WITH the death of the Trinidadian-born Nobel Prize in Literature winner, V.S. Naipaul, over the course of the past week, a familiar debate concerning art, ethics, morality, and the fine lines that both intersect with and divide all of these various elements came pushing out of the usual debris that floats around on social media. The argument, with opposing sides that are both quite strong emerged from Naipaul’s death and made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, inciting opinions and interest as though it were a rare pearl floating on the sea of the internet that spans the entire globe. It had to do, of course, with Naipaul the man and Naipaul the artist.

There is no doubt that Naipaul was a very talented writer who brought a lot of attention to the canon of Caribbean literature. However, people have also posited that despite his skills, Naipaul has also said or done some very controversial, hurtful, offensive and damning things to various groups of people, including individuals who knew him intimately.
The central problem in the situation seemed to lie in how to reconcile the two sides: of what he has done in his professional life as an artist and what he has done in his personal life as a man.

Naipaul aside, the main dilemma, if it is not clear enough by now, is: do we continue to allow ourselves to laud and indulge in books written by men who, by several accounts, have been accused of being an abuser and/or a proponent of ideals that are bigoted? The answer, if there is one, is tricky and sensitive – one that we may never be able to whittle down into a perfect canoe that is able to carry us safely over the seas of ignorance. Nevertheless, the situation is an interesting one to observe, and, as mentioned before, it is one that we have encountered in many artists, aside from Naipaul. The lives of directors, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, for example, present a similar crisis of the mind and heart.

I once polled a class of students about whether it is okay to support the work of writers who do bad things and a great majority of them indicated that such people should not be supported, regardless of how talented the person is. The young people were able to equate the situation to the singer, Chris Brown, who assaulted his then-girlfriend, the pop-star, Rihanna, back in 2009, as an example of someone who is talented but should not be supported on account of his actions. Of course, there are many, many other people who, like the students, share this point of view – and it is a perspective that does have merit and a keen amount of thought, as well as heart, put into it. I suppose that not appreciating someone who is regarded as a monster is society’s way of ensuring that a sort of punishment is meted out to the individual. In another way, this might also be society’s way of ensuring that the attention, awards, money, fame and adulations that might have gone to that individual can go to another equally talented artist who contributes to the society in a meaningful and healthy way, without character flaws that are so severe that they, as individual human beings, tear at the fabric of society in profoundly damaging ways. Of course, it is impossible to ignore the fact that this response is also justifiably built on one’s innate sense of morality and the difference between right and wrong. For these reasons, I do believe that boycotting artists who have committed misconducts is an understandable position to take.

All of that being said, I am still not entirely sure that it is necessarily the position I will always stand behind. After all, isn’t art a separate entity from its creator? Doesn’t art have its own purpose in the world? Doesn’t it, in a sense, have a life and role of its own? Do we not stand to lose something vital, something important, something influential and life-changing, if we make the decision to discard good art because it was created by a bad person?

The truth is that while I am cognizant of the reasons for rejecting the art of “monsters,” I also think good art can come from bad places, like water hyacinths blossoming in a lake of seaweeds and mud – to continue to the aquatic imagery I began this essay with – and if a good piece of art can have vital and long-reaching consequences, then it should be made available for public consumption. Of course, we all have a choice with regards to what we bring into our lives and what we put into, and help to promote, in the world. So, perhaps the binaries in this situation – as with all other situations in which binaries are applied – can be removed completely and, for once, the fluidity of the middle ground can be embraced. There is no rule against liking a book, posting about the book on social media, sending it to all of your friends, and then later going on to bash the author about something atrocious he has done in his life. In fact, I would argue that this is the middle ground that would work best for me when it comes to the man vs. artist situation. The art is not lost nor discarded and it serves it purpose as art in the world. Meanwhile, the artist as “monster” is rejected, independently of his/her beautiful art.

Regardless of whether people find this solution too idyllic or too weak or bound to fail, it really does not matter to me, in truth. It is the solution that I have found for myself and it is the one that I use to navigate the treacherous waters of the world, where multiple facets of people abound and threaten to drag you down unless you develop the solutions to save yourself and those elements important to you and the world (such as good art and those who benefit from it), while allowing everything else that is unworthy (such as an artist that is not a good human being) to flounder and flail and sink below the waves.