[purple, happy]
You know how sometimes you don’t want to keep consuming media after finding out who wrote it?
[blue, a finger raised]
Sure, people would say you’re having a hard time separating the art from the artist
[purple, distraught]
Well the other day I was reading this book called “Mein Kampf” which was alright, then I looked up the author’s bio on Wikipedia and… damn
[blue, blasé]
…
https://thebad.website/comic/advanced_media_literacy
it’s a shit book even on its own merits so if purple liked it they likely got some biases confirmed by it 😬
I’ve never read it, but my understanding is that I’m in good (and bad) company, because almost nobody has read it. Even in Nazi Germany, people only bought it because they were expected to own a copy, and they didn’t read it. Supposedly, it’s not well organized and hard to read, in general, even in its original language. People bought a copy and kept it in their homes to show loyalty, similar to how they’d have a portrait of Hitler.
Modern AFD voters don’t read their parties program either so there’s that
I’ve attempted to read it. It’s not good. Like not even just talking about the subject matter. It really is just poorly laid out in poorly written. I only managed to make it about a quarter of the way through before I had to set it down because it was just giving me a headache.
You don’t understand, the translation doesn’t properly convey some of the climactic conclusions. You have to read it in the original Aramaic to really understand it
Turns out he was failed writer in addition to being a failed artist.
Huh, my pattern recognition is hitting me with Crowder, Shapiro, and Yiannopoulos. Wonder what that means.
AFAIK, he dictated it.
I was in a used book store and they had a copy of Mein Kampf that had been printed in Nazi Germany, wrapped in a plastic protective bag with a tag that read “Do Not Open - Ask For Help.”
It was probably to keep people from getting their greasy fingerprints on an old book, but I like to think the admonishment had a double meaning.
I’d be curious how they got the book in the first place because if I owned a used book store I’m not touching that without a very good reason. You can’t in good conscience sell it, because any private collector who wants it is 99.99999% of the time a terrible person and should be kicked out of the store; it’s probably not something a museum is interested in even as a donation; and destroying it feels a bit too… I don’t know, it wouldn’t be wrong to destroy it but the irony is too thick for me.
I read a lot about nazis, occasionally I idly think “wouldn’t it be neat to own a Reich’s coin or maybe a book”. And then I think about it for 3 more seconds and go naaah
You don’t need Wikipedia to know that mein Kampf is from a nazi. You could separate Hitler from most of his early art but not his political art. It’s literally called “MY” struggle. He is going to mention himself a few times.
It’s actually more “my battle” than “my struggle”. Not that this matters much. But the latter sounds more like Adolf’s personal struggles with his job, wife, life and all 😁
Mhm… imho it’s somewhere between, I don’t do battle with the six year old on the way to the pediatrician, but it absolutely was a Kampf.
Struggle is too tame but battle doesn’t have quite the same additional less violent connotations as Kampf.
Since with the H-man battle is heavily connoted with the war, struggle might be the better translation to convey the exact meaning.
My conflict? Also too tame. My fight?
But his Kampf was more of a battle than a struggle to get a kid to the doc, I’d argue.
You don’t need Wikipedia to know that mein Kampf is from a nazi.
And 99.999% of people who find that book specifically sought it out because they already know who the author was.
He is going to mention himself a few times.
The whole beginning is autobiographical. It’s more than just a few times
Ever wish your racist uncle’s thanksgiving rant was put into book form? Now there’s Mein Kampf! No coherent thoughts, just pure ranting!
It’s quite a struggle
‘Mein Kampf’ isn’t art. It’s non-fiction, at least insofar as the writer believed it to be describing the real world. ‘Separate the art from the artist’ doesn’t apply to non-fiction.
isn’t art. It’s non-fiction
Bruh. Not to defend that particular book, but non-fiction absolutely can be art.
Would you say a painting isn’t art if the painter painted a picture of something that actually exists, making it a non-fiction painting? Just because you’re describing the real world doesn’t mean it’s not art.
A painting of a real person is still to a degree fiction. It’s a facsimile of a real person. The subject is just as important as the skill when it comes to the actual worth of the piece. You can appreciate it for the technique and the skill being put on display while separating that from the artist itself.
Books on the other hand are a big harder to do in such a manner. You can appreciate a written work for its technical execution. But intrinsically a written work written as a non-fiction is going to be more linked to the actual invoked thought of the piece in the meaning of the piece than it is the actual technical execution of it.
So there’s less to separate from the artist.
Or more bluntly put, if a fascist draws a picture, that picture doesn’t inherently have to be fascist. But if a fascist writes a book about fascism from their own perspective and opinion that book’s fascist.
Are documentaries art? An aircraft service manual surely can’t be, what about a medical school book?
I draw the distinction between art and craft. One can be a craftsman, very skilled in the techniques of a process, without being an artist, a creator of expressive works. A woodworking craftsman can make perfectly dimensioned copies of a table, using great skill, and they might be beautiful, but unless they design the table they haven’t necessarily done anything artistic. In writing non-fiction, one can have great craft (making eloquent, precise, and concise word choices, making phrases that are memorable or entertaining without compromising verity, etc.) but being creative is the departure point from non-fiction. If you create facts and put them into your non-fiction, you, at best, are mistaken, but are likely simply falsifying evidence or lying.
Who said art is ‘creating facts’?
Take a personal memoir, for example. You don’t think that can be art?
No one said art is creating facts. Perhaps I was not clear.
A memoir can be written with great skill, craft, eloquence, sensitivity and/or care, but it cannot be an act of creation and a non-fiction work at the same time. If you write a memoir and are creating events, making them up, you are not writing non-fiction. If you write a memoir in which you have not created anything, simply reported the events, it is non-fiction, but not a creative work. It is productive, produces an artifact, not creative, creating something new.
Mein kampf sucks. I don’t understand this comic.
I think it’s meant to be criticising people who just say “separate the art from the artist” for things like Harry Potter, but them pointing out the hypocrisy with a book that no one can defend because of who wrote it. That’s my take, anyway
Yeah but the point of the saying “separate the art of the artist” is that it’s difficult to reconcile a piece of media you would otherwise like with the fact the artist is a POS.
Basically everyone agrees Mein Kampf sucks, even Nazis only like it performatively. So there’s no reconciliation necessary if you don’t like the media anyway. OP’s comic feels like a miss, the obvious strawman doesn’t even says he likes it just that it’s alright so it barely even fits the saying anyway.
Yea mein kampf doesn’t need a evil writer to be evil. It would be evil if it was anonymous or ghost written. Other art by Hitler would have been a better argument as it is just a picture of a city or building and doesn’t have any racist or antisemitic content but still is stained by him in its story.
I think the joke is that the guy is unwittingly outing himself as a Nazi. He thought it was great until he learned the author’s reputation.
I know, but the book has a reputation to suck big time, and the character says it was alright which makes it confusing. Also everyone knows who wrote it.
It’s a straightman-funnyman routine, where the funny man is often portrayed as extraordinarily dumb for comedic effect while the straight man acts as the audience surrogate reacting in the way we would react, also for comedic effect.
I can separate the art from the artist. for example I like the monster hunter series by Larry Corriea, and the Kildar series by John Ringo. Both are massive right wing dumbasses. So I consume their content, I just make sure to never pay for it so they never get a dime from me.
On a side note, if you want a good laugh,you really should read Ringo’s 2008 novel “The Last Centurion.”
It’s his take on a global environmental catastrophe and how a poorly substituted Hillary Clinton clone bungles the whole thing.
The best part is he’s come damn close to predicting how the Trump administration works right now. It’s fuckin’ hilarious!
Obligatory
nsfw
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-iron-dream/d13f3bdb606d4429
One of the most mind fucking books ever written.
The forward explains that Adolph Hitler came to the USA in 1921 and became a science fiction illustrator. Eventually, he shifted to writing and this book is his master piece.
Speaking of which, I was listening to this band called Lost Prophets the other day. I think their music is really good! Have you guys ever heard of them?
One day I had a memory that there was some popular band back in high school and I wanted to find them again and have a nostalgia listen. I had no idea until years (decades) later
There’s nothing wrong with reading mein kampf until you start considering it art.
A buddy of mine and me played this game while drunk, where we’d randomly choose a page from the book and then a random passage from said page. Pretty much every single time it was the most insane bullshit aver put on paper. It was hilarious.
