Consuming art made by people with values you hate

[BojackHorseman]

I'll just take the examples that makes me question myself lately.

 

I listen to a ton of different music genres, and I've been lacking experience in the black metal genre.

Not every black metal, obviously, is a racist, nazi, a killer or whatnot, but there's a lot of them in albums that the music community consider great.
Some people that I consider (obviously through the prism of my chosen values of life) good still do listen to those bands and are like...eh. Separate the art from the artist, etc.

 

But I decided that my view about this would be not to give strenght to the aura of those creators. Same for someone like Polanski, even if I love one of his movies and I'm very interested in seeing other famous ones from him.

I decided that, it's not even about giving money to people I don't want to support, but rather, it's a bit abstract but, contributing to "feeding their energy".

There are tons of non-problematic artists that need my energy instead, and that I still love, so why give it to what I consider bad people?

 

But...lately I was so ready to watch more movies from this one director I really love, read that huge book about him I just bought which seems fascinating...I press play on the first movie he made, and...animal murder, mouses and cats. (I'm vegan for emapthy reasons mostly so that doesn't help)

It's an old-ish film, and it's made in China, so after being disgusted and stopping the film, I thought about it the next days and I was like...wait, he doesn't really know what he's doing, if I was born in China in that era, maybe my whole family, friends, teachers and government would have been like "heh, it's just animals, whatever".

So should I switch my view on separating art and artist again? Telling myself that it's ok to watch the movies of someone that made something I hate, because it's not really his fault, and he's not doing this out of sadism or something?

Going even further, what if someone was actually doing this out of pure "evil", or going as far as murder, can I justifiy to myself that I'm not contributing to anything bad by consuming their art if I like it?

The right thing, considering a non-dual way of thinking would be to separate things, but I kind of feel bad about it. Is it weakness on my part?

[puporing]

I don't see why you would be almost forcing yourself to watch things out of alignment with your values. I personally stopped watching almost all TV/movies due to any kind of violence in them (I am a bit more extreme), stopped being interested in almost all video games due to similar reasons lol, and this happened like years ago. Not just violence but whatever dark shit in general these days I just don't care for. I've seen it know how it works enough that I don't need to keep repeating poisoning my mind with it.

So I'm just trying to say, you can really outgrow a lot of this stuff if your consciousness keeps growing beyond the "average human". And then maybe one day you'll be creating things you like that aren't really out there much yet.

Edited February 28 by puporing

[BojackHorseman]

28 minutes ago, puporing said:

I don't see why you would be almost forcing yourself to watch things out of alignment with your values. I personally stopped watching almost all TV/movies due to any kind of violence in them (I am a bit more extreme), stopped being interested in almost all video games due to similar reasons lol, and this happened like years ago. Not just violence but whatever dark shit in general these days I just don't care for. I've seen it know how it works enough that I don't need to keep repeating poisoning my mind with it.

So I'm just trying to say, you can really outgrow a lot of this stuff if your consciousness keeps growing beyond the "average human". And then maybe one day you'll be creating things you like that aren't really out there much yet.

I totally respect your view, and you may be right. My mind is just not on this path right now.
I've personnally always been attracted to dark stuff, not sure why, it still says something about human beings I suppose. (I'm usually not looking for extreme stuff just for the sake of it. It needs humans behind. Even tho I also like shallower, "fun" stuff)

So I'm not really trying to outgrow that kind of content right now, as I don't feel like it is problematic to me. Also, it's certainly not my main focus, I just like seeing totally different vibes and goals in art.

[bebotalk]

Hitler was evil, though his artwork was pretty good.

Mel Gibson has proven to be highly bigoted but he's starred and directed great films. Braveheart is comically inaccurate but still an outstanding film. As was We Were Soldiers. 

It's not just films or painting in this capacity. Sport is another facet. For instance, Ryan Giggs was an outstanding footballer. But he spend many years fucking his brother's wife. One can divorce the player in terms of his quality, and then his acts in his personal life. It's a fallacy to assume that people who do great things or create pleasing things are always perfect. It doesn't fit in such a neat package. 

 

 

[Lila9]

I tend to separate the art from the creator.

I don't know if it's good or bad. I might dislike an artist but be drawn to their art and vice versa, I might like someone as a human but be bored or disgusted by their art. 

It's perfect when I admire both the artist and their art.

However, obviously there is some connection between the artist and their art, otherwise they would've create it. I just don't automatically unify the creator and their art, it's like seeing a parent and their child and assume they are the same person or judge them as one. 

[Hojo]

If you cant seperate art from creator then you are too invested in morality and Virtue signaling .  I don't know why you would want to watch films about torture anyway all it does it make your vibration go lower. You can lower yourself into sick states with what you see and hear and feel 

Edited March 1 by Hojo

[Osaid]

"non-dual way of thinking" is a hilarious oxymoron

You can like art made by someone you don't like, in the same way that you can like pizza made by someone you don't like.

If you don't want to eat pizza made by them because it gives them money which they are using to support themselves to buy weapons or harm other people, then you make that decision. There is no moral code to follow here other than just following what actually exists consequentially; there is just looking at what your actions produce and then deciding what you want to do based on that.

Edited March 1 by Osaid

[BojackHorseman]

5 hours ago, Hojo said:

If you cant seperate art from creator then you are too invested in morality and Virtue signaling .  I don't know why you would want to watch films about torture anyway all it does it make your vibration go lower. You can lower yourself into sick states with what you see and hear and feel 

It's not about torture. I don't like torture porn. The movie is about something else but has a manipulative and psychopathic character in it, and they happen to show this with torture.

Not justifying it obviously, since I was disgusted by it and had to turn the movie off immediately after seeing this.

 

 

Also. I don't think it's about morality. If the problem for me was to virtue signal, I wouldn't be stuck in the middle about what to think of this.

[Basman]

Just be authentic. You like what you like. It doesn't have to mean anything.

If you authentically dislike someones art because of their personality, like Kanye's newer albums for example, then that is fair because you are being honest. But that is still a partial perspective and you aren't inherently more correct than someone who does like Kanye's newer albums.

Don't dislike art because you think you "should" or blindly adhere to group think. Listen to your heart.

[Carl-Richard]

I watch documentaries of tigers sometimes even though they murder animals regularly. I watch documentaries of dolphins even though they sexually assault their females. I just like their ambiance. Just listen to some Varg Vikernes and shut up 😛