A very dear friend asked me the other day, how I felt that some people I respect had feet of clay. Specifically, she was referring to Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who in a comment in an interview revealed he lived in Sri Lanka because of his short eyes. Now, I’ve been a longtime fan of Sir Arthur, and his work is frankly impressive on many levels. To me, anyway. My friend cited a musician she was fond of, and who engaged in despicable behavior, which soured the music for her, forever. <\/p>\n
To some extent, I can understand this; it’s maudlin and creepy to think of someone buying John Wayne Gacy’s clown portraits.
\n
\nOn the other hand, there are a lot of beautiful creations brought to us by tortured and twisted souls. And since we know fairly little about a lot of famous artists and composers, we don’t know with any certainty that any number of them may have committed any number of atrocities. <\/p>\n
I think the reason that my friend can no longer listen to the music in question with any joy is part of the inherent difference between male and female. The emotions tied to what that person did, completely drown out any pleasure that may otherwise have been available. <\/p>\n
If Sir Arthur likes to diddle little boys, well, he should be shot. Preferably in the limbs, first, and allowed to heal, then so on and so forth. This in no way changes Rendzvous with Rama. It doesn’t unwrite Childhood’s End and rewrite it with homosexual undertones. It doesn’t make Tales from the White Hart any less entertaining. If I find out that Bach was a necro-sodomist, it doesn’t make the Fugue in D Minor any less enjoyable. If Beethoven is found to be a liberal, it doesn’t make me all-of a sudden stop enjoying Ode To Joy. (Though, my wife would probably like it if I stopped singing it in German at the pitch of my lungs in the shower every day)<\/p>\n
I guess I find it easier to separate the things people create from their personas because I think there can be a huge gulf between the Bach who wrote “Air on the G string”, and the Bach who, say, beat his wife with bamboo fishing poles. <\/p>\n
I think for a guy to do something horrible to his children (the musician my friend spoke of) defines a person as having a mental disorder. It’s easier to see him as a gifted performer who had a mental disorder then as merely the mental disorder. No question, the person with the mental disorder needs to be removed from society. Pitiably, the brilliant composer goes with. Gacy, on the other hand, was what he was at all times. <\/p>\n
My philosophy teacher used to say, a brilliant mechanic can fix anything with the most rudimentary of tools. By the same token, God can create beauty with the most flawed of individuals. To ignore the beauty of a creation because of the horridness of the tool is to dismiss the work of the creator. IMHO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A very dear friend asked me the other day, how I felt that some people I respect had feet of clay. Specifically, she was referring to Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who in a comment in an interview revealed he lived in Sri Lanka because of his short eyes. Now, I’ve been a longtime fan of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}