Here I explore a very slippery subject, as I attempt to tap into the complex moral dilemma of whether or not great art produced by a morally wayward person can be justified.

In college I found myself in a very memorable debate with a professor, as he mourned the suffering the undeniably gifted poet Ezra Pound experienced while imprisoned for 13 years on charges of treason following World War II. Pound was arrested in Italy due to his unwavering support for Mussolini, as he held the belief that art is able to flourish under strong leaders. Pound used his talents to influence people against the Allies, which lead to his incarceration and subsequent mental collapse in prison, though he was able to produce one of his most renowned works while incarcerated. My professor held the view that the breaking of Pound’s mental health was a tragedy, while I forcefully protested that he should have never been released from prison due to his support of a brutal, fascist regime. (One that drove my very ancestors out of their home country and to America for safety I might add.)

My professor viewed my mindset as naive, and he was forceful in his conviction that Pound’s genius and the works of art that he was able to produce were more integral to humanity than the damage caused by him influencing who knows how many people to brutally hate, slaughter, and torture countless innocents. In short, he believed that the genius of Pound’s influence outweighed the horrors he inspired. I shouldn’t have been surprised when years later, as my depression surfaced in my work, the very same professor (then my mentor) dismissed external fears about my mental health, telling me that the real tragedy would not be the loss of my life, but the loss of my life if it expired before I was able to produce all of the art that my hands and mind possessed. Therefore in his opinion, the worth of a person should be judge solely by the art they are able to create. The life of a truly corrupt person who is able to spin magic is thus to be immeasurably valued over the life of an empty-minded saint. Of course, the question I am asking is is this justified?

Life is fragile, fleeting, positively impossible to hammer into place. The art we create is in fact able to outlast our brief existences. But another thing that can leave an imprint and haunt generations is mass terrorism and disaster. While it’s tragically true that modern terroristic tragedies deserving of due remembrance, such as 9/11, have devastatingly already been relegated “textbook tragedies,” just look at the lasting effect the Holocaust had on the world. Can you imagine how vastly different the world would be if the Holocaust had never happened? The mass destruction of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl didn’t just fade away after a few years. So while it’s true that our art is able to outlast our transient lives, it’s also apparent that the reach of tragedy is able to impact society more than we may wish to recognize. Therefore, I feel the same as I did before; Pound simply cannot be forgiven on grounds of being an inspiration due to his complicity in a cataclysmic devastation.

Ah, but now this moral debate grows even more complex. If I could turn back time and wipe Pound out of existence in order to prevent his nefarious influence, then how much literary excellence would I be erasing? How would that effect the growth of literature, it’s expansion and revolution? Despite his mass controversy, Pound was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth-century. His work had an enormous impact on modernist literature, and if one were able to perceptibly trace back the seeds of inspiration, it’s undeniable that many great voices would be revealed to have been shaped by his reach. For example, it just so happens that Pound edited my favorite poem of all time, The Waste Land, for his close friend T.S. Eliot, a noted anti-Semitic. The Waste Land has been enormously influential on my life and stands as a pillar in poetry. I have read it and listened to it and recited it so many times that it has become imprinted in the essence of my being. And yet, this masterful piece of poetic genius could only be birthed by the minds of men who wanted an entire race of people annihilated. So now, ask me what I think about erasing Ezra Pound. Suddenly I don’t know how to frame an answer.

This kind of moral debate isn’t relegated to decades ago. In fact, it’s hyper-relevant to modern times. Just look at the “Me Too” movement, which brought about the axing of a number of Hollywood hard hitters. The sudden shift in the Hollywood landscape undeniably negatively impacted current production value. (Just look at what happened to House of Cards after the lecherous Spacey was fired.) But of course, the mass purge was needed to expel predators and rightfully alter standards in order to protect people who were being taken advantage of, molested, and raped. But does that make it wrong, from a solely cinematic perspective, to miss seeing Spacey on the big screen? (Or the little one.) Let’s make another jump. Are you supporting pedophilia by listening to Michael Jackson? Is it morally wrong to watch The Cosby Show reruns or be inspired by the majesty of Annie Hall?

Likely it’s grown clear by now that there is no way to truly measure if the art someone is able to produce can even justify the actions that they take. To make it even more complicated, the question of forgiveness further impedes this investigation. For example, it would be impossible to trace back the Nazi reach of Pound, so does that mean he never had a chance of being forgiven? On the other hand, Samantha Geimer, who was raped by Roman Polanski at age 13, has publicly forgiven him and asked for the case against him to be dropped. Since she was the one hurt by his deplorable actions, does that make it alright to welcome him back to society? Since Rihanna forgave Chris Brown, does that mean we are allowed to, too? Was John Lennon’s later life of spreading peace enough to compensate for his history of abuse? If each and every woman Bill Cosby assaulted decided to forgive him, would that make it alright to laugh at his old jokes once more? How do we judge guilt, and how do we evaluate restitution? And these are just some of the many aspects of the puzzle to consider.

At the end of the day, if we suffer for our art, if we do terrible things to produce durable beauty, tell me, can we ever be forgiven?