To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Friday, July 31, 2020
 
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

~ Carl Sagan

I notice this logical fallacy everywhere around me. There is a tendency to give more weight to the appearance of things or make judgements based on the appearance of things rather than digging deep to investigate their true nature for oneself. Even if one does this the reaction to appearances is so strong in today's culture that debate and dialogue seem to have no room to breathe. Take for example the question of whether art must be considered as separate from the artist. This question usually seems to evoke emotional responses rather than logical ones and if one were to hold the view that the art must be judged by its own merit you are somehow deemed to side with artists who are perpetrators of horrendous crimes! In short, the possibility of a nuanced view is rejected. I find this sort of thinking not only oppressive but also a threat to critical thinking and expression in general. It's like someone posing an open-ended question and then demanding that you answer in either true or false terms. If you are concerned about an authentic response you cannot respond to the question at all and are rendered dumb. The result is that only people who think in narrow yes/no or true/false categories are the ones able to have their say and it is their narrow worldviews that dominate.
Considering that it is possible to enjoy forms of art such as say music with no knowledge of the artist at all it seems strange to me that an artist's culpability must be extended to anyone who enjoys their art. If the artist's (or philosopher’s or scientist’s) character must be validated before we access their art then what list of criteria are to be applied to validate character, who is to decide the criteria, and by the standards of which time/place because every period of history and every culture must have its own standards of good/bad character...as indeed even art is historical/cultural? But it's only when one is open to a nuanced view that these questions present themselves. The majority though do not care about nuance or complexity... answers are reduced to this or that... if you're not with me then you're against me. And if you are against me you are a villain. And if you are a villain you deserve to die...
I am quite troubled by this trend.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:23 pm 0 comments
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