Human reality over art, I agree... but should we impose our own views on others in order to appreciate them?
How is it imposing my values on someone to not spend my money on their work?
If making decisions about who I want to give my money to is "imposing my values" on people, then I "impose my values" on a hell of a lot of people, every day. I impose my values on McDonald's, because they serve crappy food and I think food should be tasty and fresh. I impose my values on Chapters, because their selection sucks and I think bookstores should be better run. Etc, etc.
This is a ridiculously false dichotomy that you've created, not to mention a nice strawman argument. So is this one:
I'm very frugal when it comes to consumer dollars given to specific causes, but my artistic appreciation isn't be limited to the price of whether an artist's views are in sync with my own.
"In sync" is a nice way of putting it, but look, I'm not saying I'll refuse to buy someone's work if they're, like, a dog person, or a dreaded individualist. The criteria is this: a) that the creator have made public statements reflecting their oppressive beliefs, and b) that those beliefs inform their work in an obvious way. FURTHERMORE, there is a difference between "enjoying someone's work" and "spending money on someone's work". Say, for example, there was a band I liked, and then I found out that their lead singer was really abusive towards his girlfriend! As a survivor of domestic abuse, this would be upsetting to me. I might not want to listen to this band's music at all anymore, or I might still like their music and want to listen to it occasionally still, but EITHER WAY, what I DON'T want to do is give a guy who beat up his girlfriend my hand-earned money. Fortunately for me, there s this thing called "the bittorrents" that means that if I absolutely MUST listen to this ONE SPECIFIC BAND I can do it for free, and they don't get any money from it! It's kind of illegal, but then, so is beating up one's girlfriend, so I figure it evens out.
(One might argue that one can always just listen to another band instead, but downloading the album for free is like... eating free-range organic meat instead of going vegetarian and eating tofu. You're still consuming flesh, but you're not paying for animals to be slaughtered in inhumane conditions.)
This is super-long, but I just had to point that out.
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Date: 2009-08-04 01:37 am (UTC)Human reality over art, I agree... but should we impose our own views on others in order to appreciate them?
How is it imposing my values on someone to not spend my money on their work?
If making decisions about who I want to give my money to is "imposing my values" on people, then I "impose my values" on a hell of a lot of people, every day. I impose my values on McDonald's, because they serve crappy food and I think food should be tasty and fresh. I impose my values on Chapters, because their selection sucks and I think bookstores should be better run. Etc, etc.
This is a ridiculously false dichotomy that you've created, not to mention a nice strawman argument. So is this one:
I'm very frugal when it comes to consumer dollars given to specific causes, but my artistic appreciation isn't be limited to the price of whether an artist's views are in sync with my own.
"In sync" is a nice way of putting it, but look, I'm not saying I'll refuse to buy someone's work if they're, like, a dog person, or a dreaded individualist. The criteria is this: a) that the creator have made public statements reflecting their oppressive beliefs, and b) that those beliefs inform their work in an obvious way. FURTHERMORE, there is a difference between "enjoying someone's work" and "spending money on someone's work". Say, for example, there was a band I liked, and then I found out that their lead singer was really abusive towards his girlfriend! As a survivor of domestic abuse, this would be upsetting to me. I might not want to listen to this band's music at all anymore, or I might still like their music and want to listen to it occasionally still, but EITHER WAY, what I DON'T want to do is give a guy who beat up his girlfriend my hand-earned money. Fortunately for me, there s this thing called "the bittorrents" that means that if I absolutely MUST listen to this ONE SPECIFIC BAND I can do it for free, and they don't get any money from it! It's kind of illegal, but then, so is beating up one's girlfriend, so I figure it evens out.
(One might argue that one can always just listen to another band instead, but downloading the album for free is like... eating free-range organic meat instead of going vegetarian and eating tofu. You're still consuming flesh, but you're not paying for animals to be slaughtered in inhumane conditions.)
This is super-long, but I just had to point that out.