[Rumori] validity

[Steev Hise]

on Sat, 10 Apr 2004 alex norman told me:

->Even though a cease and desist order is extreme, that
->doesn't mean that his work should flicker away..

you're right of course. i made a gross overstatement due to the
heat of my dislike for tony conrad's work. so i retract the last
clause of the second sentence of that previous email:

->>how ludicrous.  though i would say maybe tony Conrad >deserves
->to "flicker away", especially after doing >that.  >anyway, you
->should send the letter to >ChillingEffects.org....

->Burzum has become a Nazi but I think his first album
->is the best metal album I've ever heard.  I heard that
->Bob Dylan has now made a commercial, does that make is
->previous music poorer?  I don't think so.  Some people
->make art that is fantastic, then what they do after
->that could be horrible, but it doesn't mean that their
->previous work is any less valid.

"valid."  even though i hear it all the time i've always thought
the word "valid" seems out of place when discussing cultural
artifacts. what could it possibly mean in that context? What is
valid is based on or borne out by truth or fact. it's soundly
reasoned, or contains logically derived conclusions.  how can any
of that apply to a piece of art? In fact one might go so far as
to say all art is invalid.

but anyway, to look past your choice of words i might understand
your point to be that opinions of someone's work should be
unaffected by their later work or actions, etc.  In a way I
agree. Yes, a work is a work, to be judged on its own merits, in
isolation. But in practice this is often pretty difficult or
impossible. Someone's new works, deeds, statements, or political
stance will always have the possibility of coloring the
audience's reception of preexisting work.


(to digress slightly: as an experiment i just did a google search
for "heidegger" and "nazi" - 17,000 results.)

smh


Steev Hise .  steev at detritus.net . http://detritus.net/steev
new blog: http://steev.hise.org
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"In economic and political institutions the corporate rich now wield
 enormous power, but they have never had to win the moral consent of
 those over whom they hold this power."
 		-C. Wright Mills
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