beings can be neatly divided into Good People and Bad People. Nor that people who advocate views that I find incorrect, misguided, or even abhorrent are thoroughly bad people in all respects.
@@Steve_Stowers Agreed. Social media often makes people forget that humans are complex and multilayered beings, not cartoon heroes and villains.
Thank you theredviper! People ignore the reality of how psyches of sentient beings work and based on superficial understanding they engage in distress-managing in a destructive way.
Yes, and I really like how you bring up that our penchant for sound-bites and headlines today also is where nuance - and understanding - often come to die. Not that there aren't evil people (hello Hitler, just to name an easy picking there) but I do think we throw around the phrase perhaps easier than we should.
I only care if they get charged for a serious crime. I don't need artists to be my friends, I need them to make art that I enjoy. They are entitled to be whoever they want to be outside of that.
As for virtual signaling, in my country we have a saying - a person's heart is a forest - you never know what some stranger online is doing/saying/etc behind closed doors.
Just came across this video.
An author's sphere of influence is generally those who read their books. In that sphere, judge the book. By purchasing the book your judgement is related to the book, not the author.
If an author becomes an influencer in a larger space...as has JK Rowling, in that space it becomes appropriate to judge their personal views.
However, Harry Potter was hugely successful and loved by millions of people. JK Rowling created that work and she deserves all the credit for the quality of the work. The thing people ought to remember is that Rowling is more than that one opinion she has that you happen to disagree with. She created a world and people that you found uplifting...which suggests that, taken as a whole, there is probably more you like about her than the one thing you don't like.
Endorsing Harry Potter doesn't mean you agree with every aspect of her life. All it means is that she created a worthwhile work of art.
Love your videos!
I’d say confusing the message with the messenger is a common mistake. If every work you read and value must be written by a flawless human being, you’re done reading.
It’s part of a greater trend I’ve begun to see in that “Internet age“ you reference. Because we can research increasing details of any author’s life, readers can get hooked on pursuing
“offense archaeology”. And because many folks increasingly struggle with nuance, they must label a person “good“ or “evil”. People are mixed bags (though, certainly some mixtures are more homogenous than others). “Good guys“ and “bad guys“ are judgments for toddlers. Adults can do better.
Judge an idea or an action. People are vast collections of these things.
Edit: I posted this before finishing the video (which is never a prudent move). I see that you are also uncomfortable with the term “bad person“ in general, and seemingly for the same reasons)
My condemnation of that perspective above was not directed at you. It was directed at the perspective.
Once again: thoughts and actions, not people.
🙂
I don't care about an author's political or social opinions if they're a good writer, unless they bring those things into their work.
I am not a fan of Orson Scott Card in the least, but still like enders game.
I love the Cthulhu mythos, hate the racism that HP Lovecraft had.
If i rejected authors based on their opinions, how much would i have missed out on?
Frankly, this whole rejection of authors based on their morality is just two steps below censorship imho.
Totally agree. We live in a world where no one is perfect and we’re not going to ever agree on absolutely everything. People need to get over themselves with that nonsense.
Sure, but you argument falls short when you use lovecraft as an example .Becaudse his racism is essential to his mythos. It´s why he created it in the first place. His fear of anything that wasnt (white) like him.
@@Alexander-kc8oq ancient outer space gods that dwarf humanity's limited understanding of reality?
I think there's was more to his writing than just racism. I'm thinking you read articles about Lovecraft and not his full catalog .. or you just read the controversial pieces spoonfed you in a college course
A few years ago I saw a UA-cam video declaring you need to cancel these fantasy authors because for a fact they give their numbers out at book signings. Now you have to question another fantasy author because he personally believes you are happiest being monogamous. I can go on, but the thing is no matter who you are ‘you’ will be canceled according to what the flavor of the month is
1. All that matters is the writing. Everything else is marketing. The author should not have to change their views or lifestyle to suit some theoretical reader. Anything else is censorship.
2. If you only read books by people you already know you agree with, you will never learn anything.
3. When I was young, libraries and bookshops used to stock Mein Kampf. The people who were reading it were not endorsing Hitler, they were trying to learn from history. Public libraries would stock Marx, Trotsky, Gramsci; historical figures from the extreme right and the extreme left. Because the purpose of libraries is to broaden peoples' ideas.
4. If your generation does believe you should only read from authors you "approve", then you have more in common with cult members than you would like to think. Tellling people what they can and cannot read is censorship. Isn't that happening in Florida just now? What is the difference?
Cancel culture isn't new - authoritarian regimes have always burned and banned books, after all. It's just finding it among people who presumably believe they are "progressive" that is confusing for people of my generation. What happened to the idea of respecting other peoples' views? You can do that without sharing them. Indeed, that is the test of your belief in freedom of expression.
Readers have no responsibility to research anything. If you don’t separate the art from the artist there is no way to genuinely connect with a piece of art, because a subsequent action of or discovery about the artist can completely alienate how you perceive the work that you connected with. The bottom line is that it’s difficult to really know people even people you interact with on a daily basis (think coworkers) so we have zero chance of knowing any particular artist even if we think we do.
yes! this! I think a lot of people forget about the 'persona', how we present ourselves based on situation/circumstance. So there's not a full-truth grasp on what an individual is like.
I actually fundamentally disagree with this principle. While no-one is under any obligation to research the artist and art can be appreciated just fine without knowing where it comes from, to actively try to divorce a piece of art from its creator does a disservice to both art AND artist.
While I'm only someone who creates as a hobby, I am surrounded by creatives who do it as a job. People who create pour a part of themselves into whatever they make, be it a handcrafted mug, a dance or a full length novel. To try to divorce someone from what they've created just because their association offends your sensibilities is IMO possibly the most disrespectful way you can treat a piece of art, short of actually trying to deface or destroy it.
Critique a piece based on your opinion from an author all you like, but don't ever do the disrespect of trying to remove them from it. It's basically saying that this piece of art could exist without that person, removing the human element entirely. At which point, we may as well just pack up and let AI do all of our creating for how much we respect it.
@@jakerockznoodles yes it seems like we do fundamentally disagree. Glad you posted this here as I feel this view point certainly should accompany my comment.
@@jakerockznoodles didn’t Bookborn prove at the beginning of the video that usually the art transcends the artist. People know LORDS OF THE RINGS, but most likely have no idea who Tolkien is. I think most artists would prefer it that way. They want their work to be in the limelight, not their lives.
Facts.
Imagine having to look up every name involved in the credits of everything. You might as well only read memoirs and biographies from now on
You make very good points here, and I totally agree with what you say at 17:14. It feels like ever since the JK Rowling controversy, there's been a surge of articles/videos saying "Actually, HP was never really good to begin with." Which, to each to their own, but it comes off like people trying to sound smart rather than actually being analytical.
I live in the West of Edinburgh. I have personally met a number of women who JK Rowling has helped privately when they found themselves in financial difficulties. She's been loyal to the people (especially women) she knew when she was struggling, and when she was becoming successful, but not famous. I do wonder how many of the virtue-signallers have ever parted with a penny to help someone. As to the "HP as never any good" - there seems to be an entire generation who expect the stuff they enjoyed as children to stay with them through to their thirties, and I don't understand it at all.
Ok this is totally what I was implying LOL like I don't think everyone needs to like Harry Potter - and certainly, if you first read it as an adult, there may be a larger chance you won't like it because you aren't it's primary audience: but the idea that because people don't agree with JK Rowling makes her work automatically bad is just sooo silly and really isn't adding anything to the conversation.
As a conservative that loves to read, it seems that, from my perspective, I don’t ideologically agree with any author I read. That’s mainly because most authors who hold any conservative stance (particularly on cultural issues) are either pushed out of the industry or have future works boycotted and ridiculed. Therefore, if I want to read modern popular literature, I must read the works of those I totally disagree with. While none of these books have changed my mind about what I believe, and I am continually frustrated that there are very few popular books being written from someone who believes what I believe, I find it healthy to be open to hearing from other perspectives.
The Internet in general, and social media in particular, has given rise to this strange idea that, if you disagree with someone on a single topic, you must disagree with them on all topics. This is an extremely counterproductive attitude. Successful societies depend on finding common ground, even with people with whom you disagree. When it comes to literature and performing arts, I care a lot more about a story's message than the views of the creator. I believe that consumers do have an obligation to think critically about the products they consume. But actually researching something beforehand I reserve for big ticket items like real estate and automobiles, or high impact items like food or medication.
I have sufficient confidence in my own critical thinking to engage any art without worrying about being "infected" with "wrongthink." In the words of Aristotle, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
This an incredibly nuanced conversation. For myself I don't go out of my way to research authors before I read them, however if something comes to light and the author actively physically hurt or abused people, or is spreading hate in the form of trying to take basic human rights away from people, then I tend to avoid talking about them on my channel. Or if I do mention them, I try to remember to have the caveat about what they have done. For other controversies that arise that are more open to interpretation, such as the controversy surrounding TJ Klune, I tend to not mention the controversy as much. Those lines are constantly evolving and changing, but the one thing I cannot stand is when people extend you reading an author with you supporting their views, like the viewer/commenter did to you with Cixin Liu. Like...we can consume works from racist people without being racist so I just need people to stop being so reductive in their arguments, and accept that it is only by having open honest conversations such as this that we can better understand each other. I strongly disagree that you should only mention controversies that directly affect you though (one of the comments was saying that's what they do), because allyship is real and sometimes having people that aren't directly impacted mentioning it can be very powerful for marginalized groups.
Yeah I don’t think that person was saying you shouldn’t, but rather that they notice they tend to talk about issues that affect them more, which I think can naturally happen. But I totally agree that this whole “I see a book on your shelf and so you must agree with them” trend is really annoying and slightly disturbing. It’s never that black and white.
@@Bookborn 100% never that black and white. Sometimes you don’t know there was something (like someone in my bookshelf tour last year brought up the author of mists of Avalon and I had no idea), or sometimes it’s more nuanced then that and it’s ok if someone had a different opinion
The problem (for me) with Cixin Liu is that the outrage is coming from Westerners who assume he has the same freedom of speech as they have. A lot of what Chinese "celebrities" do and say is rooted in what the party wants them to say or do. Sometimes their life will quite literally depend on it. Sometimes they will risk getting harassed or losing income or becoming socially isolated. Sometimes their families get threatened. I find it disgustingly ignorant when people judge others who belong to different cultures, but without actually understanding that not every place has the same rules or laws or morality. Only Cixin Liu knows whether he actually believes the things he said. But what I can say with certainty is that no one in their right mind would say anything to damage the Chinese government. It's easy to point fingers from the outside, but I'd like to see how many Westerners would cling to their morality if their life and livelihood was on the line. Instead of using this opportunity to bring light to the Xinjiang situation or starting a discussion on morality and how culture affects it, people are doing what they do best. Try to cancel this guy as if that will do anyone any good. At this point it feels to me that cancelling people left and right is what brings some people most joy, and that they're not actually trying to raise awareness or help anyone.
If i dislike an authors views, but also really like their writing on a surface level, i try to find outif their views make theirs ways into the writing.
If it does, im out. There are many more great authors out there.
If it doesnt, im fine with keep on reading.
If their views make it into their writing, they are not good authors to me, no matter what those views are. Even for literary fiction. An author tells a story, and might want to say something with it, but in the end, he just lets you experience the story and come to your own conclusion, not just tells you what to believe, because this would break the most basic rule of writing. Show but don't tell!
And to say it with the words of Marcel Proust: “Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.”
The Wired Article is complete bulls**t. It made me furious. That dude is complete fool.
Great discussion - and I think Ves' (Hi Ves!) comment's pretty great. I don't have a great answer myself beyond a vague "Try to limit the harm I do/spread" - but what I try to do, and what I'd always appreciate from creators is just information - if you know something, share it. I'm not necessarily going to think less of someone if they read a book from a homophobic author (for example), but if they knowingly hide that information, making it so others might accidentally engage with something they don't want to - that's a problem. It's providing information and facts widely such that individuals can make their own decisions - AND better decisions on whether to buy, get from a library, etc. there's a commercial component as well as the artistic one, and both might have different approaches.
and oh god the "No one with bad thoughts can make good art" is one of the most annoying, prevalent beliefs out there. Both wrong, and actively harmful for understanding and grappling with these issues when awful people *do* surface!
I always appreciate the way you think. I might not always agree, but you make a great effort to look at an issue from multiple angles. I was a literature major in college and was interested in how authors from different places and times dealt with social issues and moral questions. I guess I always understood that the authors were constrained and influenced by the time they lived and the places they were from. I hate current efforts to "sanitize" their writings. I want to know how they thought about issues and how their society viewed them. The same is true for present day authors. I judge an author on what they write, not on the life they live. I judge a person on how they live, not on what they write.
I think it’s fine to enjoy what you enjoy and not feel the need to stress over vetting every author’s beliefs before you read them. That being said, it is reasonable to allow for the added context of a person’s character to color your perception of their work in hindsight.
I think a great example of this, for me, is Harry Potter and JKR’s transphobia. HP does a lot of things well, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a kid/teenager growing up, partly because its messages fit my “Judeo-Christian” value system at the time. For example, the morality within the HP universe is very tribal and pro-establishment. Good guys and bad guys are clearly coded, often reinforced by visual cues. The wizarding world makes the conscious choice not to use magic to help the general population. And while there is some racial diversity present, their inclusion is regularly undermined by stereotypes and cultural insensitivity. These and other aspects to the work lend its overall feel a decidedly conservative bent.
This isn’t in itself a huge problem for me, there are plenty of people I disagree with politically whom I consider good people and enjoy the art they produce. The problems start to develop when the worst parts of that ideology start tangibly affecting the real world. This author is a British person with actual real life financial and political clout, who doesn’t seem to even acknowledge the lingering effects of literal and cultural colonialism on the world we live in today. I honestly believe that there is a direct parallel between HP’s moral obsession with the status quo, and JKR’s fanatical passion for defending cis-het normativity at all costs. It’s the same conservative logic. The world and the way things have always been done are generally good, so we must defend it, with violence if necessary. I find I prefer a more progressive mindset, and that’s not even accounting for the more insidious “natural order” aspect of conservative ideology, which is routinely used to justify casual racism, sexism, and even genocide in extreme cases.
It’s not unreasonable to think that a young person could read JKR’s books, be inspired by them, look her up in real life, and be swayed into active transphobia by her hateful rhetoric. And frankly that’s horrifying. For me, it’s more than enough real danger to justify boycotting the series and affiliated products indefinitely. But I also just can’t enjoy the books for themselves anymore, because I’m just too aware of the damage Judeo-Christian morality has done to me personally and people
I care about. So I do think it’s somewhat normal for your opinions on art to change over time as your own personal values do, if that makes sense. Thanks for bringing up such an interesting topic!
If you were using a Mac product and you honestly are going to say that you have a consumer responsibility to look into every aspect of a book or a movie then you’re being a hypocrite. Just enjoy the book a person can be a shitty person and still have written an amazing piece of art or something that could’ve changed somebody’s life.
The amount of actors, politicians, corporations, authors, and everybody else that does anything that are going to turn out to be jerks or assholes are infinite. The line that somebody considers good or bad is also so different for every situation/person. Focus on the content of the material not the person who wrote the material when doing a review. I feel like that’s the simplest easiest way.
I don't research authors before diving into a book unless Im trying to actively diversify my reading( i.e reading from authors from a particularly country, reading books by trans authors etc) and as a woman and person of color I often do find myself reading books by authors whose views I don't agree with. I often also don't mind reading from authors whose views are different from my own. Part of why I read is to dive into different perspectives. HOWEVER when I do become aware that an author/artist is actively using their platform/resources/money to cause harm then I can no longer support them i.e JK Rowling.
Great video as always. Cixin Liu is an interesting example. I was talking with Ben about this a while ago and he brought up a good point. For context Ben is Chinese and has spent time in China visiting his family several times growing up. He pointed out that China has state controlled media that often feeds you a certain narrative and the people living in China don't really have a reason to question their government. I know this in itself opens up a can of worms but it made me wonder if Cixin Liu actually believes what he said or if he's just regurgitating a msg he's been immersed in
Oh, good point - I have definitely researched authors to try and find own voices, or to make sure I'm reading from a source I trust, especially with non-fiction. What Ben said is sort of some thing I've been thinking about a lot in relation to Liu. It's hard though; we don't know the story, and we also don't know what it's like to live in other countries that have different perspectives/challenges/censorship levels.
Rowling's opinion on trans women not being women somehow negates all her generous charity works? Rowling donated around $200 million dollars to charity and actively works on helping children around the world. She holds an opinion that 99.9% of the world agrees with.
@@Bookborn There's also the fact that in China you need to be very careful what you say in public, particularly if you have a high profile (actor, writer, influencer, etc.). You WILL get not just yourself but also your family in trouble if you say the wrong thing. (Trouble = anything ranging from cyber-bullying to harassments to jail for the rest of your life) (source: am Chinese)
@@thomasc9036 Your percentage is inaccurate. There are indigenous communities that embrace trans individuals and it's actually a part of their culture. One example are the Muxes of Mexico. Anyways Im not keeping "tabs" or a running list on the good vs bad things authors do. Im just choosing not to support JK Rowling which is fine. My choice does not impact you.
Enjoy the art. A recommendation of an artist’s work, regardless whether it’s a book, film, music, etc., is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything (or anything) that the artist has ever said/done in his/her personal life. There’s lots of authors, actors, directors, producers, and musicians whose art I thoroughly enjoy and would even recommend despite my strong disagreement with their lifestyle, their expressed moral/philosophical/political views, etc.
I appreciate you having this as a public discussion. I'm sure that as a Booktuber you juggle more pressures in this area than most readers. My personal stance is that I want to know before giving money to an author whether I can support them in good conscience, or recommend them to anyone. I don't research my $0.99 ebook purchases, and get most of my books used, so it isn't much of a time sink for me when I do want to find out what an author is like. Then there are times authors make their views perfectly clear in their work, and save me the trouble. 🙃 What really sucks is when you fall in love with someone's work beforehand, as with you and Cixin Liu. We can engage with something critically and still love it for what it means to us as individuals.🖖
Thanks for this comment. I particularly like "we can engage with something critically and still love it for what it means to us as individuals"
If there was going to be ANY line I draw in the sand, it's where the art reflects the artist.
I'm thinking Goodkind (who I haven't read) who included some heavy political themes and opinions, basically using his work to preach.
Don't get me wrong, a writer can have some spicy opinions and still write something good. If you want to avoid the author I totally respect that but I won't demonize you for enjoying something you enjoyed. But if someone has icky views and writes a book about their icky views, I'm out. The description for Galbraith's last release gave me this vibe - it was very clearly a self-insert.
The only other consideration would be when the "badness" isn't a matter of views and is more criminal (*cough* David Eddings *cough*). I found out about his past (it's very upsetting so tw) as i started the Belgariad which was a really.... really weird experience. But in that case the art and artist were very different and, as weird as it is to say, i didn't hate the books. Even if i was a bit extra critical of them.
I may have lost focus a time or two while writing this comment but who knows. I loved the video. This was really thought provoking and actually helped me in figuring out how i feel about this. It's been a messy process with Hogwarts Legacy and some other media the last several months.
I feel like if you're a person who can't at least somewhat separate the art from the artist in certain medias, then you're just terminally online and in the nicest way I can say it need to get off your phone and go outside.
This video is amazing
Can I just say terminally online is one of my favorite phrases I've learned. It's so true about people and certain websites lol
I agree that to pre-check authors, actors, musicians, etc. before we consume their work is unsustainable. It can also become a performative “gotcha” by people who want to virtue signal, which isnt helpful at all. (“Oh… you like Liu Cixin? I guess you don’t care about cultural genocide against the Uighurs.”) If you go back far enough in history (50, 100, 200 years?), essentially every artist is misoginistic, racist, or homophobic to some degree by modern standards. That shouldn’t mean that we shouldn’t be able to enjoy the art they produced.
For me personally. If an author is public in how bad of a person they are currently and are alive or recently dead, I will avoid their work. There are a million other books I could be reading. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to research every author I read. I rarely care about who the author is
Ok, so I didn't know about the comments you were talking about so I went to look them up and... they were pretty underwhelming tbh. Like, there's this weird hypocrisy at work at the moment where we in the west demand "authentic voices" and then the moment that voice says something that doesn't gel with our ideas of what they should think about their culture we cast them out.
Like, I don't agree with the policies of the CCP, and I think China and the world would be better off under a different government (... or no government), but I dont expect the vast majority of Chinese people to agree with me, and they're the ones who actually live there so I'm not going to get mad at them when they have a vastly different opinion than I do. Whether we like it or not most Chinese people are probably either indifferent towards or vaguely pro the CCP, in much the same way that in most countries the vast majority of people are either indifferent towards or vaguely pro the concept of having a government. They havent been brainwashed or any of that Jordan Peterson nonsense, they are just ordinary people who are just as inclined to support or justify the actions of their government as your typical democrat is to support Biden despite his massively increasing police funding and walking back on the vast majority of his progressive promises, or Obamas use of drones.
I am so very tired of being asked to make moral judgements on the private opinions and relationships of people I don't know, and having my own morality called into question when I say I don't think it's any of my business and I am going to engage with the art based on it's own merit. We all have our own priorities and limits. If I know someone is actively causing harm on a social and legislative level like JRK then yeah, they dont get my money. But if it's just they have fairly predictable and normal opinions for someone of their background and made the mistake of speaking publicly about that then... I really couldn't care less any more.
I'm busy enough I struggle to find time to read as consistently as I want to. I think of I had to research every author's history, Interviews, and social media posts going back years I probably would run out of what little time I have. If an author I enjoyed reading came out and made some wild claims and offensive statements I would probably pack up their books and get rid of them in some way. Until something becomes quite public and known I probably won't find out about it and most likely won't start researching every person who writes a book or creates some of the media I enjoy. I'm sure it will come back to bite me someday, but I just don't have the time to worry about it preemptively.
John Scalzi was one of my favorite authors, but then he became very public about his TDS (some of his comments have been extremely hateful towards people he's never met, which I find petulant at best.) But that doesn't detract from his talent. My compromise is to buy his books used or at a significant discount. There are people who actually hate you if you vote a certain way or chose not to be medically experimented upon and it's probably best to not fund their behavior, if possible.
in at the jump ^^
Great subject.
I personally DO read from authors I disagree with. Partly bc it's dumb to do otherwise, bc where's the line? There's not a SINGLE person I agree with entirely (my father was my best friend. Over 10 years since he passed at age 49 I still talk about him regularly. One of the best men I've known. Loving, generous, smart, passionate, kind... but also an alcoholic with a trad/con jealous streak. He was never nasty, even when my mum socialised with other men, but he would complain. Which is dumb. Still the best man I've known, bc people are flawed, even the best of us)
Rowling isn't a particularly great author imo (Potter is enjoyable YA lit. But hardly comparable with fantasy greats imo) & I only read her work after reading a few articles/essays from her that revealed a smart, self aware woman. The fact she ALSO has baggage due to past trauma that leads her to faulty assumptions and misguided activism doesn't invalidate her work to me.
Terry Goodkind was an objectivist moron. The only things I've learned of the man are rather odious. But I still enjoy the Sword of Truth, I don't think it goes so far as plagiarism even if it IS absolutely derivative. And I even appreciate learning the values of his brand of libertarian, because they really aren't all that different from my own. Merely misguided by some faulty assumptions (the nature of freedom, the inherent nobility of people and what it means and how to promote it, even what constitutes hard work. Small differences end up with wildly different conclusions)
John Norman is probably the most controversial author on my shelves (displayed prominently bc I like to provoke :P) and as much as I STRONGLY disagree with his quite apparent assessments of human psychology and the nature of society I find that exploration *utterly* fascinating.
As soon as people start demanding purity checks for their art, they're building a cell for themselves.
I think it's natural and human to set CERTAIN limits... but even those are hard to justify bc the lines will ALWAYS be arbitrary, personal and subject to bias.
Now to learn your perspective ^^
See you after the jump!
I have nothing to add to this, just want to say this is a fantastic comment and I agree.
Your last sentence is really great. We will ALWAYS be setting limits for ourselves, and because we are human, they WILL always be arbitrary and perhaps even contradictory at times. It's life.
@@Bookborn
Aye, on the pushback you've gotten over Cixin Liu in particular I think people reveal JUST how hypocritical and shallow their thinking is.
(edit: rant ahead, skip for your own sanity! Sorry, not sorry ^^)
The man was raised in Communist china during the cultural revolution and resides in that nation now.
Are people GENUINELY shocked that somebody who has by all appearances got a comfortable middle class life doing what they love wouldn't be enormously critical of the regime he lives under. That he might consume media and be informed by ideologies that grant him a WILDLY different perspective of the west?
Folks can hate the CCP, but literally no nation is blameless when it comes to things they're condemned for. Internment camps for ethnic minorities? Wasn't all that long ago that was happening in the west and I really don't see much handwringing about it. Democracy sucks? Sure does. Anyone gonna dispute the statement when democracy is delivering terrible outcomes and governments that effectively operate just like a one party state.
It's a case of people in glass houses throwing stones, ignoring the broken glass that rains down upon them.
I could seriously go on for days deriding my own country (the UK) or America for our own bullshit.
Censorship, worse here in the UK but not exactly rare in the US just differently justified and practiced.
Media bias/manipulation.
Military industrial complex
Prison industrial complex.
Corporate capture.
Greed as a moral virtue...
etc etc.
The point isn't that China is great, or that Cixin Liu shouldn't be criticised for his opinions.
It's that failure to account for his personal and political context is VERY dangerous if people bother to be at ALL consistent.
Soon everyone becomes "the bad person" (in a global context, America is routinely seen as the greatest danger to world peace. With that knowledge, any "patriotic American" could be dismissed as a bad person. That's not something I could sign off to. Most people are okay. Even ones that support shitty governments)
There simply a marked difference between "person has opinions that upset or anger me" and "person is nasty or has done bad things"
I have a great deal more sympathy for dismissing the works of the latter, but even that is often not so easy. (Joss Whedon springs to mind for me. I was disillusioned with the man almost a decade before "woke" people came for him. Still like his work, and think he's simply a creative, talented... arsehole. And I have family that latter description applies to, and I can put up with their flaws :P)
Honestly, I think not being able to see the humanity and goodness in people just because they have flaws and different opinions is far more harmful.
Not a single person in the world is perfect or flawless. It’s okay to dislike certain aspects of people without hating or dehumanizing them entirely.
Not really a surprise that not that many people know any particular author of any genre. I mean, a NYT "bestseller" is what, something like 50,000 books sold? So 50,000 people out of how many tens of millions of people in the US alone? Not a lot of people read books, even fewer read books often, and those numbers are probably dwindling with younger generations.
And no, I don't personally care about an author's politics or whatever when it comes to fiction. I also think it's sacrilege that publishers are now subjecting classic authors and their books to "sensitivity readers" and butchering them to remove anything that younger generations find offensive. You could do a video about that.
EDIT: Never mind, I see you already have! Great! gonna go watch that now ;)
I don’t often go looking, but if info comes my way, I do take it into account (since I’m not likely to forget the problematic behaviour). Generally, if I can no longer respect the person I have a hard time enjoying their creations.
100% agree!
I agree but like even sometimes someone with just an annoying persona can ruin things for me. It’s never happened with an author but there have been a few actors that I got really had interview vibes from and it soured me on them 🤣
I realize that there is something I disagree with about every person. I don't care. I read their books because I like their writing. I may or may not agree with the author about any given topic. Means nothing to me. In particular, I agree with Rowling on her controversial statements. With Sanderson, I am not an LDS member. Stephen King is a far left "progressive" which doesn't effect his writing.
When i find an author has opinions i disagree with i take a loose approach based on approximately three factors
1: How extreme is the position i disagree with? Being a TERF or anti-LGBTQ+ is pretty extreme. For better or worse, in America being pro-second amendment is not that extreme (within reason.)
2: Are they (or their estate) using their fame and/or income to actively promote the views i disagree with?
3: How personally impacted do i feel by their activities?
JK Rowling and OSC hit #1 and #2 pretty hard. There's another author (who got on the NYT list a couple times but i wouldn't generally consider famous) whose books i used to quite like until they said that if they could make a certain demographic group "go away" that they would, and followed it up by saying something vaguely threatening to a friend of a friend. (Something along the lines of "i'd like to demonstrate my second amendment rights to you", not _quite_ a blatant threat, but...)
Depending on the combination of the above i might actively campaign against the author and/or i might stop buying new books but continue to enjoy the older books i read before i discovered the unpleasant truth and/or i might stop reading and rereading their books entirely.
But if it's a low-fame author who doesn't make the news cycle and just has some relatively mild political views i disagree with that they occasionally express on their personal blog, i'll probably just let bygones be bygones. (Assuming those views don't influence their work so much that it affects my enjoyment.)
On the other hand if they're dead and their estate (literal or figurative) isn't actively campaigning for anything (and they didn't personally piss me off too much while alive) then there's no harm in enjoying their work.
I should add that Sanderson is a difficult case. He himself seems like a great guy. Apparently he had some anti-LGBTQ+ views at some point, but has since walked those back. So i have no problem with him personally, and i do enjoy his books. But by all accounts he still continues to tithe millions of dollars to the LDS Church, which does have views i very much disagree with, even if they try to be less blatant about it these days.
That’s you, don’t push your opinions and call them bad cause they are not the same as yours, some of use don’t agree with misogynistic bullying and the thinking that men are allowed in private places and threatened with violence if disagree.
Best reply.
I strongly beleive in the importance of seperating the art from the artist.
Nobody is wholly good or wholly evil, we're all human, we all have the capacity for both inside us. And an author like Lui having what I find to be disgusting political views, that doesn't take away with how creative he the world he built was and how much I enjoyed consuming those stories. Recognizing the bad I don't think means you have to ignore or can't appreciate the good.
I don't think you should worry about how much your views align with the author in reading or recommending fiction.
I don't think it leads to a better world when we only listen to people we agree with.
If you want to keep reading an author, stay off Twitter, and other social media. That SHOULD be the big take away.
Yeah, I'm not on twitter and anything I've learned that came from twitter has always been against my will lol
Agreed!! Twitter makes you dislike anyone right away and yup, I’m still being fed Twitter against my will lol
Just avoid Twitter, Facebook and TikTok like the plague, period. They will destroy your soul and your brain cells lol.
One of my favorite things about books is that it kind of forces people to interact with ideas that they might be unwilling to talk about otherwise. Books, also, make it easier to open up discussion on said complicated topics. Books like 1984 and Atlas Shrugged are intentionally controversial, and you still should read them. Point is, you should be engaging with authors that have a different philosophical viewpoint.
Yeah, and in the case of this issue, a lot of times the authors views sincerely aren't in the book itself, because it doesn't relate to anything within the book.
@@Bookborn And in some cases the views implied in the narrative can seem quite contradictory to what they say, as if writing fiction is how they try to work through their issues - I think some Lovecraft stories singled out find positive traits in otherness, and some people think Orson Scott Card may be closeted from some of his stories.
Well said.
@@Bookborn I actually also just finished The Three Body Problem books. I found the talking points well thought through and justified. Regardless of what he has said outside of the text, I'm happy about my purchase.
And when it's not just a 'different point of view' (a cowardly phrase considering some of the things authors are doing) , but actively trying to commit harm on a specific group of people?
Orson Scott Card is a very good writer, especially from a child's perspective. I don't like some of the things he says about the adult world at all. Same with JK. (Some of it is really only just annoying, and sounds like someone in the process of making up their mind. They could change it later.)
Authors are NOT celebrities in the same way that movie, media, influencers and sports stars. They are not supposed to be.
*That's more like the job of celebrities. Writers write. Read their stuff and enjoy it or not.*
And, sorry, folks, most celebs you think you love because of their personal life or politics or faith? They are not really that person. It's an image. It's PR. The real person is some mixture of good and awful.
6:38 it is probably important to realize that the authors opinions often bleed into their work. Even if we don’t know exactly what the author believes IRL, we see it in the books. If they simply tell the story with many different belief systems held forth then the author is truly able to go with that flow. A master writer that taps into what makes the world and characters breathe.
It’s an unfair standard, no one questions the values of dickens, or Dostoyevsky. Be smart,use your logical brain and separate the art from artists. I loved three body and didn’t even know Liu was controversial. I still don’t care, his book is a masterpiece. Your loss if you wanna have an ego and think you are so important that you would actually influence the public opinion. No one cares that much about what you say, and you close your mind off from reading a fantastic piece of art.
"If you choose your art based on the artist's personal beliefs and behavior, you'll be left with nothing but polka music" - Bill Maher.
Bill mahr ain't really the smartest due especially with his blk anti commits
I agree with your basic point in my mind, there is also a difference between being a bad person and being an excellent creator of total fiction. If I registered the "approval" value of every artistic creator I watch or enjoy then I'd likely never watch anything, ever. Now if the author has laced the artistic work with their own agenda and viewpoints that is a more complicated question, I have put down books that were narrow-minded, bigoted and instead of making me think made me feel I was being subjected to their moral sermon. You deal with this in a different video, on propaganda in writing.
I’ve had this exact conversation with myself, and specifically about Cixin Lu’s work. Basically what I’ve come to (for myself) is that if I know of an authors views I disagree with, I’ll do my best not to support them with my money - so I get the books from the library, a book swap, or a used-book store…
Honestly there are SO many good, non-contentious authors on my TBR, the few I’ve cut out haven’t been very noticeable…
Actually, instead of re-reading Harry Potter I decided to read the Nevermoor series, and it’s a fantastic alternative middle-grade that I might not have otherwise discovered, so there’s that angle to consider as well!
I can *100% GUARANTEE* that every single one of your "good, non-contentious" authors have skeletons in their closet that you don't know about and they don't want you to know. They wouldn't be human if they were genuinely flawless. And don't make the mistake of thinking that those who say all the "right things" publicly, actually believe all of those things privately. You'd be surprised.
If you like Liu Cixin, just remember John Scalzi is a better replacement in every aspect - especially that he is still actively writing
John Scalzi isn't half as good as Liu.
@@CarrotConsumer Liu cribbed memes then got angry at his biggest fan Phenixus/Baoshu for using memes in fanfics, wrote an arc based on racist misconceptions of Japanese tea culture, missed the entire point of capitalism, etc
One thing I absolutely love about reading is specifically that you get a window into an author's mind more than you do in other art forms. You can really tell what someone believes, how they feel, who they vote for, their morality, ect ect from their work. You're in an in depth conversation with that person specifically from reading their work. They're pouring out their heart to you in a way that they probably don't usually do for their friends and family. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has morals of some sort. Those morals will naturally make it into the mouths of their heroes. Of course they will. If they're writing someone who they think to be a good person, that will reflect their ideas of what is good. And vice versa, what they think is bad will make it into the mouths of their villains. That's why I'm not a big "death of the author" person. Why an author believes their heroes to be good or villains to be bad is absolutely fascinating to me.
I just appreciate anyone who struggles with these issues, because it shows they are thinking empathetically about the world around them.
If everyone refused to monetarily support, in any way, any sort of art involving someone with whom they disagreed philosophically / politically, there would be a whole lot less art in the world. Generally speaking, people should get over themselves and learn to appreciate the art itself. With a little introspection, everyone will find that they, themselves, are imperfect hypocrites who couldn't stand up to the type of scrutiny that they want to apply to others.
I don't have to engage with the products of assholes committed to doing active harm to groups of people either. I find alot of the backlash to the idea of scrutinizing the beliefs and acts of artists a very cowardly way of saying that you can't be bothered to care about the well being of people and the culture you live in. There's plenty of great work out there and we don't need to deal with poisonous ideology to read/view/whatever it.
I really like that there are lots of different people and views. The world is better for people having a lot of views. In fact it never would have changed and improved if people didn't have different views. I will go further to support authors I like, but really, more power to folks having different views. There is a limit on how bad but for the most part I will read it anyway. The best stuff was made by actually terrible people in my experience.
I'm consistently shocked by how many high school students have absolutely zero clue what I'm talking about when I say "The Lord of the Rings"
I don't understand the impulse to try and disassociate one's personal enjoyment of a work from the creator's personal opinions. If a creator is, say, bigoted, doesn't someone who opposes those views enjoying something about their creations that doesn't reflect their bigoted opinions serve as a fundamentally rebellious act?
For example, Roald Dahl had allegedly said some straight up anti-Semitic stuff. I'm Jewish. Dahl remains one of my most cherished wordsmiths. And if I were to think that he would have disapproved of my existence simply because of my ethnic background, that just makes me feel even more successfully like one of his fantastically unruly heroes which I remain inspired by.
I think the majority of the "background check" pearl-clutching is based around a fear that others will see us enjoying a work, and therefore imprint all of the personal values of its creator on us. As long as we can full-throatily reject that moronic notion at all turns, we should be able to love the art we love, and tell the bigots (who may have created some of it) to universally suck it.
Your last paragraph is a huge thing. It’s fear. Fear we will be judged for enjoying a book when an authors views are suspect. It’s hard to separate from even when recognizing it’s a silly notion
@@Bookborn Which is precisely why HONEST videos like this one you made are so important. Thank you ❤
Fear doesn't require people to be afraid, it just needs them to remain silent. Speak up, and it's broken instantly.
Resilience is key. Your attitude seems awesome to me.
It’s almost a pointless question because every author is going to have a belief or have said something or done something problematic that we disagree with or straight up hate. At some point people need to stop giving a shit about the author and just enjoy reading.
Steven King is a great example though: I am baffled by the great majority of the opinions he expresses today, to the point I can't believe he's the same person who wrote some of these books I grew up with, so I guess it's pretty easy to separate him from his work lol ....Especially when it's a very recent development.
It's not a reader, or a movie watcher, or a music listener's obligation to police artists' opinions. If someone disagrees with me on something, I don't care as long as they're not doing something horrible that my patronage of their art or business will help them continue to do. In fact, there is far too much of policing others' ideas online, and the expectation that everybody constantly live their lives in that mode is doing more to divide humanity than to solve the problem of "bad ideas." The act of boycotting used to be a method of stopping egregious activity by businesses that were making money from those bad acts. Now, it's degenerated into "Oh, that writer said he liked ________ politician of _________ party," or, "she expressed an opinion on ________ issue that I disagree with, so I'm going to stop reading his/her books." This is a pointless endeavor because we have neither the time nor the intellectual omniscience to research every single artist and make perfect ethical judgements regarding their opinions.
You are agonizing over a non-issue. As you correctly pointed out, it is utterly impractical to fully research the ideas and opinions of everyone you do business with. Do you research the opinions of every employee/executive of every company you buy products from? What are the political opinions of the people that own the grocery store you shop at? Do you ask your auto mechanic about his/her thoughts on every political issue - or do you simply ask how much it will cost to fix your car? Are we to boycott a store, movie, product, book, etc based on the views of all of the people involved or are only certain people's views important? If you are going to boycott a book by some author - did you consider the publisher, editior, printing company, etc.? Maybe you don't like the views of one actor in a movie, but what about everyone else that is a part of that production? This entire issue is nothing more than a discussion of people's selective outrage that is utterly nonsensical. Regardless of the product or services we could discuss there is someone involved with the product who will hold opinions that other people will strongly disagree with. Ultimately there are only two options: (1) engage in nonsensical hypocrisy through pathetic selective outrage or (2) evaluate products on their merits alone and recognize that the unrelated opinions of those providing the product/services are irrelevant when considering the merits of the product itself.
It may be impractical to do research on everything and everyone you engage with on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't act according to your values when the information is presented to you or stumbled upon, or the issue is important enough to have done some looking into.
I'm not going to refuse to buy a book from an author because they might be published by a company I don't like, but I'm not going to buy from an author I know I find reprehensible just because I like the publisher either. Not everyone in a chain of people need to agree with my values for me to associate with them or their work/product, but it certainly doesn't hurt if the key people like the author or CEO aren't morally bankrupt.
@@Michael-ee4uz so you have chosen option 1. Inconsistent, unprincipled, hypocritical selective outrage that is the result of morally bankrupt laziness. I am by no means saying you can’t choose to live your life that way. I am merely identifying it for what it is. You do you.
@@kylebaird1724 you began by saying it's impractical to research everything and everyone, then you tell me I'm being inconsistent and hypocritical for applying my morals to the information I do have? How does that make sense?
I have a standard that you may not understand, but your lack of understanding doesn't make it morally bankrupt laziness, inconsistent, or unprincipled. If that is what you call people who do the best they can with the time and information they have then you are a judgemental, egotistical, absolutist with a deeply pessimistic outlook.
@@Michael-ee4uz I could be wrong, but I think I have a fairly sound understanding of your standard. I am pointing out that your standard is internally inconsistent which makes it morally bankrupt. You try to justify your standard by saying it is "the best they can," but this actually is an admission of the flaws in that standard. What you are seeking to accomplish with your line of thinking is to justify yourself in persecuting people for having opinions you don't like, so that you can virtue signal to the world how wonderful and moral of a person you are by comparison, but you lack the commitment to apply your standard to everyone you do business with because that would be hard and you don't actually want to do something that is difficult. You profess to have a certain "standard" that you expect others to adhere to and you selectively apply that standard based on how much of an imposition that burdens you with. If actually applying that standard is burdensome, well then those are the people whose opinions it is ok to ignore. I am judgmental? I said you can live your life however you want - I am merely pointing out that the sky is blue, water is wet, and morally bankrupt laziness is just that. If you don't want to live your life by a morally bankrupt lazy standard then by all means don't. I honestly don't care how you choose to live. Egotistical? Hardly - facts are facts and it isn't ego to state facts. Absolutist? Again - facts are facts and they aren't subjective. Pessimistic? I'm not the one advocating for boycotts and cancel culture. My position is that the world is a better place through the exchange of ideas and that by engaging with opinions and ideas I don't agree with is how we develop and mature intellectually. If I focused on single issues I am sure that the vast majority of people hold at least one opinion that I would find deeply morally distasteful, but instead of focusing on my disagreements, I choose to focus on the far greater number of things that I agree on with people and see them for all the positives they create rather than choosing to punish them for the few points of disagreement I have with them. Between the two of us - I am not the pessimistic one.
If I threw away every music album of artists that I morally object to, I would have no music to listen to. We have to be able to separate the art from the artist. We have too accept that they are less than perfect, and thats OK, because so is everyone else. To do other make you a hypocrite.
So you admit you used the term "bad person" to refer to "authors who I have determined have views very different than mine, and who I personally do not agree with" while filming this video, but you only caught that you were casually equating "different opinion" with "bad person" while rewatching the footage during editing... Well, at least you caught yourself doing it and felt uncomfortable about it.
Let's flip things around to put them in perspective. I am on the polar opposite of the socio-political opinion spectrum from someone like G.R.R. Martin, who, as we all know, is a massive progressive hippie. Wouldn't it be crazy if I just casually categorised him in my mind as a "bad person" because of that? It's evident to me he is fantastically skilled as a writer and is an amazing storyteller, whatever his opinions are. And even though his worldview obviously shines through in his books, I still appreciate his work for its own merit and see no problem at all with buying his books and justly rewarding his work and creativity, regardless of his political opinions.
That people entertain this question at all seems just... crazy to me. It's insane how much flak J.K. Rowling got for simply expressing her opinion. As if having a different opinion on some social issue has the slightest impact on someone's skill as an author and storyteller, or their right to be justly compensated for their creative work.
I don't know, but this "wow these authors are such BAD PERSONS for expressing a different view, am I even allowed to like their work?" question seems so... alienating to me. I can't even imagine thinking of G.R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling as "bad persons" and questioning whether their art is "good or bad" because I'm not a progressive or a feminist like them and I disagree with their social or political views.
Am I the crazy one for thinking it's nuts that people think like that? I'll make up my own damn opinion on whether I think something is good or not, based on its own merits, not based on whether the creator's opinion is out of step with whatever the general view of my peer group happens to be.
If we judge art by its artist, you'll quickly run of out movies to watch, books to read, music to listen to, and physical art to appreciate. No one is perfect. No one is required to align with everything you love and agree with in order to be considered "relevant." Appreciate the art for what it is and what you take away from it, and stop CSI'ing everyone and everything in your life to seek out things to be outraged by. You'll be a lot happier, and so will the rest of the people in your life, because to the rest of the world, we just don't care is someone had a garbage take online or if they once said something that was taboo, or if they once elected someone other people cannot stand, and these people who do make up 99% of the world find that the people who are outraged by this stuff are far more damaging to society and far more insufferable to be around than the provocateurs themselves, because unlike the outraged army, these artists, sucky or not, actually contributed something to society.
for me it mostly depends on 1. what exactly they've said/done AND 2. whether they're alive to profit off of the support [if I find out through other people, I don't care to look it up myself]
I read and listen to things I dont agree with and I can separate the art from the artist. I came from the political debate and psychology scene so being able to listen to what someone is actually saying is important. Most of the people that conduct themselves in a way where they never have anything to do with anyone they possibly disagree with are either religious to an extreme degree or embracing woke ideology which is really just extreme religious beliefs again while viewing yourself as a god like existence.
If I did not listen to what those people say then I could not understand them, I even enjoy hearing them talk about themselves and their beliefs. It still does not mean I have to agree, but it gives me something to think about and to challenge myself. Besides hating someone because you heard something you think you dont like even though your dont really know anything is almost puritanical in practice. Isolating yourself from "sin" in a sense which is why I have as much distain for the ultra religious that push their beliefs on others as I do people who believe in the collective ideas that fall under woke ideology.
People aren't "bad" simply because we disagree with them.
it depends on what you're disagreeing with them about. if they feel strongly enough that all the Jews should be baked in an oven that they're willing to go to war to do it, yeah I think you can say they are.
if they're just willing to drop edgelord tweets about it they're probably more of a grey character like most of us
Extremely reductive, depends on what people’s stances are. Southern States “disagreed” with Northern States… about states rights… to own slaves.
@@NonAnonD the word "bad" isn't reductive?
What about if they're actively going after a group of people's civil rights through rhetoric and financial and social support of groups dedicated to ending those rights?
@@chestersnap what if they're not?
i feel like each decade has a “thing” and i think one of the things the 2020’s will be known for is *the decade when almost everyone was chronically online,* judging others based on skewed, immature viewpoints. coming from a left-wing liberal who has done a lot of that. lol don’t get me wrong, a lot of the judging is valid.. 😂 but i don’t think it’s healthy or sustainable.
99.9% of people do not give a 💩 about who said what or who got canceled, they just want to consume the art. which, to me is… normal. but there are subsets of communities online who become paranoid about these things because we are constantly hit in the head with them. “don’t support this person! don’t read this book! don’t talk about that series because it’s the same thing as promoting which makes you just as guilty as the offender!”
when i first joined the book community in 2020 i used to get stressed out because i wanted to enjoy the things i enjoy but i didn’t want people thinking i approve of what the “creator” said or did, which is so insane to me because now i don’t care. so many authors on my shelves are problematic. i don’t have the time nor the desire to research every source of entertainment i consume. life is *way* too short. is it good to be mindful of who you’re supporting? sure… but to what end.
anyway i’m going to bed now but i’ll finish watching tomorrow 💞
Chronically online is the best phrase and I definitly have fallen prey to it. It’s nice to get a different perspective and just relax about art. I like to be responsible but it just can’t happen all the time. I totally agree!
Great video.. "bad" people can make good art.. I am against censorship in any form.. There is too much of this in our world. People trying to rewrite history or rewriting Roald Dahl's books to be more PC.. Just crazy.
Totally agree. History is dark and scary, and people are very complex and multilayered beings.
I think we definitely have a distorted idea. The general public typically only come to know of an author once something has been adapted. Gaiman had a bit of that with Stardust for my generation. Martin became that with Game of Thrones (even though A Song of Ice and Fire has been in publication since the 90s). Rowling I feel like may have been a household name for households with children but then became known to most of the world with the release of the films.
It is super unfortunate finding out retroactively that the author is a terrible person. I think the one that hit hardest for me was after reading The Mists of Avalon.
Great video! Loved what you had to say.
I feel like I’m probably just reiterating what you and others have said in the comments but most the time I feel like people are just virtue signaling when it comes to topics like this. What bothers me about that is that they are never logically consistent. The person who’s comment you referenced probably posted that from their phone which has a lot of troubling things in the supply chain to make it, but they would never ditch their phone. Ultimately it’s nice in theory but the amount of stories, inventions, etc we would lose because of ‘problematic views’ would make us worse off. All that being said I find it rather admirable to boycott things that you find bad/evil but trying to force others to do the same gets us nowhere. Great video!
Yup. Just a bunch of pearl clutchers that probably have plenty of skeletons of their own in the closet lol. Nobody is perfect.
This is a really interesting and complicated topic. I liked the comment you quoted about everyone having to pick their own battles in terms of what content/products/companies etc. you feel comfortable with recommending and financially supporting. It would be exhausting to do a thorough vetting on everything you interact with and the bad view/action will affect people in different ways. Eg. An author being homophobic will naturally upset a LGBT+ person more than a cis/straight one. It’s hard to imagine that there’s a perfect person out there that will only buy or recommend things they know have no controversy.
Seeing the change in the Harry Potter fan base over the past few years has been interesting. Some previous die-hard fans have completely lost their love for the franchise whilst others take the “separate the art from the artist” approach. Most recently there was a lot of debate over whether it is morally wrong to buy the new Hogwarts game that came out in Feb.
Personally, I find the whole JK Rowling situation to be very interesting. Because based on what she has tweeted most conservatives would not think that she is against the lgbtq or trans group specifically, however, the left has the opinion that she is against the lgbtq specifically the trans community. When the game came out in Feb it furthered this contradiction because the left was staunchly against the game even though they created a trans character and then on the other side people were buying the game due to people saying that they should not buy the game. Finally, with this new reboot coming out, it faces this problem even more because most people do not want a reboot because the studio has claimed they will add to the story to make it more diverse, however, the reason they are making it more diverse is for the left who will not watch it because it will fund JK Rowling so overall an excellent view on how social politics play into the creative sphere.
Often when we judge others too harshly, we are merely projecting our own shadow onto them. That being said, I was genuinely stunned by the child abuse allegations against David and Leigh Eddings. I think actions involving violence or abuse are much more significant than contentious perspectives.
I was sad when I learned about that. Even though the authors have done some awful things, I still think the Belgariad is a cozy and heartwarming fantasy series with lots of great comedy and banter.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 Yeah I fell in love with that series as kid. I loved The Malloreon, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress as well. It was all part of that early magic of discovery. That’s why the revelations hit so hard.
if I avoided authors I don't agree with I would never read anything and I would be missing out on great works. same is true about actors and directors or studios. If I enjoy a book I will recommend it if not then I will not. If someone wants to worry about not supporting someone who they don't agree with that is on them. Im glad you put in the edit about them not being bad vs disagree, I really appreciate it. You and I dont agree on a few ideas around culture but we agree a lot on books, I am willing to put aside your ideas because you are interesting and have good topics. in my opinion, It's actually very good to read ideas from multi viewpoints to help change or strengthen our own views. Thanks for the good videos, keep it up. Thanks
Should I go into a restaurant’s kitchen to ask the chef’s views before ordering food? Before I hit the dance floor should I google the musician.? Before I read a book should I see if the author is a good person? I think if I did it would say more about me than the artists.
Of course any of us can make the personal choice to not partake in a source of entertainment because we really struggle to separate it from the artist, but it's clearly crossing a line to say, "You shouldn't like this because I don't like something the author said." Why we think we have that kind of authority is beyond me. Holding yourself to a standard of agreeing 100% with every view of an author in order to "support" their work will mean that you must read nothing. Ever. From anybody. Not even your former self.
I disagree profoundly with the ideas and practices of many people in my life, not just the artists or entertainers I find enjoyable. If I were to demand such ideological homogeneity, I would end up a very lonely person, and maybe even blame that loneliness on others for not changing their opinions to more match mine.
One day, the zeitgeist will shift away from this mindset of thinking that we must all agree about everything all the time (I mean, how many dystopias warn against that very thing?), but it is not this day. In the meantime, I encourage people to drive to their local pharmacy and ask on which aisle they can find the chill pills. 😋
My first time being confronted with a problematic author of books that I had read that meant something to me was with Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead really had an impact on me but Card's extreme views disturb and sadden me deeply. I no longer read his new work and debate with myself if I'll ever return to his old work but I'll never regret having read them or disavow the good things I took from them.
Francois Villon was a petty criminal what doesn't make him worse poet. My favourite composer, Richard Wagner was a horrible person but his music can be angelic. I used to separate the author from the book, there are really good persons who wrote awful books. I am pretty sure that J. K. Rowling's words are deliberately misinterpreted by an influental minority and her case will be remembered as an example of a 21st century witch trial.
Great video! Humans are complex. We all have our boundaries and limits. We won't, nor should we, all agree on everything. Heck, we may even contradict ourselves depending on the subject. I'm going to keep reading what I like, and if I find something or someone too offensive I'll deal with it in my own way.
One can find something to offend in every book if they want to. So don’t read, I guess.
What might be interesting to hear your opinion on is the editing of older books that remove *currently* derogatory points of view or language, thereby attempting to edit the work into something more politically correct and separating it from the context and social-situation of the time it was written in.
In *my* opinion, that's basically trying to whitewash our history.
I don't care about the artist. I enjoy art for the art. The problem is mankind is prone to hero worship, and people love to worship artists for their art. I just don't do that, so it is no big deal for me to separate the two.
Also, as someone with traditional values, I would live in a world where I couldn't enjoy any art. Now, if their art is obviously slanted with their agenda, I will avoid it because I don't want to be preached at.
I also hate this idea of "good people", because that is completely subjective. So, am I only a "good person" if I agree that Men can be women and women can be men? Am I only a "good person" if I believe it's moral to give puberty blockers to children, even against their parents' wishes?
I would argue that anyone who believes that is a member of a cult.