12-11-2016, 12:58 PM
(12-11-2016, 12:40 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: I guess my reaction to this would be a surprised one. Was I unsafe in assuming most people enjoyed the works and talents of, well, extremely talented people, without caring where they stood or how they acted personally?
Maybe I was. I just want the puppets to dance. I'm pretty conservative but that doesn't make Ricky Gervais not completely hilarious, for example. There are probably thousands of examples.
A little context: Playboy debuted in 1953. This excerpt was written circa 1960-1962. The country was still emerging from McCarthyism. The first two chapters of the Playboy Philosophy (henceforth PP) offer an interesting analysis of the American psyche from 1900-1960. So, at that time, yes separating the art from the person was a radical idea. Even today, it is for some. I know many, for example, who won't watch a Woody Allen film because of his marriage to Soon Yi Previn. The PP was expanded and reprinted in part in issues in the 1970's - 1990's and I always found it interesting. It is often written in response to contemporary criticism rather than as a position/statement paper, but still worth a look, perhaps.
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
