A question I haven’t been able to find a simple answer to for a while now, because I simply don’t think it can be seen in black and white, is this: should we separate the author from their work?
What is this about?
Lately I have been reading the existentialists, and I have read a lot about them. Reading about Simone de Beauvoir, I have so far not managed to find a single work that focuses solely on her work, her philosophy. Every text and every book first and foremost refers to her as Sartre’s “lover, companion…”, and only then mentions in passing that she herself was an exceptional and important thinker of the 20th century. Her philosophy, as well as her writing, is reduced to her “controversial”, or rather unconventional, way of life. Imagine, a woman who didn’t want to marry or have children, and had several partners of both sexes. So? Does her life diminish the importance of her work, or is it the only thing that gives it importance?
And let’s not talk only about her. History, but also the present, is full of people who shaped humanity, science, culture and art in one way or another, and who didn’t lead ordinary lives; in fact, in many ways they held problematic views, to say the least, or, even worse, behaved problematically.
The key question here is: can we, or may we, place a work solely in the context of its author’s life?
As I said, the answer is not at all easy.
Although it might seem so, especially from today’s perspective, after the whole MeToo movement (which I fully support, and I’m happy that women are finally standing by each other again and fighting for their rights). In cases like Weinstein or, in Serbia, the acting teacher Miroslav Aleksić, I say a very firm NO. It doesn’t matter who or what you are, you must not use your power to hurt someone in any way, especially against their will. Full stop!
Simple, isn’t it?
But what about the geniuses whose works have outlived their lives, and the geniuses whose way of life did not, or does not, fit the moral values of the society they lived in?
As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter whether a writer drank or took other substances, who they slept with or what other vices they had; what matters to me is what they left behind.
For example, I could never understand my mum, who reduced the legendary Milan Mladenović (the frontman of the Yugoslav band Ekatarina Velika) to his addiction and categorically refused to accept his music as a supreme work of art. To her he is not an artist, but a junkie. And however hard I tried to convert her and encourage her to separate his personal choices from the brilliant works of art he created, it was impossible. But I can do it.
I cannot stop admiring the genius of Leonardo da Vinci because of his “sexual preferences” (by this I don’t mean gender, but the age of those he, according to some sources, “preferred”). I cannot reduce Simone de Beauvoir to “Sartre’s companion”, because to me she is perhaps the most important woman philosopher of the 20th century. I cannot stop listening to Milan Mladenović, or admiring Magi’s music, because they took illegal drugs.
But by the same token, I can stop listening to Xavier Naidoo, who has spread antisemitic and racist views, however much I love his music.
Martin Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party, and yet his philosophy managed to survive even during his lifetime. But however brilliant his philosophy may be, it will always be tainted by Nazism. And many minds greater than mine, neither in his lifetime nor today, have managed to resolve the dilemma: should we separate the man from the genius? Is it possible, and if so, how?
As much as I love Woody Allen’s films, I can understand, and even support, Hollywood’s decision to stop working with him. It is a great loss for film, but on the other hand a great victory for all women who have ever been harassed in any way. Because such behaviour has to be stopped, and those involved have to face the consequences.
That’s why it isn’t easy to give a clear-cut answer to the question of whether we should separate the author from the work. I don’t know. For me it is very subjective, and I know that isn’t ideal. One could perhaps say that it is easier to ignore the controversial lives of artists or scientists who left this world long ago, because we see them more as “greats” than as ordinary people. And that makes it all the harder to do with our contemporaries.
But on the other hand, if we now manage to “clean up” our time from moral offenders (I don’t mean those who take any kind of drugs, it’s their choice how they spend their lives, but those whose behaviour directly endangers the lives of others), perhaps we can make sure future generations don’t end up facing dilemmas like this.
In the end, perhaps the only solution is that there is no solution.
Perhaps it’s actually best not to see everything in black and white, but also not to close our eyes to things that are obviously wrong. As with many other problems, I think knowledge is the only key.
Only when we know enough about something, in this case about the life and work of an artist or scientist, will we be able to make a conscious judgement about whether their work deserves the same respect as before, separately from their life, or whether it is better to leave them, because of their actions, to well-deserved condemnation and oblivion.
Warmly,
S-Mama
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