We Don’t Want To Talk About Separating The Art From The… — Transcript

Three years ago, I started writing a script for a longer piece where I would explore my thoughts about separating the art from the artist. Three years ago. Three years of bad jokes, muddy history, tangled philosophy, and an increasing feeling that no matter how many arguments I could predict would be coming, it would be the sort of project that would be destined to fail. Or worse, it might actually succeed, and you'd have the sort of nightmarish avalanche of discourse that you'd never be able to escape.

many arguments i could predict would be coming it would be the sort of project that would be destined to fail or worse it might actually succeed and you'd have the sort of nightmarish avalanche of discourse that you'd never

And thus, as I kept on writing and revising and watching the conversation crop up again and again as more and more artists expose themselves to be, let's say, less than decent human beings, I realized that starting at the philosophy might have been the wrong way to approach this problem because nobody actually wants to talk about the problem. We have to start there.

starting at the philosophy might have been the wrong way to approach this problem because nobody actually wants to talk about the problem we have to start there see if this conversation was just about the philosophy breaking down a lot of the relationships

See, if this conversation was just about the philosophy breaking down a lot of the relationships between artists and art and audience, and I can pull up Roland Barthes's 1967 essay "Death of the Author," you would think this would be a much easier conversation. It's really not because of a bunch of the intricacies and fine details.

otherwise again this would have come out three years ago when a lot of other youtubers have already touched on this topic but if you want to narrow the scope to just that things on the surface become a little bit more straightforward

Otherwise, again, this would have come out three years ago when a lot of other YouTubers have already touched on this topic. But if you want to narrow the scope to just that, things on the surface become a little bit more straightforward.

it's not even that we don't want to have the conversation we don't even want to think about having it that's how loaded and draining the arguments have been especially online and it's never a dry argument either you'd think it was just a difference of

But that's not really the conversation that starts happening whenever an artist winds up in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons or why the phrase "separate the art from the artist" inspired such groans of frustration the second it got brought into the discourse.

not just the critics and academics and the philosophers and twitter but also the average everyday consumer and the fans and the stans who have seen their fan spaces torn apart by this conversation it's also where i'm gonna put forward a

It's not even that we don't want to have the conversation. We don't even want to think about having it. That's how loaded and draining the arguments have been, especially online. And it's never a dry argument either. You'd think it was just a difference of philosophy. It might wind up kind of pedantic, as most debates are online, but not as emotional or heated as the discourse often becomes.

something close to an actual essay for once maybe someone might actually learn something but point number one the vast majority of audiences engage with art primarily with emotion now this means that in terms of your baseline engagement with any piece of

So why is that? Well, that has a lot to do with how we engage with art. Not just the critics and academics and the philosophers and Twitter, but also the average everyday consumer and the fans and the stans who have seen their fan spaces torn apart by this conversation.

you respond to on a base level before you start thinking and processing information maybe the next near instantaneous step is oh that feels good or ugh didn't like that or oh my god it spurred some powerful emotions in me and i'm gonna start

It's also where I'm gonna put forward a couple theories that are inevitably going to piss off a lot of people right out of the gate, but it's kind of important we dig into them and start from that point. I'm gonna try to structure a video essay like something close to an actual essay for once. Maybe someone might actually learn something.

or why it did so and the latter is just as much of an introspective question as it is about the art or maybe you don't even need to go that far it's a point of made me feel good

But point number one: the vast majority of audiences engage with art primarily with emotion. Now, this means that in terms of your baseline engagement with any piece of art, be it paintings or music or books or theater or movies or TV or video games, the base response you have is emotional.

dealing with you later but you know art doesn't just exist in a vacuum it came from somewhere somebody had to utilize labor to make it put a pin in that one too and more often than not we have a

Art exists. It makes you feel something. Might make you feel a lot of things, likely at the same time. Stimulus that you respond to on a base level before you start thinking and processing information. Maybe the next near-instantaneous step is, "Oh, that feels good," or "Ugh, didn't like that," or "Oh my God, it spurred some powerful emotions in me, and I'm gonna start drinking because dear God, emotions. I wanna be numb inside like all the rest of the cool people." The liquor's just off camera. It has been a day.

did it and that sets up the expectation that they can do it again and i'd be remiss to ignore that you know the artist feels something too a lot of people pushing the whole separate the art from the artist thing

But then I'm gonna think deeper as to how it did so or why it did so. And the latter is just as much of an introspective question as it is about the art. Or maybe you don't even need to go that far. It's a point of "made me feel good." All I need.

we we like seeing a response especially if it comes close to matching what we set out to do or it reveals something deeper in both them and us it becomes a relationship to some extent it might be social might be parasocial

And there are way more people like that than folks who will take the next step and ask about how or why. And I know I just pissed off a whole bunch of you back there. Sit down, shut up, put a pin in it. I'll be dealing with you later.

or they're lost to history like a cave painting or an ancient meme the art might seem like it exists in a vacuum but it had to come from somewhere and in the connection we formed to it that's fundamentally emotional we almost

But, you know, art doesn't just exist in a vacuum. It came from somewhere. Somebody had to utilize labor to make it. Put a pin in that one too.

contemplation but it never stays there especially if it is exposed beyond just one other person another point which yeah we're gonna have to revisit later on it's a relationship that's being built between the artist and the audience with the art in the

And more often than not, we have a curiosity about who made it, and that comes from that same fundamental emotional response. It made us feel something. We want to know how and who is responsible for making me feel things. Or, you know, we might know the person who did it, and that sets up the expectation that they can do it again.

non-response and your recognition of a non-response that's a response here kiddo you're not able to deflect from the relationship so easily and take the fun bad faith approach especially when new information might show up in your sphere i mean get over yourself

And I'd be remiss to ignore that, you know, the artist feels something too. A lot of people pushing the whole "separate the art from the artist" thing never bothered to consider the artist's engagement in this conversation, which is both very notable but also deeply disappointing.

realize that there is a fundamental emotional component to this relationship it does seem pretty straightforward as to why we really don't want to talk about separating the art from the artist if or when we discover that the artist may

But yeah, that artist is channeling some form of intent, conscious or unconscious, into their work. And they'll be honest, we like seeing a response, especially if it comes close to matching what we set out to do or it reveals something deeper in both them and us. It becomes a relationship to some extent. It might be social, might be parasocial, depending on the artistic medium, but there is a connection.

of you that doesn't want to touch it or confront it that could compromise your relationship with your family member and you know i'd say it's similar between the art and the artists but i was going to say to a less personal

And that exists even if you've got no clue who the artist actually is. Think about that for a second. You find a work where the author is completely anonymous or they're lost to history, like a cave painting or an ancient meme. The art might seem like it exists in a vacuum, but it had to come from somewhere.

vast majority of art is fixed in time in that it exists and on some level you know how engaging with it will make you feel it's consistent in a way that people aren't and cannot be especially if you don't know how the

And in the connection we formed to it, that's fundamentally emotional. We almost can't help but fill in the gaps about how it was made or what we might think the artist is or what their values might be based upon what they have created. We might just want it to be an object of contemplation, but it never stays there, especially if it is exposed beyond just one other person.

of consistency it's not even that you don't want to confront it you don't even want to know because uncle albert may have gone and got caught masturbating in the park aunt bernice drinks a little bit too much wine and got sloppy around dinner

Another point, which yeah, we're gonna have to revisit later on: it's a relationship that's being built between the artist and the audience with the art in the middle as the conduit. And it might be barely there or something that saves your life, but it is there.

capitol in the middle of a fascist insurrection event and i can just keep on updating this list with new transgressions every other week and if someone has invested any sense of time or emotion into any of those relationships

And before some of you say, "Well, it doesn't make me feel anything, doesn't count," you know, no, no. A non-response and your recognition of a non-response, that's a response here, kiddo. You're not able to deflect from the relationship so easily and take the fun bad faith approach, especially when new information might show up in your sphere.

but you know it's funny i remember a fellow critic in the conversation surrounding separating the art from the artist he said of course we do it if we like the artist if we don't if we don't we're supposed to separate the art from

I mean, get over yourself, Carl. You're not that cool. Because if I told you that those K paintings were all made by cannibals and the paint was partially composed of human blood, might change how you feel about them. Just me saying it here.

if i hate a song and the person who made it as a domestic abuser that makes the song worse i am completely open about the fact that i hold this double standard and this is clearly how everyone operates in

But once you realize that there is a fundamental emotional component to this relationship, it does seem pretty straightforward as to why we really don't want to talk about separating the art from the artist if or when we discover that the artist may have done something that doesn't align with our values, because that inevitably impacts that relationship.

absolutely no one is listening to don't wake me up because it is [ __ ] terrible it's the argument of convenience of how the vast majority of people will engage with the consistent elements that bring them well i'll be honest bring

Think about if you've got a family member who does something awkward or embarrassing. That might not even impact you directly, but more often than not, there's a part of you that doesn't want to touch it or confront it. That could compromise your relationship with your family member.

the relationship and then we can go for brunch when brunch will eventually return and then they will argue with us of why we don't start answering and returning their text messages now it is entirely possible that you do

And, you know, I'd say it's similar between the art and the artists, but I was going to say to a less personal extent. But truth be told, I think there's a lot of people who value their emotional connection to certain pieces of art and, by extension, the artists more than certain family members.

and no it's not a fundamentally rational point of view because it's a conscious denial of information that inevitably impacts the relationship again we will get to that lot soon but ignoring information just because you don't like it how it changes your response emotional

In fact, I know that's true because the vast majority of art is fixed in time in that it exists, and on some level, you know how engaging with it will make you feel. It's consistent in a way that people aren't and cannot be, especially if you don't know how the author may have changed in the meantime, unless of course you've changed or you've learned something new.

a concept from political theory but it's just as valuable here which when raised to a certain level to a fever pitch the emotional response will override all the reason and logic this is one reason as to why i don't

And so on a base level, I can understand why someone might have a very strong aversion to taking in new information that could negatively impact that form.

problem not that they have those feelings but you know what if it's your point of view you just want to have the art put the artist out of sight and out of mind i mean i get it i understand the comfort

the facade provides and if it was just a personal relationship between you and said art or the artist in question that would be one thing but these sorts of relationships they're never self-contained and while some people can just live in

pure denial forever the fact is you can't really get away from new information especially in the modern age and you're making a conscious choice to disregard it when it shows up thing is you might base your desire to maintain a relationship

in the emotion but justifying why you do so is a different animal especially as again at some point we live in a society actions have consequences even if they might seem insignificant in your own personal scope but it's worth dealing

with some of those justifications preemptively anyway the part of this i don't want to deal with and the next reason that nobody really wants to have this conversation part two claims of emotionlessness objective criticism and the bad philosophy around it

first yes i know bit of a tangent and it is the product of me trying to cover my ass early from a very specific type of argument and then exposing myself to a crowd that are not trying to have this conversation

as well for very different reasons but they all show up in this mess anyway and that means yeah we're dealing with this motley lot and i'm gonna be confrontational about it because frankly i like keeping the same energy i have

already received in passing from this quarter the one reason i mentioned early on that our primary engagement with art is spurred on by emotion which again true for the vast vast majority of people if not everyone is because there's inevitably going to

be some guys and it is always guys who are annoying and pedantic and insisting otherwise if you've already posted a comment about this before i got to this point in my script you are that person you make the

discourse a living hell and i'm also starting to think that might be the point and you don't want to hear that side of the conversation and what that says about you but again i get it i think at a lot

of points we want to be the person that can divorce themselves from any emotion in the discussion of art because life becomes a lot easier going on from that point especially if you're a guy claiming a position of expertise

in the industry if you think that the art object in a closed system where it just exists to be contemplated and ergo the artist does not matter and that your personal emotional response supposedly does not factor in makes the

conversation way simpler at least at first now this is also we're going to encounter people who believe that once you stripped out the emotional response or the bias you can then judge art objectively through a set of refined

standards to ascertain its purest aesthetic value and do we have that clip from dead poets society a sonnet by byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal a shakespearean son on the other hand would score high both

horizontally and vertically yielding a massive total area thereby revealing the poem to be truly great as you proceed through the poetry in this book practice this rating method as your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows so will so will your enjoyment and

understanding of poetry [Music] excrement that's what i think of mr j evans pritchard i'm not laying pipe we're talking about poetry how could you describe poetry like american band stan i like byron i give a 42 but i can't

dance to it you see this argument in a lot of forms especially online but in essence it operates on an appeal to reason standards logic all that jazz that a certain brand of liberals love but that kind of falls

apart at the seams whenever you actually dig into it mostly because the standards all had to come from somewhere and as such they're not purely objective in their mere existence and given that jack sane and patricia toxin already did a masterful job

breaking through this false veneer of objectivity a few years ago the creation of a rule still creates an influx of artists looking to usurp it and that then makes whatever rule is being usurped completely inadequate for the purpose of

critique which i'm assuming is the goal here like if you just want to be incredibly shitty at art criticism then i guess this argument doesn't really apply uh do what you like i'm not your mom i really shouldn't have to dig further

there their videos will be linked please check them out but that being said i find it very peculiar that the crowd that wants to push the whole objective criticism nonsense is often very much on the side of separating the

art from the artist when it's an artist who's created something that they've liked unless of course they're using their dissatisfaction with the art in question as an excuse to harass the artists on social media and that's a venn diagram

that some of y'all don't want to admit actually exist because it might just be two circles in together but from a purely theoretical standpoint it also doesn't seem to make much sense to me when you start thinking about it

if we acknowledge that art had to be created by something or someone with intent doesn't just spontaneously happen argument of practicality and again that said art can be examined with rational thought and description which i actually agree with it builds up that foundation of

emotion in order to justify and explain it but in observation you can make reasoned analysis maybe even a deeper interpretation but there is a causal information relationship that's been built art came from the artist so wouldn't you want more data on them

especially if it provides relevant context into their work consciously or unconsciously given that a lot of these folks tend to bring up a lot of modernist logic and reason and the scientific method and genre tropes and an almost

monastic commitment to observation of information where the straightforward text is held above everything else wouldn't you want that added context about what actually shaped the author who they are what they might have done yeah it's new information probably a complexifier and it

absolutely is not the be-all and end-all we'll get to that but think about what it could reflect what we can learn a new dimension for the experiment and for a practical emotional experience it does slip into that picture now this

is where i will have a lot of fun in saying that roland barth the literary philosopher who actually wrote the original death of the author essay and yes it's a bit of a dense essay but it's surprisingly short

and you should all actually just go read the goddamn thing at some point it is free online but he held some very post modernist points of view and that he wasn't just interested in authorial intent which he believed with the passage of time

would have its weight ultimately diminish on the text but wanted to observe other societal and cultural factors that shaped the text and the author because he believed that just relying on the author's word was fundamentally limiting and there's often other factors

that shape art artists and our relationships to them especially in the modern era with so much information and keep in mind he was primarily referring to literature in that essay and when you open up the gateway to more

performance-based art you're dealing with a much more complicated conversation especially if the actor's actual performance might bend or shape the text roland barth references performativity a couple times in the essay where he describes that divorce from the unknown original intent

of that time when the work was created the actor's performance might necessarily change how the text could be interpreted now the objective criticism lot often focuses an abundance of attention on the script and the arc and the storytelling tropes and

the lyrics which winds up ignoring nuance of a performance or the intangible choices present in specific technical backgrounds that could shape the text and really the meaning of the piece but if you're paying attention you might notice a certain tension in my argument

i'm implying that our relationship to the art and thereby the author exist and persist whereas barth would argue that over time and indeed for future analysis that relationship with the author might fade and by extension the role of the

critic in explaining authorial intent in fact roland barth hated the role that elevated critics to the job of being the explainer of text off the gospel word of the author as if it's all neat and tidy and finished

and in a sense to completely dismantle my own job here i would actually agree with this and that no critic should ever claim to be the final word on a piece of art especially with the passage of time but

note this is tied into the point of analysis of the arts the how and the why not the emotional experience of it which places this conversation in slightly broader territory analysis is the realm of critics and academics and chumps like me

but i've already said on the base level the vast majority of people don't even try to go that far and that a lot of people who claim death of the author as a separate the art from the artist

excuse they're looking for academia to justify their emotional response or attempt to find lack thereof but here's the problem with even applying death of the author to this discussion is basically you were trying to find an academic solution for an emotional and ethical

problem as i said on my video on the subject i personally believe that you can't really practice death of the author in its purest pure form if for no other reason then if you are in any kind of like discourse setting be it

academic or twitter other people aren't going to really allow it they will bring the author into it and that is going to introduce subconscious biases which is of course going to affect your reading of the text no matter how hard

you try to be unbiased or whatever again it's a willful choice to deny information which is again not me saying the author's word or life is gospel but if it's context that it provided can be illuminated and transformative to the emotional

experience but that denial they have it does a lot of work for them operates on a similar point of convenience albeit framing it all with a shaky phone intellectual foundation that can be flipped on and off when they want to

include more information or exclude information to support their points and that's also sadly one big reason i get why people don't want to have this conversation because we do have some bad faith hypocrites out there who are claiming that they aren't emotional and

that you're not being rational if you don't agree with their very blunt text-driven observational analysis and it just feels so goddamn dishonest when you start seriously questioning their logic going off that text even from points to convenience more

importantly this accusation of you're biased and thus cannot be taken seriously it can be used as a tactic to exclude the opinions and interpretations of groups that they will consider less rational and objective or to put another way for an

inflammatory example what makes your emotionally driven opinion on art better than that of a stand now as a critic or an expert i might say that i'm able to justify my opinion with the weight of history and analysis and being able to construct

my argument divorce it from any sort of emotion on which we just have to assume the stan is only operating on when talking about art but if i'm operating with the point of view that we primarily engage with art

via emotion we're kind of on the same playing field when it comes to the validity of our opinions a lot of critics are just better at putting words to their emotional response and then following it up with a subjective

interpretation or analysis but even then if you're being honest with yourself that foundation is hell it's subjective too your emotional gut level connection might be with the relationship you have with the art and by extension the artist independent of how you choose

to interpret it or explain it now this is where that crowd will point to any number of accepted and established standards on which they rely in the industry or how they purposely exclude their emotional response to art in order to

present as rational and indeed there are very very small number of people who will convincingly separate art from artists good or bad info regardless in their analysis and on some level i can at least somewhat barely respect the consistency

albeit recognize this group as the extreme minority primarily academics swaddled in theory and case studies very rarely do we see such an isolated point of view and as such it's not often facing the common consumer of media aka not the vast majority of critics be

they writing behind a masthead or making youtube videos but fine you've chosen to find your niche and then be kind of insufferable about it but if that's the incredibly narrow siloed view in which you want to experience art

fine and dandy or at least it would be if again the engagement of art was self-contained unfortunately it very rarely is because part three we live in a society this is where the conversation might get a bit unpleasant

because it opens up a can of worms that a lot of people do not want to touch when they engage with art in any way let alone separating art from the artist but this is the part that often gets the

most heated and the most complicated because there's a whole lot of people who do not want to acknowledge the consumption of their art and how it might have a broader impact so you know let's go back to that family relationship that i

described you might find it okay to overlook uncle albert masturbating in the park it doesn't really impact you but you might think that it's a god-given right to whip it out on every family occasion but if you're paying a bail them out of

county jail that might be rougher and a conversation that more than ever you do not want to have and i already said in public that means other people are in the picture so you might be seen doing some of this

hell if you have a platform of any form suddenly that's a judgment that's reflected on you see that's one of those ugly conversations critics really don't want to have when covering certain acts but by even giving them your platform

you could be seen as endorsing them especially given the vast array of other arts that you could be covering instead or especially if you're trying to keep a relationship or there's the impression that you are and then gets worse from there

i mentioned early on that someone had to utilize labor to make art which means in the vast majority of cases that becomes commodified that art can be sold in some form be it a tangible object or a performance

and since we live in a capitalist society you thought it'd be a left-leaning video essay without the critique of capitalism y'all thought wrong you better believe that there is an entire industry out there that wants you to not

think about that process so you keep on buying i think it's called commodity fetishism or something but spoiler alert it works if you discover that a brand or a company like a bank or something did something bad or unethical

it isn't surprising people just kind of shrug and go yep that's how banks roll and maybe you'll close your account and go to a different bank but the reality is that you probably don't care enough to even do that much

because an ethical multinational corporation corporations doing terrible things to people in the name of profit is just kind of the world you don't have the brain space to care about all of them just in music record labels have whole

pr departments built to elevate the artist's persona but also to cover up the abuses of artists both inflicted by and on them with the underlying rationale that said artists can produce more valuable commodities than the people they abuse

or the artists could be abused to create great commodities the root of the best art only comes from pain it's nestled into that and it's a poisonous cultural attitude that's far bigger than this essay we might get to that later because

really that's in every industry because even if the artists don't want to admit it as of time of recording arts and industry and we're a part of it if we want to experience art and if the artists want to eat and

then yet it goes further because a lot of industries under capitalism are reinforced by systemic societal inequalities which then reverberate in both the artist experience and the art they create even if it's just bubble womb pop music the fact that it's allowed to

be just bubble gum get popular because of it and then specifically call itself bubble gum pop in comparison with others that's often overlooked and even then the racial coding of genre especially considering how much genre is coded marketing

it's a much more layered and messy conversation another one i probably should take up later but especially when it reinforces inequalities it's in the picture here too and in most mainstream art discourse my god we don't want to think about this added

complexity keep the politics out of my art i only want to talk about the frame rate and the script and the gears and the camera detail and technical details that can serve as my willful denial that art comes from the

human experience that might make my head hurt i just want to consume hell most people don't want to think about these sorts of overarching systems to begin with in a lot of their regular lives forget art especially if they feel like they're

doing something wrong by participating or they can't impact any sort of real change so tack on how there's no ethical consumption under capitalism to an emotional relationship that you might have to art and by extension the artist i get why people don't want to talk

about this now i should also mention that like most french philosophers of the time roland barth he might have had some very strong post-modern leanings but there was also strong marxist leanings as well with death of the author partially designed to highlight

said capitalist system that will elevate the artist and the auteur produce a singular voice to define the narrative which he describes as the author's empire rather than see the coding of the systems around it that might have enabled it

to say nothing of the critics with the power to then explain the author and you know i think roland bart might be kind of disgusted to see a certain crowd use death of the author as a disingenuous justification to keep on consuming

without any thought of that system even if it is a very interesting tell especially from the objective criticism set i mean think about it if art can reach such a standard of perfection so can the critic ergo it elevates the

critic's status and that critic's capital and creates a hierarchy of opinion where you can marginalize or silence the dissenting voices who observe that such a hierarchy is constructed and fundamentally unequal and yet a capitalist system just loves to reinforce those hierarchies so

you keep on consuming that's why a lot of these objective criticism types can come across as so reactionary whenever material or archetypes that are outside of their established paradigm of what they see in the world when they show up or while they'll rant

about sjw's infiltrating my art because they see someone potentially pulling the floor out on their platform especially when those new voices might have been marginalized by them before at least to them these new people are not in their proper place

and yet it goes further still there's a moral component to this yeah i've mostly skated around this part of the conversation about what an artist might do to prompt this whole messy debacle but the truth is it's fluid to the time and place in society

in which we live where even the proximity to that event might shape or dull how you feel over the course of days or months or years or centuries more importantly this is a conversation that's been happening for decades not just now

morality and the accountability that must stand alongside of it it evolves within a society it's changing near constantly and whether you choose to reinforce it or buck against it that's making a choice making a moral decision especially if it's on a public platform

and could prove influential but as an adult you're expected to be an ethical consumer of media and it's somewhat inevitable that some people resent that because consuming media the way children do is comforting and we all have platforms now

that's another point that makes the whole objectively separate art from artists so attractive it conveniently lets you sidestep any moral question in consumption because you're just considering the art without emotion not the artist or the system from whence

it all sprang and i will add on to my previous point this is kind of a fundamentally individualist and maybe even conservative point of view not just shouting out the voices and the systems that would highlight your choice

to engage with art but consciously denying their existence to serve yourself which enables you to keep on consuming away the system to keep on chugging consequences be damned after all you can't regulate evil hell you think people want to have

conversations about the systems in which they live ask them to justify their morals in their choices gets a lot messier especially when the emotional component tied to art it's still very much there it gets personal and you know i

shouldn't have to say this but i will anyway it's not black and white i'm not judging you these sorts of moral justifications that we all make they're bargaining within shades of grey and in the season of the good place they

had the great realization that individual moral choices they are impacted by systems so far often beyond our own control and it's infuriating i'll say it again actually let me bring together a better example in 2015 rapper b dolan released a song called

who killed russell jones more of a spoken word piece set to minimal music and it was examining the open question of who can really be held accountable for the overdose of old dirty bastard whether or not there was a larger

societal responsibility to have said or done something in order to pull them back from the brain and the song doesn't hold back it targets fellow wu-tang clan members concert promoters label executives the judge that sends him to jail instead

of rehab even the fans who engage with the art regardless of the deeper questions of what it meant coming from him at that time and as a piece it's cutting it's heartbreaking especially as b dolan shows his own praise of that man by the

end of the song but it also speaks to a larger societal responsibility in the creation the promotion and the consumption of art that most people never want to touch help you could argue to the most callous conservative or really just the

average person looking for an excuse that was a death old dirty bastard's death was regrettable but inevitable ultimately his individual responsibility thoughts and prayers but b dolan was looking to challenge that point of view look at the systems and relationships at

large both across family to unjust legal power structures to capitalism to all of us and how it never really is quite that simple even if it's comfortable so uh conclusion man this is tiring that if anything is why we don't want to

have the conversation about separating art from artists because if you want to try and take a principled stand it's complicated it [ __ ] sucks you become the moralist killjoy because nobody in the bad system wants to be

told they're in the bad system and can't really control the bad system you know i probably could have led with that saved everybody a lot of time but i do have a radical proposition here we might need to start having this

conversation anyway uncle albert's gonna keep on masturbating in the park until somebody talks to him about it and it's not going to be a fun conversation either we know that but it's the same added complexifier that comes with

the argument about separating the art from artists because we all have those individual emotional relationships to art and by extension the artist but acting upon it can register as collective when enough people do it for better and for worse and part of

this comes with how we engage with art and the artists within a society if you don't have a platform or you think you don't and you believe that you can steal an artist's work on a torrent platform or maybe steal it or just engage in the

privacy of your own home and by that method you avoid any material tied to the artist i disagree but i get it we all find our opiates in our own way especially in these times but the opiates they do exist in

the open market and how and why they're made might lead us to actually making things better long term either through the removal of abusers confronting our own complexity and what art from bad people might mean about ourselves when

we consume it or confronting the system that has enabled the exploitation of audiences artists and everyone around them outright and you know what's funny i was listening to joe budden's podcast a while back he started talking about chris brown and

while a lot of his co-hosts at that time they seemingly wanted to deflect from what chris brown had done in the past joe budden said something very interesting about his relationship to chris brown and chris brown's music his past i [ __ ] i mean he young he

made mistakes but i mean i can't condemn somebody for making a mistake at a young age he's made them repeat i made mistakes he hasn't made that mistake to our knowledge chris brown makes me confront demons inside of me

like he makes me think of like why my brain is thinking this way crystal make you look in the mirror sometimes just like she's cheering for that [ __ ] man and then you start looking at you like

wait am i am i alone yes well i can't keep saying that anyway i get it but yes chris from a mistake 10 years ago sometimes he makes amazing music that makes you question amazing artist he's an amazing artist it

didn't seem like he was about to brush aside everything chris brown had done so much as examine why it still resonated with him despite that knowledge hell given joe budden's history i can imagine why some people might have very

similar reservations about him especially over the past couple of years but really all of us have artists we have appreciated or praised that have done something we would consider morally objectionable nobody is pure here but how we engage

emotionally with that art and artist is unique in a case by case and on some level you might think it's private nobody's [ __ ] business but my point is that there's a lot of people who don't want you to have that

complexifying conversation either with yourself or with anybody else and hell there's an entire system built and enabled to abuse that doesn't want you to have it either i don't know i think there's some power in starting a conversation that

helps us get in touch with what truly moves us and how we can facilitate a better system to create deliver explore in the future and yeah i think we should start talking so yeah this is my first crack at the

video essay sort of thing i know i left several doors open in this whole thing if you would like to like and subscribe you might be able to see where i'm gonna go with said doors in the future who knows

i also trying to change the filming setup lesser a point but leave down the comments down below what you think of this whole thing because i know this is going to spark some interesting conversation beyond that anything else i might be able to do to

improve my presentation i'm all ears if you want to help support the channel so i can make more of these video essays or repel my regular reviews or get involved in my so you can argue with me directly link

to my patreon right over there again please do not feel obligated to tough times out there for everyone i will be fine but if you want to get involved there's the opportunity again please like and subscribe about half the people who watch these

videos are not subscribed so if you want to get on board i'd be happy to have you but until then i'm mark you're watching spectrum pulse and i'll see you next you time