Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemme
The Catholic Church has done damage to men as well. The secrecy and shame and denials have torn their victims of all genders and orientations apart. We should be careful when we say "never" as in the portion of your post that I underlined.
Art makes people passionate. You are passionate right now with your opinion. Passion makes people do stupid things, which can be damaging so I have to disagree with you there. Here's a link to the 10 most criminal artists that I found. There's murder, seduction, adultery and arson in this list. By your stance, we should boycott the works of all of these artists as well, no?
Some people can separate the artist from the art and the maker from the product. Some cannot. I don't think someone is doing something wrong if they listen to whatever music they choose to, despite what the artist has or has not done. I believe there might be better options to expose yourself to, but it's still a free country.
MJ is not the first nor the last musical artist/icon that has done questionable and/or illegal and/or unethical things. R Kelly is currently dealing with repeated issues about this. To be transparent, I don't like R Kelly or his music (outside of "I Think I Can Fly") but it's the same thing. Demonize the person, not their work. So many people throughout the decades have found solace and grace in the work of people that turned out to be pretty darn shitty. That doesn't take away from the value of the work. Just the person. And it, in no way, reflects upon listeners of that music or the viewers of that art.
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The word
passion literally means love of one thing,
compassion meaning love of all. I am not at all certain that the 10 "artists" you mentioned had love in their heart -
au contraire, having seen the biopic on Picasso, I am sure he didn't know what "love" was. To be transparent myself, I am not a fan of any of the artists you mentioned, and I have been to the Louvre, and saw Géricault's "Raft of Medusa" [no offense to Medusa of this site -
]; it takes up the whole wall, not crazy about that one either - even if I could own it, I wouldn't want it... can you imagine having to look at that one every day...? The thing is I wouldn't want to shake hands with any of these people, nor would I encourage any of them. I find it interesting and weird that people value their works of "art". Procurement of such "art" has become nothing less than big business.
The thing is I am able to see love in art; and when there is no love, I feel nothing, same thing with music.
Insofar as finding "
solace or grace" in works of art, I know someone here who has stared incessantly at a picture of the Virgin Mary (a very nice work of "art" btw), and then built his life around that, creating his own church, with himself as high priest, he even bought religious vestments and walks around in them (smh) - having done Christian "contemplation" incorrectly termed meditation. There are so many examples of people finding so-called "solace or grace" in detrimental habits, that I doubt there is any grace in what they do. To me, it's just another delusion - in other words, playing with something that isn't real. Of course, when a person chooses to follow and believe in whatever delusion they like, they must live with the consequences.
All I understand is that the brain can play tricks with itself and lie to itself. So, far be it from me to tell another how to live, or to tell another whether or not to boycott MJ or R Kelly (I saw his interview with Gayle King btw!!!), etc.
R Kelly's display was incredible, right? Having been accused of trying to control/dominate and influence the lives of so many of his young victims, nothing could seem to stop him from trying to control/dominate and influence his audience's view... geez!
Therefore, I cannot tell another to "boycott" MJ or R Kelly or whoever, I can only speak for myself.
When you say,
Demonize the person, not their work, I can only say that whatever a person puts out in the universe is but a reflection of what is going on inside of them, and that is why this planet is in such a mess.
I only brought up this subject because I think it is important to think about the subject.