Long: Art, life, history, morality and other dull topics

[Karen Newcombe <kln@staralliance.com>]

>An even lesser known fact is that Lyman Frank Baum was a RACIST pig who
>advocated MASS MURDER openly in his position as editor of that local
>weekly.
>
>To briefly summarize (and you may be able to find these articles on
>microfiche at you local library)-
>
>Frank Baum used his position as editor in South Dakota to advocate the
>GENOCIDE of all remaining Native Americans. 


Peter,

You raise fascinating and complicated questions:

1) Do we judge artwork on the basis of it's own merit as an object?  Or on
the merit of the life actions of the person who created it?

2) Do we judge the ignorant past with the wider knowledge of today?  Or do
we choose to consider the context of the times as an additional factor?

3) In this case, how is our work to be judged, and how are our lives to be
judged?

Taking Baum as a further example, one can say undeniably he was a racist
and advocated the extinction of Native Americans. So did nearly every other
newspaper editor in the U.S. And so did nearly every other "patriotic
American" of the time -- the news and literature of the late 1800's, early
1900's is virulently opposed to the Native American peoples' continued
existence.

So is he a horrendous, murderous racist who also happened to write a
children's book?  Or the brilliant author of a magnificent children's book
who also happened to have ugly political beliefs?  Or is he just a man?

Do we forgive our ancestors their racism because they were also ignorant?
Or do we punish their lack of understanding and information?  And how do we
do that?  

These are tough questions.  I don't have the answers.  No one does.  They
are part of our continuing dialogue as people.  The answers were very
different a hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, and will be again in
the future.

I wonder if a hundred years from now WE won't all be seen as the worst
generation that ever lived -- for our insistence on driving air, water,
life and land destroying automobiles, for our selfish consumption of the
majority of the world's resources, for pushing the entire world keep up
with us and live by our destructive standards.  

Will our artwork be judged by this?

Will readers of my poetry gain a deep appreciation of my work by having the
knowledge that on Tuesday August 19, 1997 I had a tuna sandwich for lunch
and a disagreement with my cat 99 about where the exact boundaries of
inside and outside the litter box are?

Do we ban our kids from listening to Kate because she smokes and we don't
want them to smoke?  Does knowing Kate likes chocolate inform your
experience of "Sat In Your Lap"?

Yeah, Eric Clapton probably slept around some and did some drugs.  Well, so
did I and so did the President and so did Jerry Garcia and so did the
housewife across the street and so did an awful lot of people in the
history of this old world.

It doesn't change the fact that Layla still makes the heart sing.  The
music has detached itself from Clapton's life and has a life of its own. 

But this sure makes for interesting stuff to think about, eh?

Sorry for rambling.  

Karen  kln@staralliance.com