He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared language for everything broken about corporate life.
His views, always unapologetic, became more strident over time and pushed everyone away. That also felt like family.
You don’t choose family, and you don’t get to edit out the parts that shaped you before you understood what was happening. The racism and the provocations were always there, maybe, just quieter. The 2023 comments that ended Dilbert’s newspaper run were unambiguous.
For Scott, like family, I’m a better person for the contribution. I hope I can represent the good things: the humor, the clarity of thought, the compounding good habits with health and money. I can avoid the ugliness—the racism, the grievance, the need to be right at any cost.
Taking inventory is harder than eulogizing or denouncing. But it’s more honest.
There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry.
I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.”
Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignoring it or refusing to call it out.
But at an art gallery, Picasso is near worshipped despite his torrid misogyny and abuse in his personal life which was terrible even by the standards of his day. The views on his art were formed at a time before cancel-culture was a thing.
Realising:
- everyone has performed good and bad actions
- having performed a good action doesn't "make up for or cancel out" a bad action. You can save thousands of people, but murdering someone still should mean a life sentence.
- you can be appreciated for your good actions while your bad actions still stand.
: all these take some life experience and perhaps significant thought on the concepts.
I didn't give Picasso the benefit of the doubt because he was an amazing artist. I did so simply because I was ignorant of how horrible he was.
Some people have trouble updating their feelings when new information arrives.
I like him -> He causes harm -> I want to continue liking him -> his harm wasn't so bad.
That's all.
Picasso made some cool stuff. I will never display any of it in my home because he was horrible.
I think people are perfectly allowed to appreciate the art while knowing he was not nice as a person. People are multifaceted, both as actors and in judgement of others.
So where to draw the line is the question.
And the answer is: this isn't linear. Context matters and is different for spaces and people. For example, you state seeing the art first, finding out he was not nice later and how that shaped your judgement.
------ Spaces
Not having Picasso art in your house is clearly fine. It's your space, your personal choice what you put there.
Demanding his art be removed from all art galleries around the world is not fine. Art galleries are mostly public spaces whose role is specifically to view artistic results largely from an artistic point of view. They are allowed to acknowledge his personal life and usually do - but that is not how you judge art.
And so we have two perfectly fine and yet contradicting choices towards housing the art of Picasso.
------ People
A victim of similar abuse as Picasso dished out may not want to see his art in the gallery due to association - this is fine.
A person who simply doesn't care for that style of art may be indifferent or also not want to see it - also fine.
A person who thinks Picasso fundamentally moved the art world forward may definitely want to see this art - also fine.
And so differing people's attitudes towards Picasso are also easily understandable and fine.
Well, are you saying people shouldn't complain?
Certainly if an overwhelming majority think he was too horrible to display his art, you would agree that it's fine to remove his art, right?
And before that overwhelming majority is convinced, people may spend effort trying to convince them.
So where exactly is your problem with this process?