Socially, we have all these received ideas about art. Maybe art doesn’t need to cure social ills or mental health; maybe artists don’t need to be heroes? Maybe art is just art, sometimes inspiring, sometimes flawed, sometimes both. Maybe then we can better spot the bad actors in our midst.
I think a lot about how our desire to make heroes and to make the idea of art as something to be protected at all costs allows us to make excuses, look away, become defensive, and/or have our identities shattered when the artists we treat as heroes turn out to be bad actors.
Kinda reminds me of the thing a lot of men in the psychedelic space say: that having a psychedelic experience will change people's morals for the good.
But guess what the research says? (It makes them even more terrible and fascist)
To add to that, this is why integration work is so important. You don't gain empathy without doing any work, and writing fiction or going on a trip is just the first step (and easiest one).
People desperately want the things they care deeply about to somehow be magically ethical. It makes it extremely difficult to spot and solve problems in those areas.
Alice Munro’s youngest daughter just went public about her stepfather sexually abusing her and her Mom cutting her out of the family because she spoke up.
