About Whether Works of Art & Intellect Stand on Their Own

 A topic I have written about in the past is:

Should a work of art or intellect stand on its own after it has been released to the public, or is its worth subject to reevaluation because society at some point takes a different view of the merits of its  creator?

The most obvious recent example of this on-going controversy was a decision by the publisher WW Norton to take Blake Bailey's massive biography of author Philip Roth out of print shortly after it was released because Bailey was then publicly accused of sexual assault or harassment by various women in earlier years. 

Before the accusations became public, the high-profile book received generally positive reviews in major publications, suggesting that readers interested in Roth (never a favorite author of mine despite his stature) would be well-served by Bailey's efforts.  That is presumably still the case. No one, before the accusations surfaced, seems to have said: "this book is flawed; it reads like it was written from the perspective of a sex offender and as a result, lacks credibility (or whatever)."

Technically, of course, Bailey is not a sex offender having not been tried and convicted of such an offense. But he stands accused and in the prevailing Me Too climate, that's enough. As a result, Baily's work of intellect has gone from praiseworthy to toxic, or so it seems.

Alternatively, I suppose one could view Norton's reasoning as: while the contents of the book are still valid, neither Bailey nor Norton deserve to collect any money from it because of Bailey's alleged past behavior. The publisher released its rights to the book, saying anyone else could publish it, and said it would donate an amount equal to the author's advance to  organizations that fight against sexual assault or harassment and make efforts to protect survivors.

I mention this in part because of a somewhat related curiosity. The New York Times just ran one of its "five minutes of music" features in the online edition.  This time around, a group of luminaries selected brief samples of their favorite Classical choral music so as to help expose interested readers to that genre.

One of them, Leila Adu-Gilmore,  a New Zealand performer/composer of Ghanaian descent, with a doctorate in music composition from Princeton, said: "As a woman of color and a composer, I struggle with the Classical period. Widely thought of as the height of Western European culture, this was a time full of violent colonization and slavery." 

In other words, the works of, say, Mozart can't be enjoyed on their own musical merits. One cannot consider anything written by a white European who lived in a time of colonization and slavery to be enjoyable or beautiful. If you like Mozart, that presumably means you approve of violent colonization and slavery.

So, instead, Ms. Adu-Gilmore chose an excerpt from a piece written by a woman born in 1098, which she said predates the age of violent colonization and slavery. The woman in question was a Christian nun and mystic named Hildegard of Bingen and her composition is of merit because by linking nature and the divine, it connects us as humans through time, Ms Adu-Gilmore said.

In response, in the comment section of the NYT feature, a person identified as Jeff from Toronto had the following to say:

"No surprise Adu-Gilmore didn't pick anything by Beethoven, who spent many years working on an opera about the struggle for freedom of a political prisoner. Why the racial stereotypes? And gender stereotypes -- there's no evidence that the racial attitudes of Hildegard of Bingen were any different from those of the men of her time, but Adu-Gilmore gives her a pass because she was female. OK, she says it's because Hildegard "predates" the colonial era and slavery, but so what, she still benefited from serfdom. As if that has any relevance to her music."

Further, here is a comment from JM, of the Northeast section of the U.S.:

"I was disturbed when I read the introduction by Leila Adu-Gilmore. I am a practicing musician and I have seen first hand how it is becoming increasingly fashionable to dismiss the works of "dead white European men" as one of my colleagues put it. Adu-Gilmore struggles with the Classical period because it "was a time full of violent colonization and slavery." She then points out that Hildegard predates all of that misery. She conveniently forgets that there was a thriving slave trade during the Middle Ages, and Hildegard was a member of the Catholic Church at a time when forced conversion, torture and religious military conquest was not unheard of. Should we all have issues with medieval music? That seems to be what Adu-Gilmore is saying. If we start rejecting our music solely based on the social or political environment in which it was written, there will be nothing left to listen to. No musical era is without abhorrent political events. The comment by Adu-Gilmore is musically irresponsible and sets a dangerous precedent."

So what do you think: should a work of art or intellect stand on its own terms, or should its worth be measured by the moral status of its creator or the by the moral status of the society in which it was created?

What will Ms Adu-Gilmore think about that piece of choral music if records surface that show Hildegard, in her role of head nun of an abbey, took advantage of her young charges in certain, inappropriate ways?  Will that be, as the saying goes, "the day the music died?"

McKinsey Recommends Racial Quota System for Hollywood

 McKinsey and Company, probably the most well-known if highly controversial American management consulting firm, has recommended that Hollywood implement a racial quota system when it comes to making movies.  That's according to an article in the March 12, 2021 New York Times headlined "Lack of Diversity Costs Hollywood Billions." 

McKinsey's recommendations have come into question over the years on a number of fronts, but most recently with respect to the opioid crisis. Less than a month ago, the firm's top executive was forced out of that position when McKinsey had to pay almost $600 million to 49 U.S. states because of the role it played in inappropriately urging its client, drug maker Purdue Pharma, to excessively push sales of OxyContin. That was only one of several scandals mentioned in a New York Times article of Feb. 24, 2021.

With respect to Hollywood, McKinsey has recommended that the film industry "commit publicly to a specific target for Black and nonwhite representation across all levels and roles that reflect the American population: 13.4 percent Black or a total of 40 percent for all people of color," the NYT reported.

In addition, the consultants, among other things, recommended that film makers "financially support a range of Black stories by committing 13.4 percent of annual budgets to projects starring Black actors with Black producers, writers and directors behind the camera."

Hollywood need not act upon those recommendations, but if the industry fails to become more racially diverse, as much as $10 billion in potential additional annual revenues may be lost, the consultants said.

I mention this for two reasons: most films made for entertainment fall into the category of fiction, which is mostly what this blog is about, and when looking at the contents of a work of fiction it is often, but not always, interesting to understand its genesis. 

Culture Wars and an Explosive Word in Indianopolis

 The Arts section of the Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 New York Times has a half-page spread about the head of an art museum resigning over the apparently ill-advised use of a single word: "white." That was after an equally lengthy article three days earlier about an apology by the museum for the misstep, evidently deemed inadequate.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields was founded in 1883 and boasts over 50,000 objects in its collection, but not enough, it appears, by American Blacks and perhaps other minorities.

At least in part to address such concerns, the museum recently posted a job offer notice saying it was seeking a director who would work to build a more diverse audience while at the same time maintain "it's traditional, core, white audience."  Indianapolis is approximately 62% white, 28% Black and the remainder of the population Hispanic and other identities.

Charles L. Venable, who resigned following a letter of protest from the museum's staff and a host of members of the local art community, told the NYT that the use of the word "white" was deliberate and meant to assure people the museum wasn't going to abandon it's existing audience in the process of moving toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion. In the wake of the furor, the word "white" was deleted from the posting,which apparently otherwise remained the same.

Let's pause for a moment and think about why Mr. Venable undoubtedly thought it was important to explicitly reference the museum's traditional base of "white" support.  In his position, he was in charge of finances and there, the museum is overwhelmingly dependent upon donations.  Direct government support in 2019, the latest year for which figures are available, accounted for only $336,000 of revenues totaling $48.7 million. Since the museum is organized as a private non-profit (a 501(c)(3) corporation), contributors may be able to get a tax break for their donations -- just as they may be able to get a tax break by donating to Black Lives Matter -- so one can argue there is some indirect public support.

But, essentially, this is a private sector entity dependent upon voluntary contributions.  If they back away, the museum could be in significant trouble very quickly. Neither of the two articles in the NYT mentioned this possibility nor did they discuss the museum's financial situation.

For most of its history, entry into the museum was free of charge, but Mr. Venable changed that policy in 2014 in the interest of long-term financial stability. In other words, to hedge against a possible decline in donations. In 2019, "admissions, fees and sales (there is a gift shop) accounted for $5 million of the $48.7 million of total revenues so there is a ways to go.

If you are interested, there is an extensive list of donors at the end of the annual report and my guess is that the vast majority are white. So what's the problem with explicitly referencing them and what may be their concerns -- that in working towards inclusion and diversity, the museum doesn't intend to compromise the aesthetic and cultural values the donors have poured millions of dollars into over the years?

The problem is this: in the current culture wars, "whites" are by definition the universally privileged beneficiaries of a society constructed on systemic racism from it's very origins -- the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. When whites are so privileged, the notion that their concerns should be catered to is in itself racist. But reality is reality so it's best just not to be so explicit. 

Perhaps the donors will be just as reassured by the vague wording as they would be by the more explicit reassurance.  Time will tell.

This all occurred, by the way, at a time when the museum was, with the assistance of two guest curators, mounting a street mural created by 18 Black artists about Black Lives Matter.  

But when the wording of the job posting became widely known, the two guest curators said they could not continue working with the museum unless the museum apologized to the 18 artists, offered them an opportunity to have their other works displayed with appropriate compensation and agreed to display more works from Black artists "in perpetuity," the New York Times reported.

These events also occurred at a time when the museum's website contained a prominent guide to a host of sites in the area connected with Black history.

But there is apparently another side to the story. The museum has been accused of, among other things, promoting the work of Black artists without substantially supporting them. And a Black woman named Kelli Morgan, who was hired in 2018 to diversity the museum's galleries, resigned last July, calling the museum's culture "toxic" and "discriminatory" in a letter she made public.

"Newfields is a very visible, very bad symptom of a much larger cancer," the Times quoted her as saying -- a reference, apparently, to the aforementioned systemic racism that is now seen as the appropriate way to describe the U.S. 

That being the case, at its core, the culture war is a power struggle and the unfortunate use of the word "white" turned out to be a critical chink in the armor of one set of the powers that be.

 

 

Current U.S. Culture Wars Plus An Age-Old Controversy

 Readers interested in what appear to be intensifying culture wars within the U.S. -- specifically over whether "Whiteness" should be toppled, but other issues as well -- are strongly encouraged to read "Blind to Hate or Sounding the Right Notes?" in the Oct. 15, 2021 issue of the Arts section of the New York Times.

The lengthy article also brings up an age-old controversy: whether a work of intellect or art stands independently on its own merits, or whether the merits of it's creator need to be taken into consideration when deciding it's worth.

For example, see "Is It Time Gaugin Got Canceled?" in Nov. 18, 2019 New York Times.

But back to current culture wars, this time centered on a University of North Texas professor of music theory named Timothy Jackson and his chief critic, Philip Ewell, a professor of music theory at Hunter College in New York City,  Jackson is white and Ewell is Black (I'm following the NYT here in that the word "white" when referring to racial identity is not capitalized while "black" is.)

In Ewell's view, music criticism generally is dominated by white males and beset by racism, the NYT reported, and nowhere more egregiousness so than by the work of a Jewish theorist named Heinrich Schenker who died in Austria in 1935.  Jackson, identified as the grandson of Jewish emigres, has, the NYT said, has devoted himself to the study of Schenker's work.

In response to Ewell's views, Jackson and some colleges decided to solicit a series of papers on the  controversy for publication in the "Journal of Schenkerian Studies," which boasts about 30 paid subscribers, the NYT said, and a veritable volcano erupted. Read the article for details.

As for culture wars, the central battle covered by the article is yet another front in the ongoing war over whether not just the U.S. but, indeed, all of Western Civilization, is simply one big racist abomination  that needs to be overturned. In that context, Powell contends that when it comes to the study of music, Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French and German should be prohibited except by special dispensation in specific instances.  One wonders how English made the cut,

But also at issue is what the article descried as a contention by Jackson that Ewell's position is illustrative of a much broader current of anti-Semitic attitudes of American Blacks. 

Free speech -- an increasingly controversial topic in the wake of silencing Trump -- also comes into question in the Jackson-Ewell flap.  The traditional notion that speech should be free particularly on college campuses competes with a "newer view that speech itself can constitute violence," the NYT article said. In other words, things may be moving beyond concerns over "micro aggressions"  into justifications for censorship -- on both the Right and the Left.

Lastly, there is that issue of what to think about the products of intellectuals and artists who have lived arguably reprehensible lives or expressed arguably reprehensible opinions.

Schenker, for instance, is on record as having referred to "inferior races" and worse -- views that, in Ewell's opinion, are inseparable from his apparently very significant contributions to music theory. The counter view is that the theories should stand on their own merits.

The answer apparently isn't easy as per the comment of an NYT reader identified as "Lisa" (from Boston) who says:

"I have a doctorate in music and while I have always been aware of Wagner's well-known antisemitism (just to name an example) I was required to understand and utilize Schenkerian theory on my comps--and it was not until this controversy came to light that I was even *aware* that Schenker was a racist. To the point, it is up to the individual to decide what to do with information once it is known. But it NEEDS to be known. When it's not, it is indeed what Ewell says it is: whitewashing."

In "Lisa's" case, Schenker's work clearly stood on it's own when she needed it academically, but ... 

 

Nasdaq: It's OK to be a White Male if You're Gay

 Here's recent twist in the ongoing culture war here in the U.S.  Nasdaq, the world's second largest stock exchange, recently asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to require companies that list their shares on the exchange to either diversity their boards of directors or explain why that can't be done.

Specifically, Nasdaq, headed by Adena Friedman, a woman with a black belt in taekwondo, wants U.S. companies to have at least one woman director and another who is either a member of an underrepresented minority group or LGBTQ in terms of sexual orientation. Foreign companies listing on Nasdaq could get by with two women on their boards.

So it seems, being a white male -- an embattled species in today's culture wars -- isn't out of the question for one of those two diversity seats as long as he isn't heterosexual. Perish the thought!   Except, of course, if one is talking about the requisite diversity seats on a foreign company that lists on Nasdaq where two woman would be needed. But perhaps a transgendered, formerly white male would qualify there.

Actually, most large U.S. companies, such as those that comprise the S&P 500 stock index, already have at least one woman on their boards. But Nasdaq reportedly believes about 75% of the over 3,200 companies that list their shares on the exchange would not be currently in compliance of the new rule, if approved.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEC is unlikely to grant Friedman's request as the agency is currently configured, but might if incoming President Joe Biden appoints new commissioners.

Now wouldn't it be great if corporate boards were something other than a rubber stamp for management, having been purchased as such by way of very generous compensation? Don't hold your breath even if Friedman's initiative is successful. Diversity first, good governance maybe later.

 

Talking White

Regular readers, to the extent that there are any, know that I have been amusing myself in recent months by writing about various skirmishes in America's on-going culture wars.

With respect to literature, the conflict is mainly an attack on the status of whites, and particularly white males, as being inappropriately in control of how writing should be crafted -- what is good, what is bad; what is noteworthy and what is not; what should be included in "the canon."

The other day, I stumbled on another skirmish, from which I will present an excerpt without comment.

Nugyen Should Reconsider What Thanksgiving Is For

In the wake of his 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Sympathizer," Viet Thanh Nugyen has donned the cloak of public intellectual, becoming a prominent voice in the intensifying U.S. culture wars. I previously wrote about his condemnation of alleged white-male domination of writers' workshops here.

But why stop there? Why not reform the Thanksgiving holiday as well?

In a recent piece in The New York Times, Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam, asks: "What is wrong with saying that Thanksgiving is about genocide as much as it is about gratitude?" That, in fact, is what he has been teaching his now four-year-old biracial son.

Fiction as Autobiography

Earlier this year, the New York Times Sunday Book Review ran a piece by Jami Attenberg entitled "It's My Fiction, Not My Life." I clipped it out when it ran and then lost it in a pile of papers.

Authors, Attenberg noted, are very frequently asked by readers how much of a story they have written is autobiographical. Some smile are willing to answer in one fashion or another, no matter how frequently they are asked. But many others are not so accommodating.

Getting Rid of Western Canonical Values

The literary canon -- essentially a list of books considered the most worthy of consideration -- has long been a pillar of Western culture even if there has been disagreement over exactly which works should be included.  But most have been written by white males and as diversity increases in the U.S. as a result of large-scale non-white immigration in the post-WWII period, that seems to be a growing problem: part of the "culture wars" I have increasingly been writing about.

What Sort of a Man was Odysseus?

Well, according to an article in the Nov. 5, 2017, New York Times Sunday Magazine, there is little agreement on that.

The article reports on University of Pennsylvania professor Emily Wilson whose recent translation of Homer's "Odyssey" is the first by a woman. And, according to Wyatt Mason, the author of the article, Wilson renders Homer's work in a radically new voice compared with all that has gone on before -- and there have apparently been about 60 previous English language translations.

Trump's Tactics and The Two Narratives

The current flap over whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is in some way responsible for Tuesday's apparent terrorist attack that killed eight individuals in Manhattan is illustrative of two trends I have been writing about.

The most straight forward is a salient element of President Donald Trump's modus operandi and one that his supporters love: the best defense is a strong offensive.

Women and Identity Politics

With the degree of misogyny evident in the last U.S. presidential election and with the on-going Hollywood-led sexual harassment scandals, one would think that just being a woman would suffice to be a member of a political identity group.

But no, it apparently gets more finely sliced than that with white women under attack along with white men in the prevailing U.S. culture wars that may increasingly determine political outcomes.

Here's a Washington Post story about a recent conference in Detroit attended by about 4,000 women. What struck me about it was the following paragraph:

Identity issues were a theme of many of the convention events, which included a workshop titled “Confronting White Womanhood,” for “white women committed to being part of an intersectional feminist movement to unpack the ways white women uphold and benefit from white supremacy.”

Unpack? Then what?

Reed College and the Ongoing Culture Wars

Recently, I seem to be writing more about the fact that this is a country of two different narratives, and about the associated culture wars, than about fiction.

In brief, one narrative has it that as diversity increases, in large part due to continuing, significant, non-white immigration, the country is going to change significantly, and for the better as more voices are heard and new populations acquire power, money and command of culture.

The other narrative is that America is great because it is, in effect, the culmination of European culture that traces its values and intellectual notions to ancient Greece and Rome. Certain numbers of non-white, non-Europeans are welcome, but they should accept and adapt to the long-standing white culture and political power.

A Wellspring of Identity Culture and Politics

In a recent post that can be found here, I wrote about challenges to our traditional, northern-European-centric culture -- a culture critics argue enshrines what has become known as white privilege.

Americans of other racial and cultural backgrounds have found it hard to break through the barriers such a culture presents, but there have definitely been success stories, and they may be increasing in number. As that happens, will the country drift further and further into culture wars and identity politics?

Is Broadway Part of "The Problem?"

What is the problem?

In a slightly earlier post, I discussed the notion that America seems to be a nation of two narratives, and that has led to an extremely divisive political climate.

1) As a result of immigration and associated demographic shifts, whites appear to be heading toward minority status and as a result, power and culture will and should change.

2) White culture and white power should continue indefinitely, in part by curbing immigration, but also by getting rid of certain government programs and preferences for minorities such as affirmative action that are artificially and unfairly boosting such populations.

How does Broadway figure in this divide?