John Donvan

Hey everybody and welcome to Intelligence Squared, I’m John Donvan and I have a question for you to ponder. Have you had this experience? There is a comedian that you just idolize, or a singer, or an actor, or a painter, or a writer, or a composer, somebody whose work you consider to be just totally amazing, full of insight, and beauty, and maybe even genius and then you find this person that you idolize is a total jerk, or worse, you know, believes in some really bad ideas or has said some really hurtful things, or done some really harmful things. Examples, Richard Wagner, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, Picasso, but there are so many more to lost because every artist has a private life, of course, and then stuff comes out. And when it does, how does that affect your connection to their work as a fan? Do you downgrade your estimation of it because your opinion of the artist has fallen? Or do we as a culture still find a way to admire and honor the work apart from the person who made it?

You know if you google the phrase, “separate the art from the artist” you will see that exact language coming up again, and again as a headline on our bed pieces and in the titles of scholarly papers because it is a relative question, especially in recent years as we have a culture have engaged in reckonings, and reevaluations, and cancellations. So to help shed some light on the matter we decided to take the phrase and debate it as a question, so let’s have it. Agree to disagree, should we separate the art from the artist? We have two guests who will take opposite sides, one answering yes and the other answering no. Aruna D’Souza is a writer specializing in art in politics with a particular focus on feminism. She has studied the especially intriguing topic of how museums impact the way all of us view and understand the world. And Randy Cohen, also a writer and humorist. He wrote for the Letterman show but his biggest imprint on the culture came on almost certainly from the decade he devoted to writing The Ethicist column for the New York Times.

Aruna and Randy, thanks so much for joining us.

Randy Cohen

Thanks for having me.

Aruna D’Souza

Thanks. Really happy to be here.

John Donvan

And to get started, uh, we, we just wanna let listeners know which side of the question you come down on, on this question: should we separate the art from the artist? Are you a yes or a no? Aruna, I will ask you first. On that question, are you a yes or a no?

Aruna D’Souza

I am a no. Um, and, uh, I know that’s often hard for people to hear, but, you know, hopefully I’ll make a case for it today.

John Donvan

Okay. Thanks very much, Aruna. Well, s-, that tells where you gonna come done on this Randy but we still wanna do it (laughs) as a matter of formality. Should we separate the art from the artist, yes or no?

Randy Cohen

Yes. Um, I don’t know if you’ve met a lot of artists, there’re… A- an amazing number of them are just terrible people and-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

John Donvan

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… if we didn’t make the separation you wouldn’t get to enjoy much art at all.

John Donvan

All right. So let’s get into your arguments and why you’re taking this side of the issue. And A-, Randy you spoke just now, so why don’t you keep going? Tell us why you are a yes on the question of separating the art from the artist.

Randy Cohen

Thank you, John, and thank Ar- Aruna for being here. Um, uh… An awful lot of wonderful art has been made by an awful lot of terrible people that Roman Polanski was by all accounts a bad guy but Chinatown is a terrific movie. To enjoy the art is not to endorse the artist. To be moved by a Picasso is not to defend misogyny. If I had to forswear and say every 19th century English novel written by a casual antisemite, I wouldn’t get to read anything. And for African American readers it’s even worse. Sometimes we hold our nose and enjoy the best of what remains. Um, more broadly, if I showed you a lovely jacket, or a delicious bowl of pasta, would it matter that the fashion designer was Coco Chanel, a big Nazi collaborator during the Second World War? Or that the pasta maker, Guido Barilla was a big homophobe? As with pasta-

John Donvan

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… so with art.

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

I don’t, I don’t reject Shakespeare in Love because th-, its producer Harvey Weinstein did horrible, horrible things. I don’t cast out Jeeves and Wooster because PG Wodehouse did radio broadcast for the Nazis. A-, my argument is this, that few us are great artists and few of us are great people, saintly people, expecting someone to do both is asking an awful lot. Um, I, I’d add one clarification. Um, a knowledge of the artist’s misdeeds does affect the way I see the work. Um, new revelations a- as John said m- made many people turn away from Woody Allen, or Michael Jackson, or Louis CK, but our repulsion fades with time. The further in the past the misdeeds of the artist, the easier they are to separate from the work. Very few people recall Christopher Marlowe’s career as a spy. The ideal things is for the nefarious artist to be dead, and the deader the better. Uh, the crimes-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… of the distant past are more tolerable that those of five minutes ago, and today Wagner is performed even in Israel. So the separation isn’t total, the deeds of the artist affect the context of the art but don’t require us to reject the art.

John Donvan

Thanks very much, Randy. And now Aruna, it’s your turn. You are the no on this question, and tell us why.

Aruna D’Souza

Well, y- you know, I, I think that one of the things that, um, we can start with is to say that even when people think they’re separating the artist from the art, they’re actually not. Um, they’re compartmentalizing, and compartmentalizing sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t, and often causes us harm. So I’m actually not interested in passing moral judgments on the artists. Yes, artists can be terrible people. I think that it’s, um, I think that it’s telling that of all the artists mentioned I think there was one woman mentioned, and, and I think that that’s significant, and I’ll talk about that later. Um, that, that… You know, I think of art not in terms of the bowl of pasta or, um, uh, uh, a, um, designer jacket but in terms of relationships. And so yes, we all know that there are te-… We’ve had terrible people in our lives, right? We may have, uh, we may love some who’s abusive, right, to us, uh, to us ourselves, and we may compartmentalize by saying, “This person has many great qualities and so I will overlook the way that they’re treating me,” and we all know that that’s an unhealthy thing to do.

And so for me the reason to reject the art, um, of terrible people… And I’m n-… You know, when I think of terrible people, I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill, narcissistic, mean, you know, ugly behavior, I’m… You know, we’re talking about Nazis, right, and, um, people who rape people (laughs), um, right? Like these are, these pretty big, uh, uh, moral flaws. Um, but I’m actually not worried about passing moral judgment on the artist, I’m thinking about the harm it does to us in the present by, um, endorsing, and reifying, and continuing to consider great, uh, the art produced by people whose, um, moral failings actually produced what we consider the greatness of their art.

John Donvan

So le- let me, uh, start with, uh, going back d- directly to you, Aruna.

Aruna D’Souza

Mm.

John Donvan

That the point that you just made about… The way you phrased it is you have real hesitation about continuing to consider great some of the work done by people who have… Uh, as you say, you’re not judging them just for being sort of ruin-of-the-mill jerks-

Aruna D’Souza

Yeah.

John Donvan

… but f-, people who have committed significant, uh, harm and transactions. Uh, sometimes because of their influence, because of the size of the megaphone they have their jerk-ness may actually have a deeper impact, and some of them just have done truly, truly bad things. But what I find interesting in what you’re saying is that you feel that that actually calls for a consideration of the merit of the work itself when you say, “Should we consider, continue to consider the work great?”

Aruna D’Souza

Well, you know, I think that, you know, what we always have to think about is the way that greatness itself isn’t… It’s not a given, right? It’s socially constructed: we decide the criteria for greatness. And we may think that, you know, oh, great art is just based on, um, aesthetic value or, uh, you know, the emotions that it produces in us or whatever, but it’s actually a very complic-… It’s, it’s been produced in Western culture over a long period of time and during, you know… Often, um, certain kinds of behaviors, especially certain kinds of toxic masculine behaviors are actually a feature and not a flaw (laughs) in that definition. So if I can give one example. Like, okay, let’s go to Picasso, right? It’s, it’s easy to look at say, um, Picasso’s guitar, uh, sculpture that is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. A groundbreaking work of his that’s made of cardboard, and wire, and, um, that borrows, um, the sort of spatial, um, innovations of African masks, and, a- and absolutely changed the course of a- art history, really.

And it’s easy to look at that and say, “Okay, that’s a great work of art and I can separate it from the fact that Picasso is, um, was kind of a jerk, um, to women, um, including, you know, uh, h-, one of his wives who he got together with when she was in her early teens,” for example.

John Donvan

Yeah, I mean, t-, just to, to put it home to people who aren’t aware of it, he was extraordinarily abusive to women. W-, it w-, it wasn’t just being a jerk.

Aruna D’Souza

Yeah. I- i-… He wa-, he was, he was abusive and… But, but how then do you compartmentalize his long ranging a-, you know, throughout his career his images of women? And, and especially of the women that he was in relationships with? His wife e-, the ballerina, Olga, um, who he depicted with a face made of a vagina dentata, or his, uh… The, the Marie-Thérèse who he, um, began a relationship when she was something like 14 years old, uh, and he depicts as, you know, a b-, a beach ball, a sexual plaything. You know, we, you know, when we look at that, um, we may think that we’re separating out, but in fact the, the awfulness of his attitudes towards women are baked into what we’re seeing, right? They’re, the, that it’s impossible to, to separate out the fact that we’re looking at, um, these really hateful, um, kinds of attitudes, you know. When we look at a Titian that depicts a rape, um, you know, from classical mythology, right? I mean, Titian I don’t know what he was like in terms of his relationships, he was taking these subjects from classical mythology.

But when we look at a painting that depicts a rape, what does it mean? That’s we’re teaching ourselves, we’re teaching students, we’re teaching young people to say, “It’s okay to, to tell you that this painting of a rape is a great painting,” right? So I’m not, I don’t-

John Donvan

Well, I, I-

Aruna D’Souza

… care what Titian’s… I don’t care whether Picasso was, you know, a-… He, he was of his time, we can say all those things, but I think, y- you know, when we’re asked to look at this and find greatness in it, that’s already… W- we’re, we’re, we’re pretending there’s a way to separate out, to separate the artist from the art, but actually the artist is baked into the work.

John Donvan

More from Intelligent Squared US, when we return.

Welcome back to Intelligent Squared US. Let’s get back to our debate. So Randy, wow, that, that’s, that’s quite an indictment of-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

John Donvan

… (laughs) uh, of the argument you’re making. Uh, what’s, what’s your response to it?

Randy Cohen

Um, th- that, um, sometimes the… Well, let me put it as a question. Are the hateful ideas in the work itself? And sometimes absolutely yes, Aruna and I agree about this. And when they are, the work should be repudiated but you needn’t even make a reference to th-, to the work-, the worker who created it. And, and my example is, uh, in the case of Wagner, you know, those dwarves in the ring, they were meant by Wagner to be Jews and they were, a-, interpreted by his listeners as Jews. Um, a- and so you can reject the work because of Wagner’s antisemitism is in the work, not just ’cause he’s an antisemitic guy. But I don’t think that’s true always. Um, and I, I’ll give you the case of Michael Jackson. I think if we didn’t know about his dubious personal life you would not find it in the songs. Um, and the same thing for James Brown. For people my age is, uh, um, and, and my musical taste, a similar example. James Brown did some, some really horrible things. Um, he went to prison for domestic violence and gun charges, but James Brown recorded Cold Sweat, and I think that makes him a living national treasure.

There was no way you would listen to Cold Sweat and hear James Brown’s horrible personal behavior in that work. So sometimes it’s in the work and then re- repudiated-

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Randy Cohen

… but sometimes it’s not, and I would say often it’s not, especially for non-representational work. Um… A- and even when it is in the work, uh, meanings change. Um, the dwarves that were obviously Jews to the German General staff in say 1939, well that’s not so obvious to, uh, opera goers today. And, and the creators intent is no guarantee of anything.

Aruna D’Souza

You know, part of what always puzzles me when f-, sort of visit this question, and trust me it’s a, it’s a question and debate that as a person in the art world who has both written about, uh, historical art, 19th century art as well as, um, really grappled with the question when it comes to contemporary art. Uh, a-, I… One of the things I always wonder is why do we think that we, the only options are accepting the art despite the artist, or not having any art to look at? And so this one of the (laughs) other things that always, um, that always puzzles me because I, I don’t think that if one says, “Okay, Picasso… Let’s take Picasso, let’s… You know, Picasso was a terrible person, let’s take his art off MoMA’s walls.” It isn’t like MoMA wouldn’t have a million other things to put on those walls because there are so many artists beyond Picasso making great work. And so one of the things that I think th- this question is always framed with is a really false sense of kind of the scarcity of greatness, right? That greatness only happens…

That if we get rid of Picasso, we get rid of, uh, Wagner, we get rid of whoever, that there will be nothing left. And, you know, I, I guess that what I have found, especially as I do more and more work on both historical figures who have been overlooked and also contemporary artists who because they don’t fit a certain mold aren’t, um, on the radar for identifying greatness who are making actually great work. Um, and s-, and, and perhaps if we spent less time looking at the Picassos and grappling over the question of how do we separate the artist from the art, we’d find, um, in fact a ton of other people who are just as, uh, worth looking at, um, just as worth finding, um, solace in, finding beauty in, finding, uh, intellectual challenge in.

John Donvan

That would be an argument just to let’s recycle from time to time and let’s update from time to time not because of the moral character of the artist, but, uh, uh, your, your argument would, just might be times change and fashion has cha-, has changed.

Aruna D’Souza

Well, I don’t think that it’s just times change and fashions change.

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Aruna D’Souza

I mean, yes there’s always historical revision that’s going on whether or not-

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Aruna D’Souza

… we’re revising based on, um, the moral character of the artist or the way that the artist work, um, upholds values that we no longer embrace in our culture. Uh, but it’s also, but it, but… You know, I guess that what, what I’m coming at is the, the question of why we ask this question all the time. Um, why this is a question to begin with. And I think it’s a question because we are often unwilling, um, to say, to let go of the values that make Picasso great in our minds. That, that whether or not we, um, admit it we actually… You know, that, that there is something that still draws us to the, you know, macho man who does whatever he wants, and smokes, and drinks, and slaps around his girlfriend, um, because that is what ultimately deeply ingrained in Western culture. That’s what our idea of the person who creates great art is. And so that’s why… I mean, I, I still wanna go back to the question of h-, why almost all of our examples and, and, you know, many great examples that both of you have, have introduced into the debate, why they’re all men. And why most of them, not all of them, are, um, white, European men.

Uh, you know, I think that that is not an insignificant issue, um, you know, and what does it say when we’re saying that you can be, you can be a rapist, you can be, uh, in some cases (laughs) a murderer, you can be a, a domestic abuser, you can, uh, do all those things and don’t worry, we’ll still consider you great. I worry about what that message is. I think it’s in some ways no different than the message that we often get in our, in, in other parts of our lives where we know that if you’re powerful or if you’re rich, you can get away with a lot.

John Donvan

I, I just wanna break in because you’ve m-, said a lot and I want to-

Aruna D’Souza

Yeah, sorry-

John Donvan

… give Randy a-

Aruna D’Souza

… I-

John Donvan

… chance… No, that’s-

Aruna D’Souza

… tend to do that (laughs).

John Donvan

That’s okay, I just wanna give Randy a chance to respond to some of it. And so Randy, what… If I, if I could boil down what I think Aruna’s saying in response to the, the question that we’re debating and your position on it is that your ability, as you put it, to hold your nose, she’s using the term compartmentalize, and set aside the awfulness of a particular artist may have to do with a certain romanticization by the culture of the bad boy-ness of a a lot of artists and that that’s, that that makes it easier for a nose-holder, or a compartmentalizer to go ahead and like say the film Chinatown even though Roman Polanski was committed, uh, uh, convicted of-

Randy Cohen

You know, I-

John Donvan

… rape.

Randy Cohen

… I, I didn’t think that, uh, a great deal of nose-holding was required t- to enjoy Chinatown, and that, unle- u- unless… I mean, y- you were at pains to, to f- fill in some background for people who might not know what charges were leveled against Michael Jackson, that you’d have to work really hard to avoid knowing that. I th-, I think you wouldn’t have to work quite as hard to avoid knowing anything about Roman Polanski’s private life a- a- and I’d defy Aruna to show how that resonates through that movie. Um, I think that’s a great movie, um, and I think Polanski is by all accounts a horribly. So w- when there is work… Oh, and by the way, I wouldn’t, I, I, I sh-, endorse your view that most of the crimes we’re referring to are, are crimes of men. I’m no defender of, of my gender, um-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… um, th- that, that seems inarguable. I think Aruna’s completely right about that. Um, h-, not exclusively. Um, d-, uh, uh George Eliot had, had the kind of casual antisemitism of her era and social class and Agatha Christie’s pre-war novels are, are… They’re pretty gruesome to read now.

Aruna D’Souza

Yes, they are.

Randy Cohen

But, but, um, if y-… But I, I would… If these ideas… If you can show me how these ideas are present in the work, then we can repudiate those ideas without making an particular reference to the artist, there it is in the work. Um, if an antisemite makes me a beautiful dining room table, um-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… I can, I c-… We can criticize the table, but I think it will be harder to show, um, how his, um, deplorable conduct away from his, his lave, um, affected the work itself.

John Donvan

Randy, there’s a- a-, there’s, there’s no world in which you would say, “I know that that guy who made the dining room table, who makes dining room tables is an antisemitic jerk. I’m not not gonna give him my business,” because of that, because of that?

Randy Cohen

Uh, I, I can choose to look out for, for my tables as, as Aruna suggests we look elsewhere for, for our art, but I’m not so sure I want MoMA making that decision for me. No- no-… Uh, or any cultural institution that’s, that’s taking money from the Coke brothers.

John Donvan

And, and, and it would not make you think that it’s a bad table. You wou-, you would still say, “Too bad, that’s such a great table made by such a bad guy.”

Randy Cohen

The further in the past th-, you know, the wicked carpenter, um, existed, the easier it is for me to tolerate their misdeeds.

John Donvan

Why is that? Why is that? I wanna explore that a little bit.

Randy Cohen

Um, because the, the, the, the blessings of times. Th- that, that the immediacy of crimes committed close to us, both in time and space, is, is-

John Donvan

Mm.

Randy Cohen

… very potent. But, um, we don’t really check for the conduct or know much about th- th- the c-… A- a- an art-goer like me, um, doesn’t know much about the lives of many Renaissance artists.

Aruna D’Souza

I actually take the, the quite opposite point of view. I, I think, you know, individually, uh, we make decisions all the time. Like we may have, uh, you know, about what to, uh, what to allow in our lives and not. So, you know, we all have that one uncle, or we all have that one friend, or we all have that one problematic fave who is terrible and, and we are individually willing to, to compromise, right? We are individually willing to say, “Okay, but I love this, I love this person. I love this performer. I love this movie. I love this…” And, and, you know, we’re willing to make that decision on our own account. But when it comes to our institutions, including our museums, I, I actually think that there is more s-, of a, uh, of an issue when they are saying, “We’re gonna separate our, our view of the artist from the art.” I actually think it’s more of a problem because then you’re n-, you’re not just making a decision for yourself and reconciling it for yourself, you’re actually promoting the idea of this, um, of a-…

Promoting this idea that is long as y- you are making something quote, unquote “great” we are willing to overlook what you’ve done no matter how egregious, right? And so I actually think the, the, the, the onus is even greater on public institutions who do not have unlimited resources, who do not have unlimited time and who do not have unlimited to space to make their choices carefully. And, you know, this is where I go back to the idea that there’s not a f- finite amount of greatness in the world. You know, we would all survive if we didn’t see another Picasso retrospective for 30 years, right? We, w-… That doesn’t mean that we forget that he was a historically significant artist who influenced a lot of other artists. Tha-… We don’t have to forget that, we don’t have to put that aside. But the world would still go on, artists would still, uh, find inspiration, um, individuals would still fi-, you know, be able to see, uh, challenging, and interesting, and, and really, you know, genuinely great work-

John Donvan

W- w-… That’s a-

Aruna D’Souza

… even if-

John Donvan

… th-

Aruna D’Souza

… we put-

John Donvan

A-

Aruna D’Souza

… Picasso in a closet for a while.

John Donvan

L-… So that’s what I wanted to bring back to Randy ’cause that was the point you were coming to is let’s put Picasso in a closet for a while, maybe. And Randy what would you think of world where the judgements made about the artist would result in maybe putting them in a closet for a while?

Randy Cohen

W- would… Ho- how far back in time would you extend this? And, and h- how rigorous would your, uh, study of the artist’s behavior be? Would you be hiring private detectives? Um, would you be-

Aruna D’Souza

Oh-

Randy Cohen

… bringing-

Aruna D’Souza

… come on.

Randy Cohen

… historic-… do y-, do y-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… do y- … Well, [inaudible

]… Would you apply this to, to, um, murderous artists of the Renaissance? Um, uh, that… A- a- again I think that y- y- you’re asking, uh, by not making that separation, um, you’re, and asking MoMA to, to make that distinction, um, I, I think th- the walls are going to be, uh, pretty bare.

John Donvan

Ra- Randy, is your argument that doing so would be impractical or that doing so would be bad for the culture wheth-, if, if there were a way to address this?

Randy Cohen

Um, doing so would be bad for the culture, e- even if there were a way to address this. That I, I see the role of, of the, um, of the museum and the gallery as more akin to the world of the library that they judge out these are, these are interesting books that people, um, should have access to, a- and so it should be art, and so it should be with orchestras. Um…

John Donvan

But there’s more room in a library for books than there’s room in a gallery for-

Randy Cohen

But then you’re making a practical argument, um-

John Donvan

I’m, I’m trying to say that I think that what Aruna’s point is, is that s-, uh, resources are scarce, spaces are t-, scarce, choices have to be made but more so than in a library. And that therefore, uh, th- th- this is a legitimate, these are legitimate grounds for making a choice about whether an artist gets space on the wall or not in a particular museum at a particular time.

Randy Cohen

Um, I, I… And there, there’s something to, uh, A- Aaron’s point I think that, um, for me, I, I… You know, the, the, um, um… My attention is up for grabs and, and, and I can look at lots of art. But for a gallery owner it’s more a challenging problem, that, that there’s only a finite number of wall space and a finite number of shows. Um, but I, I, I, I, I think Aruna was a little too, um, facile in, in, in considering the, the ability of s-, these cultural institutions to make what is ultimately th-, a kind of moral distinction that, that-

Aruna D’Souza

But they’re always making-

Randy Cohen

You [inaudible

]-

Aruna D’Souza

… a moral distinction.

Randy Cohen

… so easily I think, um, the source of their funding. Um, and tha- that’s, “Oh, all money is bad,” that’s a seems, uh, a little too facile to m-, to me.

Aruna D’Souza

Well, actually, I, I wanna, I wanna pushback on this idea that somehow the museum is only making a choice when it decides not to put something up as opposed to making a choice when it’s decides to put something up. So Picasso didn’t just magically appear on the walls of MoMA, right? It’s not that MoMA built the museum and somehow the great art just m- magnetically found its way to the space, right? Um, you know, the curators of MoMA, uh, from its beginning were enamored of Picasso, and so they built a collection around this guy, right? And so they are constantly making a choice to foreground that work, and by foregrounding certain work they’re leaving other work in the background, right? And, and, you know, this is, this just a, i- it’s the same way that a, that a concert hall might program their concerts. It’s not like it’s just a free-for-all and, you know, the, the cream rises to the top, they’re actively making a choice to, to platform some work and not platform other work.

And so a-, you know, this… Y- you know, the i-, the idea that, that somehow we’re, we’re giving MoMA too much power by allowing them to choose is a-, not recognizing that they have all the power to choose. And part of the reason that we now think of Picasso as a great artist is precisely because of the choices that MoMA has been making, um, thr-, you know, for almost a hundred years, right? And so part of this is, is just the idea that we’re naturalizing the idea of greatness, that greatness is just something that we know exists as opposed to th- the idea that it’s something that we’ve been told all of this time. And I think that, you know, y- y-… Sort of, Randy at the beginning you said, you know, “If we asked people to reject certain work, where would that put Black readers in the position?” Right? There would be, there would be very little left that they w- w- would be able to read. And I would say, well first of all Black readers can decide what they’re gonna read for themselves and that, as I said, I think personal choices are personal choices.

But I also think what does it mean when we are telling say m-, you know, Black students or, or Black readers that, “Such and such a work is a great piece of literature despite the fact that it completely dehumanizes you,” (laughs), right? I mean, “Despite the fact that the person who wrote it was actively, um, you know, in support of, uh, treating you as less than human,” right? That we are constantly… We get to define what’s great or not, and we are constantly, and our institutions are constantly defining that. And so when we, uh, come to this question about whether we should separate the art from the artist, whether we should compartmentalize, uh, their biography from what they produced, you know, what this is all predicated on is what is our idea of greatness, and who is making those decisions? And I would think that every time we say it’s okay to, um, celebrate the work of such and such an artist, or such and such a musician, or such and such a comedian, um, we are actually… That is, that is a choice and a moral judgment that we are making.

John Donvan

I’m John Donvan, this is Intelligent Squared US. More of our conversation when we return. Welcome back to Intelligent Squared US, I’m John Donvan. Let’s get back to our debate. Aruna, um, you’ve mentioned a few times that the historical perpetrators have tended to be white men, but I, I want to point out even in this conversation, we’ve talked about R Kelly-

Aruna D’Souza

Mm-hmm.

John Donvan

… and Bill Cosby, and-

Aruna D’Souza

Yep.

John Donvan

… James Brown-

Aruna D’Souza

Mm-hmm.

John Donvan

… and Micheal Jackson.

Aruna D’Souza

Yes.

John Donvan

H- how do you pro-… And there, and there would be more, of course. How, how do you process th- those names into the, in the point that you’re making?

Aruna D’Souza

Well, I mean, a-, you know, I think the, you know, the crimes against women, and the crimes against children in the case of Micheal Jackson that happened were crimes. I do-, I don’t know… You know, yes, does it, uh, break my heart? S-, genuinely breaks my heart to have to m-, you know, grapple with, um, Michael Jackson who, you know, I was m-… I don’t know how old I was when, um, when Beat It came out, but like that music defined my pre-teen and teenage years, um, you know, and, uh, y-, really formed the culture around me. Does it break my heart to have to, to have to grapple with, with what I know of him? Yes. Does it break my heart also to see what he endured, um, in terms of abuse and things like that as he was a child? Yes. Um, you know, I’m not-

John Donvan

Well, would you wanna-

Aruna D’Souza

… saying that-

John Donvan

… would you wanna put his music in a closet as well for 30 years?

Aruna D’Souza

Well, I have… Personally, I have put my, his work in a closet-

John Donvan

Mm.

Aruna D’Souza

… for 30 years.

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Aruna D’Souza

I, I also know that there are, um, there are people who have really struggled with it, um, a-, struggled with the decision, and made some time similar dec-, similar decisions to me and sometimes not similar decisions to me. But, um, but, you know, yeah, life is messy and complicated and sometimes we do things that we don’t really wanna do but we know we’re right to do. And, and that, you know, it’s… For me, it’s less… You know, I have no problem putting, you know, t-, you know, saying, “I never wanna see anything from Bill Cosby again. I never wanna hear anything from R Kelly again,” um, you know, I, I, I have no problem with that, um, you know, that decision ’cause I don’t care about it. I have no problem never watching a Woody Allen movie (laughs) because I don’t care for his m-, I didn’t care for his movies to begin with, they all seemed really creepy to me. But then there are point at which, yeah, it’s really hard for me, um, and I would say whether or not-

John Donvan

And, and, and… But what, what makes it hard? And I’m asking that because it sounds as though you are willing to do some compartmentalization of the Randy Cohen kind in given situations. Bu-… Or am I wrong about that?

Aruna D’Souza

Part of what I think, um, produces a lot of anxiety around these questions, and around the question of whether we should cancel, uh, certain kinds of art, or artists have so little to with even the music or the literature, and they have to do with who we were at the time that we encountered it. (Laughs) So, so for me, I, it’s impossible for me to separate, um, uh, Michael Jackson from, you know, my teenage years and dancing around with my friends to the album, and trying to reproduce the dance steps or whatever it was, right? I mean… And so part of it is that I don’t want this thing that was part of, you know, my formation, right, I don’t want this to, to know be, you know, in, compromised in some way, or tarnished in some way as it inevitably becomes when you, um, realize, you know, what was happening, uh, in the lives of the children that were abused, right? Like, you know… But at the same time I think I should be mature enough to say, “Okay, but this isn’t about me,” (laughs) right? This-

John Donvan

Yeah.

Aruna D’Souza

… is about innocence those kids.

John Donvan

All right. Lemme, lemme, lemme take it back to Randy to see w-, h-, Randy how you respond to some of what you’re hearing, um, uh, Aruna’s saying about all of this.

Randy Cohen

I, I, I’d like to go back a bit to, to MoMA a- and say that I, I w-

John Donvan

Let’s, let’s tell who people don’t know that it’s the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Tran- transcending (laughs) museum, okay.

Randy Cohen

I, I would say I look to MoMA to have a certain authority and a c- certain expertise i- in judging the artworks themselves. Um, I have no confidence in MoMA’s ability to make moral judgments about the artists. So if they’re making a judgment, um, they necessarily must make judgments about what to put on their walls, um, and that’s a legitimate distinction if it refers to the art, um, it is not if they become a m-, a morality police. If you can show, um, that i- i- ideas that you reject are a present in the art, well that is the role of both, uh, the, the gatekeepers at art galleries and cultural institutions, and of critics. There’s a community of critics who should attack these ideas, reject these ideas, repudiate these ideas. And if that drives the work off the gallery wall, that’s great.

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Randy Cohen

That’s w-, that’s what critics are supposed to do. They should not be peering in the windows of, of even the most vile artists and saying, “You c-… We c-, we c-, uh, reject you because of your, uh, uh, of your conduct away from your studio.” That, that, that’s inappropriate it seems to me. Um, I, I, w-… And throw in one other thing about, uh, the individual decision, um, to… Well, I d-, I don’t wanna listen to, um, uh… Watch a Woody Allen movie or listen to, uh, a Michael Jackson song, um, a- a- and, uh, of course everyone has the opportunity to do that but I’d say i- i- if you do that privately you, you’re kind of missing, uh, a, a ch-, a chance to engage i- i- in an, in an important public conversation. Um, and so when there’s a kind of-

John Donvan

I- in what way? In what way?

Randy Cohen

Well, if there’s an organized boycott say of someone’s work, um, because of their action, right? Um, if we’re saying, uh, “Roman Polanski did terrible things and we’re organizing a boycott,” um, um, I would honor that boycott and I would avoid going to those movies because now we’re talking about political action. Um, in the same way a- a-, e- e-, I, I would not cross a picket line un- un- unless I, I, until I learn more about it. But my default position in a labor dispute is to honor a picket line. My default position in this kind of boycott is to honor the boycott and, and even if that means depriving myself with the work. And so, I’m, I’m in favor of that kind attack, um, of, of organizing with your neighbors, um, t- to make important cultural points. Um, but what you do as an individual while, while it’s fine, it doesn’t have much cultural significance.

John Donvan

Randy, um, I wanna, t- to set aside the time question and talk about some contemporary cases and see how you feel about them. So, I, I think stand-up comedy is a really, really interesting a- area because number one, the artists are… They, they embody the work, they stand there, they tell you a story, very often there’s an indication that it’s autobiographical, so it’s very person. So the separation between the work an s-, and the individual is… There, there seems to be much less daylight between them. And I wanna, you know, go for an example, s-, I don’t know if you were ever a fan od Louis CK, but f-, watching Louis CK now if you had the opportunity, knowing what you know, does he, does the work become less funny, less engaging because of what you know about his behavior? Perhaps o-, perhaps only at the level of a distraction but also maybe at a more substantial way.

Randy Cohen

Uh, no I think this gets back to the Wagner example that, that comedy is really interesting because as you say, what many comedians portray is a kind of heightened or stylized version of themselves. That the work is presented as a kind of, um, uh, semi-autobiographical act, right? Um, and that, that was even true for my old boss, for Dave Letterman whe- when he was condemned for various improprieties. That was an extension of the persona he presented, that was his act. And so those ideas that, um, w-, I found distasteful were present in the work itself. You didn’t have to go around to Louis CK’s house th-… What Louis CK, the… E- every joke is an assertion about the world, and the assertions, uh, Louis CK, or Bill Cosby, or Woody Allen were making were often quite creepy. Um, and so you, you needn’t look further than the work itself to reject it.

Aruna D’Souza

Well, I, you know, I, I have a very different reading of, uh, L-, of Louis K-, CK’s pre r-, you know, pre MeToo persona and even of Bill Cosby’s. I mean, you know, I… Without, without wanting to make a point of it I think I’m a little younger that (laughs) than maybe some of the others in this room, and so I-

John Donvan

(Laughs).

Aruna D’Souza

… wasn’t (laughs) so aware of-

John Donvan

So tactful (laughs).

Aruna D’Souza

… Bill Cosby’s, I, uh, I wasn’t so aw-, you know, in tune with Bill Cosby’s previous stand-up, um, uh, career but certainly, you know, for me he was very much depi-, defined by The Cosby Show. For me Louis CK was very much defined by the, actually, you know, quite, um… You know, what presented as a kind of… Where he was presenting himself as a, as a kind of feminist, as a kind of woke guy-

John Donvan

Mm.

Aruna D’Souza

… um, in his, uh, in his comedy series. And so actually, you know, what, what I see happening there is that in both cases the, the case of the sort of, um, you know, salt of the earth father f-, you know, father figure, uh, or of the, you know, with it feminist, you know, man feminist, um, was really (laughs) contradicted entirely by, by, by the behavior. And I think that, um, you know, for, for Louis CK at least, uh, in his, you know, in his comeback, uh, you know, shows that, uh, the full scale of the bitterness that was, and the misogyny that was hidden by the performance of feminism has really come to the fore, so I have a different reading of that work than it is. You know, what I’ll agree with, Randy, is that when one went back to Louis CK’s series and looked, a lot of what he was presenting as a form of feminism, or as a form of woke-ness was actually pretty toxic.

And, and I think that often, uh, what should be happening, and I think what Randy sort of acknowledges as part of the process is for us to actually say, instead of saying, “No, this work is great, and so we have to separate the art from the artist,” as a knee-jerk reaction that we actually need to go back and say, “Okay, so let’s assume this person has a certain attitude about the world. How might I see that in the work?” And, you know, often it comes up and ideology works in this way, right? These, as, as these really subtle cues that we often overlook but work to, to, to create attitudes about women, about people of color, about, um, children, about, uh, men and masculinity that, that often are just invisible to us.

John Donvan

S- so Randy, I… Just one more question and, about Louis CK because you didn’t really quite answer the question that I was asking. You know, he, he ha-, he admitted, he admitted himself to unsavory, uh, harassing behavior in, in front of women, he apologized for it, um, and uh, took a little time off and now he’s back out trying to rebuild his career. But my question to you is knowing what you know now, and I wanna get to whether it affects your perception of the work-

Randy Cohen

Yeah, yeah. And a-

John Donvan

… if he c-… Can you laugh at him as easily? If you laughed at him in the past, cou- could you laugh at him as easily or does it, is there an overhang of some kind? Is there as cloud over all of it?

Randy Cohen

Yes. Um, a- a- as I said even a- at the top that, that, um, w-… Knowledge is a curse (laughs) and, and-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… what you know about people, you know, it’s better to be ignorant or, or dead. Um, that, that, um, it cannot but, but help provide a kind of context and change the way you see the work? Absolutely. Um, a- and it’s especially the case with c-, uh, work that’s presented as, as at lest semi-autobiographical which is, is true of all the comedians we, we mentioned. So, sure. So even if Louis CK were telling, you know, 1950s jokes that, that were little distanced from himself, um, because of that performa-, performing tradition of stand-up, to be autobiographical, it w-, it would be harder and harder to distinguish the art from the artist.

John Donvan

Yeah. And I, I wanna point out in the case of Louis CK, we’re, we’re, we’re talking about people like, um, Cosby and R Kelly who have been convicted of crimes, that has not been the case with Louis CK, but he did, he did admit to what, uh, he was accused of.

Randy Cohen

But, but I, I, I sh-, I s-, I sympathize with A- Aruna a- about the n-, finding some of the, uh, uh, Woody Allen movies, uh, a little, a little creepy that (laughs), um, that how anyone could have watched Manhattan-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… it’s a movie about Woody Allen dating a high school kid, um, a- a- and not found that troubling. Um, but, but I would say many people did at the time and knew that at the time and were right to know that at the time.

John Donvan

Yeah. But lot of people didn’t, and that goes to the question of time that you brought up in the beginning. Um, in, in a certain way you said, uh, uh, pain fades with time, time heals all wounds essentially is what you were saying in regard to Wagner-

Randy Cohen

I never like being reduced to being a cliché, but thank you.

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

John Donvan

(Laughs) I thought that was fresh, new language. Um-

Randy Cohen

(Laughs).

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

John Donvan

But there’s another question of time: are we judging people’s behaviors in the past by the standards of today? Certain artists, for example, even Picasso. You, you sort of, you know, you made the case that, uh, to being the bad boy artist who was, uh, uh, rough with women, was sm-, almost part of the mystique but-

Aruna D’Souza

Mm-hmm.

John Donvan

… in other ways morals have changed, expectations have changed, and l- looking back to some of the categories of greats and I know how you feel about that category, nevertheless, are they being judged unfairly for behavior from, uh, of a hundred years ago, 150 years ago, uh, when those standards were not in place in the way that they are now?

Aruna D’Souza

You know, I keep going back to the, what I said near the beginning is that I’m, I’m kind of less interested in judging the behavior of the artist. What I’m more interested in is what we tell, what we’re telling ourselves and what we’re telling our other, uh, each other, and what we’re telling our kids about, um, how they are valued, and how they are, um, positioned, right? So what does it tell our, you know, a young girl going to MoMA and seeing pictures on the walls that really express a kind of misogyny even if it’s done in a formerly creative way, um, a-, you know? Even if it’s done with, you know, a brilliant eye to color, even if it’s done (laughs) with, you know, whatever, a, a kind of, um, nascent abstraction, whatever the things we tell ourselves we value about certain kinds of work. You know, I’m, I’m certainly not saying that every, uh, work of art that we see on the walls has to avoid making anyone feel bad, I mean, that’s, you know, that’s not what I’m saying.

But I’m saying that w- would it be so terrible if we stopped putting up work that was actively racist, that was actively misogynist, right, that was actively, you know, pedophilic… (Laughs) I don’t know what the proper word is. Like for example, Balthus whose work hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that, who painted, you know, very sexualized sort of girls from, you know, around eight or 10 years old. We… You know, w- why would be such a terrible thing is MoMA made the decision, or the Metropolitan made the decision that, “Okay, maybe we’re gonna take this down from the wall”? And I just, you know, quickly wanna that one of the things a-, you know, when I go back and keep talking about this idea that there’s a scarcity of genius, I just wanna point out that for a museum, like the Museum of Modern Art in particular, and I’m only mentioning it… We’ve talked about MoMA a lot today, but, um, you know, I, I only single it out because it’s an institution I know so well.

MoMA has 1,500 works on display at the museum. It has 200,000 works in its collection, and many of those works are great work. Many of those works if they were at a museum anywhere but MoMA would be considered the highlight of the collection. So, there is no scarcity of genius, um, and of greatness.

John Donvan

Randy I-

Randy Cohen

Can I respond to that?

John Donvan

Yeah. And c-, and Randy if you can respond to it but also (laughs) work in the question that I wanted to bring to it. I’m wondering if this is a call for censorship or not?

Randy Cohen

I, I, I just wanted to point out that, that A- Aruna was advocating warehousing painting l-, whose offensive ideas were in the art itself which would allow us to separate the art and the artist. She, she… You weren’t discussing, um, the bad behavior of these artists, you were saying these repugnant ideas were in the work, and that’s-

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Randy Cohen

… my position. Well, then reject-

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… them. Um, I’m for it. I believe I’ve won, is there some kind of trophy here-

John Donvan

(Laughs).

Aruna D’Souza

(Laughs).

Randy Cohen

… I [inaudible

]?

John Donvan

All right. The two of you, I wanna thank you so much for taking part in this conversation and talking this through, uh, with one another civilly and, and with open minds even as you challenged one another. It’s, it’s really… Uh, what we aim to do here at Intelligent Squared is to have conversations where those sorts of dynamics are demonstrated as dynamics that we can all t-, participate in. So, Aruna and Randy, I wanna say to you thanks so much for joining us at Intelligence Squared, Agree to Disagree.

Randy Cohen

It was so fun, thank you.

Aruna D’Souza

Thank you.

John Donvan

And the conversation you just heard perfectly captures why we do this. You know that the way discourse is taking place across our culture these says is pretty broken, and it’s why it’s so unusual but also so refreshing to hear two people who disagree actually be able to converse civilly and to shed light. And we know from so many of you that that’s exactly why you are listening, and it’s why I like to remind you that as you turn to us for that, we turn to you for support, because we are a non-profit, and it’s contributions from listeners like you that keep us going. So please consider sending us a buck or two, or 10, or 50, whatever works. It’ll give you more of a stake in what we’re doing here each week and it will mean that we are here this week, next week, and beyond. I’m John Donvan, thanks so much for joining us, we’ll see you next time.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Intelligent Squared, made possible by a generous grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture Philanthropy Fund. As a non-profit, our work to combat extreme polarization through civil and respectful debate is generously funded by listeners like you, the Rosenkrantz Foundation, and friends of Intelligent Squared. Robert Rosenkrantz is our chairman, Clea Connor is CEO, David Ariosto is the head of editorial, Julia Melfi, Shea O’Meara, Marlette Sandoval are our producers. Damon Whittemore is our radio producer, and I’m your host John Donvan. We’ll see you next time.