Drawing the Line: What to Do with the Work of Immoral Artists from Museums to the Movies

Abstract

What do you do when you find that a work of art that you love was created by someone who is, or was, morally despicable? This is the question that guides Erich Hatala Matthes in this thought-provoking book. In doing so, he delves into one of the more troubling issues of our time: the deliberate exclusion of certain artists from our public culture (“cancel culture”). One particularly delightful aspect of this book is that Hatala Matthes has not approached it as one might usually approach writing a philosophy book: building some solid foundations and then constructing position through careful argument. Rather, the book starts with the puzzle given above and works through the lines of thought that might naturally occur to that mythical creature from the publishers’ lexicon: “the educated general reader.” Hatala Matthes is a wonderful guide through the labyrinth, coaxing and persuading, appealing to our better natures and...