# When Is It OK To Say I Should't Care About A Creator's Morality? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588 "2014-05-03T16:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/121 "2014-07-04T13:09:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s situational, isn’t it? If the person doing the redemptive arc is someone I trust (Iain Banks has done this, so has China Miéville, so has Alan Moore) then I’m cool with it. What redemptive arc has Alan Moore done? Aside from his possibly-autobiographical story “Brasso with Rosie,” I’m not aware of any confessional works by him. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/122 "2014-07-04T14:33:57Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > What redemptive arc has Alan Moore done? Aside from his possibly-autobiographical story “Brasso with Rosie,” I’m not aware of any confessional works by him. Not redemptive of himself, redemptive of an evil character. Nothing confessional about Hyde in LoEG, but a redemptive arc, all the same. Although his end is perhaps more Hayes-friendly than the other authors’ characters. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/123 "2014-07-04T15:16:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And that’s fine. For _you_. But I _do_ approach it more systematically, and that should be OK too And in the end would that not be an acceptable resolution? Each person has their own standard to be met on the issue of separating the creator from the creation or the performer from the performance, and some of us may apply them more idiosyncratically or flexibly or rigidly or systematically. For instance, > [@](#): > > I mean, I can’t say I’m never going to watch _Thomas the Tank Engine_ again, or listen to _Octopus’s Garden_, but just this thread has certainly made me unlikely to ever buy a Ringo Starr solo work. In my case, having admitted his transgressions and (by all known accounts) cleaned up his act, I consider Mr. Starkey rehabilitated in the performer-audience sense. That’s fine for me, but it does not have to be fine for someone else. We begin getting into trouble when we try to impugn one anothers’ moral character for not agreeing with our standard, or insist in making the disagreement into a last-stand-to-the-death battle. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/124 "2014-07-04T17:19:33Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And in the end would that not be an acceptable resolution? It would to me - but this whole thread started because **Wendell Wagner** didn’t even want the subject brought up at all, which kind of flies in the face of “informed choices” to me. I’ve said multiple times that while I, personally, may call for a boycott of MZB’s work, that’s _not_ the same as me making moral judgements on those who choose not to partake in said boycott. Basically, it comes down to whether one believes that those who do not believe as one does, are not only wrong (which is fine, IMO) but are _morally_ wrong. I see the two as distinct things, and I’ve said the latter doesn’t apply, multiple times. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/125 "2014-07-04T21:40:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > . . . Take HP Lovecraft. Dude was _uber_-racist even for the 1930s, which were not the most PC of times. So I don’t buy his books. But he was only verbally racist, so I do read them when I get them free online and I read them hyper-critically when I do. But I’m not going to even read OSC or MZB again. It’s situational, isn’t it? . . . Another couple of examples are Robert W. Chambers and G.K. Chesterton. Both are lovely writers, who balance intellectual and emotional tones. But…both wrote ghastly things about Jews. Anti-Semitism is a streak all through Chesterton; in Chambers, it occurs less often, but is definitely present. Or Kipling, for goodness’ sake. Colonial patriarchism, and racial/cultural theories of immense discomfort to us today. I give these three writers much more latitude than, say, Orson Scott Card, because they weren’t trying to be offensive, which Card most definitely was. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/126 "2014-07-05T03:24:46Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And in the end would that not be an acceptable resolution? Each person has their own standard to be met on the issue of separating the creator from the creation or the performer from the performance, and some of us may apply them more idiosyncratically or flexibly or rigidly or systematically. > > For instance, In my case, having admitted his transgressions and (by all known accounts) cleaned up his act, I consider Mr. Starkey rehabilitated in the performer-audience sense. That’s fine for me, but it does not have to be fine for someone else. > > We begin getting into trouble when we try to impugn one anothers’ moral character for not agreeing with our standard, or insist in making the disagreement into a last-stand-to-the-death battle. I also think it depends on whether the person’s work accomplishes something good. For example, I brought up Margaret Sanger. She definitely supported eugenics, including compulsory sterilization for the mentally retarded, or anyone with a condition that was incurable and hereditary condition. She wasn’t a Nazi by any means, but make no mistake – her views were definitely about preventing the unfit from breeding. As most of you know, I have epilepsy. And at one time, epileptics were often a target of sterilization programs. They were seen as cursed, mentally ill, retarded, etc. (In some cases, people with epilepsy were forbidden from marrying, for example). So you can see why this might be something that interests me. THAT BEING SAID, I consider Planned Parenthood an organization that does a LOT of good. And I will continue to support them. I also realize that Sangers’s views were, sadly, the norm at the time, and she was by means the only one to support that particular cause. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/127 "2014-07-11T21:46:18Z")
This month, it has been 9 years since we had our beloved Himalayan cat euthanized. It was a boiling hot Saturday, and we took our 21 year old cat to the vet to be ‘put to sleep’ as the poor thing was in dire straits. So we did that and came home, and I had the rest of my day planned: I was going to sit in front of a fan and watch The Mists of Avalon on a videotape from start to finish, no one was to bother me. And so the day passed, fairly painlessly, and I was plunged into another world for several hours. I loved the video (hadn’t read the book) … I have often thought of getting MoA on DVD, and now…not so much. I loved it, I love that kind of thing. But now it’s not only a thing of the past, it’s tainted. So, no. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/128 "2014-07-18T23:56:18Z")
Bumping this thread to note that Mark Greyland, Bradley’s son, has now [come forward](http://starfire-studio.com/markgreyland.html) to corroborate his sister’s account and describe the abuse that he suffered as well. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/129 "2014-07-20T09:09:55Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Bumping this thread to note that Mark Greyland, Bradley’s son, has now [come forward](http://starfire-studio.com/markgreyland.html) to corroborate his sister’s account and describe the abuse that he suffered as well. He corroborated it a while back, just not in detail. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/130 "2014-07-20T09:33:05Z")
My wife has a similar attitude in that she can’t listen to Michael Jackson’s music. I think that’s daft as like it or not, his music was still great. It’s not as if not buying his music would have made him any less of who he was. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/131 "2014-07-22T08:18:30Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > My wife has a similar attitude in that she can’t listen to Michael Jackson’s music. I think that’s daft as like it or not, his music was still great. I don’t listen to him anymore, either. > [@](#): > > It’s not as if not buying his music would have made him any less of who he was. Two reasons - While he was alive, his money and fame shielded him from consequences. and that came from people who bought his music -and- After his death, his continuing positive legacy, and those of people like him, shields all abusers who have some talent or other from always being called to account for their actions. Chris Brown still makes records and collaborates with other musicians, R. Kelly still has airplay, Terry Richardson still gets work, none of them are rotting in jail as they should be. Because they have talent, and _of course_ that makes everything OK. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588/132 "2014-07-24T19:16:48Z")
I couldn’t listen to him for awhile either. Now, I might sing/dance along to one of his earlier songs (anything prior to Bad – after that, it went downhill) if it comes on the radio, or someone plays it at a party or whatever. But I don’t download it, or buy it or whatever. (Of course, I haven’t been a big fan since I was six. But I still love “Billie Jean”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588.md?page=6)