I was reading the comments on a music video recently when I ran across one stating that as much as he likes the artist’s videos, he has to cringe while he watches them because the artist identifies as part of a group he disagrees strongly with. I have to wonder about where we’re headed as a society when we aren’t allowing ourselves to enjoy art for itself. Do we really have to weigh everything about the artist and all their varied affiliations before we can enjoy something? Do we really have such an excess of goodness and beauty in the world that we have to look for reasons to disqualify such things when we find them?
Maybe I’m just naïve, but if I enjoy an artist’s work I enjoy the artists work. I don’t worry about their orientations, politics, pet peeves, or whatever unless they start forcing it down my throat. I don’t sit there and obsess, wondering “What if this person is a conservative?!” or “What if this person is a member of Black Lives Matter?!” or “What if this person is a Muslim?!” or “What if this person voted for Trump?!” What difference does that make in whether the art they produce is enjoyable? There’s plenty of art I don’t care for because I just don’t care for it. There’s plenty of art I don’t care for even though the people who create it are top-notch people. And there is plenty of art I admire, and don’t care who produced it.
Similarly, it seems like any time someone who identifies with a particular controversial group does something good, people who oppose that group or that person come flooding out of the woodwork to malign that person and their motives rather than just say “Hmmm. I guess maybe there’s good in everyone.” And heaven forbid they ever adjust their opinion of that person or that group toward positive territory.
It seems strange and sad to me that we’ve “advanced” to the point where we can only see value in something or someone if they are part of our approved circle, and that someone who outside that circle can never produce anything of value in our eyes. We want so desperately for people to see and approve of the good in ourselves, but refuse to even look for it in those from the wrong group.
Perhaps its our own fault. We’ve allowed group identity to dominate so much of our public discourse that we make it difficult to see one another as individuals. And if we do happen to find little points of commonality between ourselves and someone from one of those groups it’s become easier to disavow that commonality rather than allow a connection to another human being who, more than likely, is not so terrible a human being as we want to think.
I admit that there are some people out there I hold to be truly reprehensible. But I’d also like to think that if I were ever in a social situation with that person I’d be able to look past that enough to be civil and even give them a chance. I’d like to think that if, say, I were to suddenly find they enjoy Michael J. Sullivan’s books as much as I do, I’d happily discuss that commonality for as long as they’d like to and allow myself to come away thinking better of that person because of that little bit of shared experience. I certainly wouldn’t rush home and destroy my entire collection of Sullivan books because that person also likes them.
Not that I’ve ever had the chance to prove it. But I have experienced cases where someone I admired has disappointed me greatly to the point that I’ve avoided their work for a time, only to encounter that person again and have a positive experience that makes me amend my opinion and repent a little of my intransigence. Would that I had been more open minded in the first place, but I’ll at least declare a partial victory for decency that I did not allow my initial judgment to remain inviolate
We need to get away from this “us vs. them” mentality. We need to stop condemning people for things that are only a part of who they are. We need to stop viewing someone’s affiliation with a particular group as their defining characteristic. I’d rather see a world where we can celebrate the good things that we all do and produce, and not worry about what might be lurking behind it all. The world is getting ugly enough. Let’s appreciate beauty whenever and wherever we can find it.