Yoko's Asterisk 🏳️⚧For my latest newsletter, I wrote a thing about JK Rowling and "separating the art from the artist." I have thoughts!
https://buttondown.email/charliejane/archive/jk-rowling-and-separating-the-art-from-the-artist/
Michael W Lucas 
@charliejane yes, yes, all of that. I am not a celebrity, I'm just a shmuck who sits alone in a room and writes.
Wearing my "English Degree" hat, I also feel obliged to throw out: "separating art from the artist" is a postmodern critical tool, intended for literary analysis. Using it routinely is like saying, "I hear hydraulic jackhammers are way cool, I need one for my apartment."
For most of history, art and artist were one and the same.
For people not engaging in literary analysis, SAFA is misuse of a professional tool. Which, fine, play with literary tools all you want, talking about art is cool, but don't claim that this tool is the unimpeachable cultural standard! It just isn't.
John Colagioia@mwl @charliejane It's interesting, to me, because as a tool, it feels like the idea is to say "this work says harmful things, no matter what the artist wants us to read in it," which seems entirely unrelated to "it doesn't matter what the work OR the artist says, as long as I like it."
Granted, it's motivated reasoning, like deciding that the jackhammer will be used to open windows, because you REALLY want that window open.
@charliejane How do you want me to reply to this? Should I apologize to the shallow metaphor for my lack of precise conformity? Delete my response for daring to disapprove to people willfully misusing ways to think about things in order to defend destructive behavior? Block you? Call myself an ally to prove to you that I'm secretly not?
I mean, you replied TWICE, neither reply having any meaningful content, other than that you believe that I'm wrong in some abstract way.