I can listen to songs by The Smiths and Morrissey even though the political views of their author are noxious. I didn’t know his stance on immigration when I first heard the Smiths in the 1980s, and even if I had, they’re not his song, they’re mine. I am able to separate the artist from the art.
Call it a gift from my parents: I have a clear memory of a birthday being given a book by Roald Dahl. It had my name in the title, "Danny," as well as what I considered to be a pretty solid guess about my future: "Champion of the World." When my father gave it to me he said, “Here you go Danny! You know the man who wrote this books hates Jews like us. Enjoy!”
My mother read to us from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and after we were done hearing about Mr. Mistoffelees and Skimbleshanks and my favorite, Macavity the Mystery Cat, she would sigh, “Aren’t these poems wonderful? Isn’t it a shame TS Elliot was an antisemite? He wasn’t as bad as his friend Ezra Pound who actively tried to harm Jews. Elliot just said mean things.”
Which is why I feel so bad for the kids in my writing class. Their writings are profoundly influenced by Harry Potter, which they love, but it causes them distress, because of the author’s views on gender and other issues. They won’t even use her name, the woman whose wizardly robes their creative impulses spring from. They call her “the witch,” just as kids at Hogwarts won’t say Voldemort. Even this small protest, they got from her.
I tell them I loved Charles Bukowski in koledge even though he’s a racist and an antisemite and a misogynist and it’s all right there on the page. You can take it all and filter out what you don’t need, and praise some of it and condemn most of it. They think I’m a sellout.
Wonder who’s right?
I'm Dan Libman and that's my perspective.
