The Return, Part 6
I have been meaning to talk, or at least put into words, how to look at a body of work (scientific, artistic, etc) if the producer of such work has been disgraced by a scandal. What follows is very incomplete and likely disorganized.
I used to watch Louis C.K.'s TV series Louie. It was an amazing show, especially the fourth season's Elevator arc and Pamela's arc. I haven't watched these episodes (although they are very good) for more than 5 years, especially in light of the Louis C.K.'s scandal. This made me wonder about another series that was somewhat “tainted” by the actions of a member of an ensemble. Parks and Recreation was a good show too but Aziz Ansari was also dragged into an accusation. He even talked about it in his Netflix standup special, which I never watched. I still watch Parks and Rec. Perhaps in my mind, the part does not represent the whole. How do you separate the art from the artist? Should we condemn the works of art because of indiscretions by a artist? What makes answering this question hard is that indiscretion depends on the parties involved and the current societal rules.
Another example much closer to my field is R. A. Fisher. The University of Adelaide maintains a digital archive of his collected papers. I invite you to take a look and profile a person who is quite multidimensional and contradictory. Calling him a racist is like looking at just the sample mean of a distribution. I am not defending the person because he is already dead. My defense means nothing to him or to me.
R. A. Fisher, as they say, is a product of the times. There are definitely wrong things he says, especially in his “eugenics phase”. Of course, I am overlooking a lot of fights he has with scientists who disagree with him. Eugenics is wrong not because we are looking back and judging using a current yardstick but because it undermines our individual and collective humanity (past or present). Now, systemic and systematic racism is a very salient thing because people are “doing their research”. It has gone to the point that the name of the Fisher Court accommodation block at the Rothamsted Experimental Station has been renamed AnoVa Court. This was a clever move. A bit too late, but clever nonetheless. A big issue is that Fisher's ideas permeate our work. Does that mean we should not use these ideas? Should we repudiate these ideas? Can we separate the science from the scientist? (On a light note, I typed scientits accidentally.)
Perhaps a harder question to grapple with is that many of the conveniences and the improvements in our lives are products of the times in which they were created. Some of these conveniences are products of what we would now consider unethical acts. Some improvements we now enjoy in our lives were products of genetic experimentation on non-consenting subjects. A part of why I think many people react very differently to the “cancel culture” is a lot more basic. I think that having indirect “blood on your hands” may be the core issue. Can it be washed away?
The separation of art/science from the artist/scientist is likely not easy to achieve and we do have to have a conversation about these aspects. Without this conversation, which does not need to be global, we will never get a sense of the diverse opinions towards this matter. We will also struggle to find answers to the narratives we weave: Are scientists heroes? Are artists entitled to be temperamental? Should we forgive transgressions by scientists? An even harder question to answer is: Can bad decisions be balanced by good decisions? Do they somewhat even out?