Just as an interesting data, it's not Waters voice you're hearing in Wish You Were Here, it's actually Gilmour, who has a much nicer voice. Listen for example to Comfortably numb which sings Waters and compare.
This is so personal, of course, how much you can separate a creator's odious beliefs from their creations that benefit you. For me, Roger Waters' level of Jew-hatred puts him beyond the pale, but I can also see the sneaky little joy of continuing to enjoy his music, knowing it might unfuriate him that his music is benefitting the people he hates! So many writers have been antisemitic because it was part and parcel of their time and place. Edith Wharton is one of my favorite writers, a genius in my opinion. Her occasional sketches of an unpleasant, wealthy, unattractive Jews rankle a little, but I can live with it. At that level, I just accept. Denial of mass slaughter of my people? That is a bridge too far for me.
I love this notion that a good story is smarter, better, more compassionate than its creator. this says much about the sum of us all and hope we can find each other.
This piece makes an important point that I have often made myself. It is vital to separate the art from its creator; to search for the nuanes therein. It is reminscent of the regular arguments about playing Richard Wagner's work in Israel. He was a vile Jew-hater whose works helped to inspire Nazism. But there is no point in banning or censoring his output as that serves only to make potential audiences yearn to listen and watch his work all the more. I finish with a personal memory of a distinguished German-born Othodox rabbi who lived much of his life in Manchester, UK. Felix Carlebach, after whom a series of Halle Orchestra concerts was named, always insisted that he would listen to Wagner's music - but first removed his yarmulke!!
I don't believe that boycotting is the answer, however I would ask you a question. Can you ever truly separate the art from the artist? Will you ever hear "Wish you were here" again divorced from the reality of the ugliness of Waters?
I can not. If I was a Kanye fan I couldn't listen to his music. I'll never hear Van Morrison in the same way again, or be able to enjoy a Woody Allen film the way I once did. It's very difficult to separate the art from the artist, the artist casts a shadow that remains in the work.
Great art (or at least "different", non washed-out art) comes from people who doesn't fit social behaviour expectations. It's just what being a complex human being is, but in a level they must create something beyond just "regular living" to cope with the experience.
If we had to consume art only from likeable people there wouldn't be any masterpieces around. Of course, liking the person behind it or not is to the consumer's discretion, but it might as well be irrelevant to the strenghts of the piece (which will survive the author) itself.
I agree and I find it perfectly natural that a person wouldn’t want to listen/read someone because the personality of the artist will stand in your way. What is crucial though that there won’t be a protocol for that . It is a personal and intuitive reaction. Somehow I feel that these days we are asked to outsource our compassion and let a system take decisions for us which are totally our own business.
Well said. I never knew that about Waters but it’s not surprising. I love his music though. There are other artists who stand for things that I could never support. At some point I made the decision to not follow him or her as a person but I will continue to consider certain songs of theirs part of my life. Songs take on a personality of their own and form their own relationship with their listeners.
The big problem with cancelling all of Waters' music is that the songs of his that people actually care about were from his days in Pink Floyd. There were 3 other people in that band, and none of the others are remotely antisemitic. None of the classic Pink Floyd songs were in any want antisemitic. How far do we have to cast the net? If you collaborate with someone and then 40 years later they do some awful that is unrelated to your work together, do you have to get cancelled too?
It is Less about it being smart and more about it telling you something that you didn’t know before. If it doesn’t , give it a chance and work on it but the moment it will become frustrating you can leave it for another story. It’s cruel , I know.
If he supports Palestinians, I hope he sits down with Mossab Husein Yousef who is Palestinian. And Yoseph Haddad, a very well-spoken Arab Israeli. A YouTube video with the two of them would be great.
Over such statements as this and what it responds to in the original post, I can’t help but shake my head and lament how quickly people reduce each other to a viewpoint without nuance, even when they clearly intend to do — are even saying they’re doing — the very opposite. Don’t either of you think it’s possible, indeed likely, Waters is well-meaning, cares about the Palestinians’ suffering, isn’t antisemitic, AND he’s said some misinformed, myopic, or flat-out wrong things about Oct. 7th that were irresponsible for him to say at the least? In what world are these mutually exclusive?
I think back to an interview Waters gave a couple of years ago. It’s no secret he’s highly critical of Western imperialism and capitalism. He makes strong, worthwhile arguments about that (his better arguments are in some of his songs). Yet he’s also something of an apologist for the Chinese communist government, and in that interview, he waved away China’s human rights abuses like they didn’t matter. It was rather disgusting. And it made clear that someone can be clearsighted about one thing and both blind and dead wrong about another.
Since the comment is regarding the question of Waters' alleged antisemitism, his attitude toward human rights abuses in China may be hypocritical or even lamentable but they aren't directly relevant to the issue at hand.
As for whatever he may have said about October 7th I would like to see a quote or citation before I either condemn or defend it. So far all the attacks I've seen on Waters are of the nature of the German government concocting a spurious case against him in his show for antisemitism which is clearly not justified by the facts.
I don't respond particularly well to either head-shaking or finger-wagging, as in fact most people don't, so if you intend to convince me, you maybe should put those appendages away and concentrate on arguments. Shake away if you must, but you've just steamrollered over one critical nuance by bringing in an issue from a completely different place and essentially ad hominemed him about a different thing altogether.
Pfft. Ad hominem it is not. I know China is a separate topic. I was just illustrating a point, and you’re clearly smart enough to grasp that (and what my point was). If you care to be certain you’re not defending someone voicing an atrocious view — and I think maybe you should care about that — it’s easy enough to look up what Waters said in the recent Piers Morgan interview. I googled “Roger Waters Oct 7th” and got news stories about it (and the boycott) immediately. If you think that there’s no onus on you to do any research — that we have to cite till the cows come home while you put up your feet and criticize sources — well, I’m done playing that game with people on the Internet. Look it up yourself.
Sorry just wanted to add that I had no idea about this interview with Piers Morgan and it wasn't referenced at any point in the article. So it's the first time I've seen it. Generally I follow hard news sources and have no time for celeb views, but I have seen his shows attacked unjustly beforee this.
OK I just looked it up and I saw some comments that are very far from atrocious. I saw the following: “If someone invades your country, kicks all the people out of their home, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years you have an absolute right to armed resistance.”
This is correct in my opinion. Whether the Hamas actions were correct actions either morally or pragmatically, an occupied people has the right to resist. My great-grandfather was considered a terrorist 100-some years ago but is now called a patriot. He resisted occupiers.
The other statements made with Piers Morgan are not completely defensible, such as the claim that there is no concrete evidence for certain crimes. The correct situation is that there’s no evidence of systematic use of those crimes, not that those crimes didn’t occur in some places. But the truth of that (number of incidents) will never be known. Fact is, a major NYT story on that issue was completely falsified, leading Waters perhaps to misunderstand the issue.
My conclusion is that Waters is a committed anti-Zionist who may not have understood all the nuances in the reporting on these cases, and so misstated some of the facts regarding ‘those crimes’, but that miststatement by no means qualifies as atrocious or antisemitic.
I’m not defending all he said, only his principal claim that the Hamas attack is provoked by a condition of occupation that has no other remedy than armed resistance. How such anticolonial resistance is carried out is always a tricky and vexed question. But that it is necessary to defend your people somehow when no other redress is possible, that’s a given.
Thank you for looking up the interview and digging deeper for the nuance. I'm generally in agreement with you and Waters about the Palestinians' right to armed resistance and the absurdity of calling every instance of that "terrorism." I don't think this qualifies as an antisemitic opinion, either. But I think, too, such a right to armed resistance has moral limits, as does the right to self-defense (the IDF has grossly overstepped those limits since Oct. 7th). Now, whether or not "those crimes" -- let's be blunt about what we're discussing: alleged rapes of Israeli women -- were "systematic," actually I do think it was rather atrocious of Waters to spout off in public about whether there's evidence of them when the simple fact is that he doesn't know any more than the rest of us do. I think it's atrocious to wave away such a crime as of no concern. But this is a matter of ethics about which we each doubtless have some knotty ideas, and I'm fine with not batting it back and forth with you all day. Thank you again for looking beyond my head-shaking to the substance of what I wrote.
Good to have a considered discussion and in fact I learned a whole heap more in the back and forth with you than in I did from this article, which takes it as read that the reader is up to date with the latest celeb interviews.
Not referring to the sexual crimes by name is a habit I picked up in discussions with younger Americans who believe that the word itself is a very bad word and cannot be spoken. I've had perfectly respectful conversations terminated by those who think the R-word may not be uttered even in a discussion about that very thing. This sensitivity to words more than deeds themselves that characterises that generation...
Regarding Waters' words on that issue I agree with you completely, though I can imagine he was confused by the refutation of the NYT report by the UK Times.
Anyway we can leave it there. It's been a valuable exchange of ideas I think.
I don't find the old moral question of the links between the person and the work of art very interesting: can we calmly admire the creations of people we'd be reluctant to shake hands with? Should we boycott them? The reality is much simpler: have these works touched you? Did they resonate with you? If so, even if their author is a disreputable individual, or even a creep, this proves that he is nonetheless a human being, your fellow man. You can criticize him and his works, but you mustn't excommunicate him or burn his works.
More important, it seems to me, is the advice given to apprentice writers. Today's global marketing system has decided that we are all artists, just waiting to blossom. Anyone now can be a musician, painter or writer. Publishers are crunching under manuscripts, self-publishing is flourishing, online art galleries are "exhibiting" hundreds of thousands of artists and millions of works waiting to be discovered and celebrated. The road to stardom seems open to everyone. Tik-tok will make you queen or king. In this context, your advice can't be repeated often enough: iif you don't take risks, if you don't venture into the unknown, if you don't twist your brains and guts to extract the unexpected, then you'll just add some more clichés to the déjà vu.
yes
Beautiful
Just as an interesting data, it's not Waters voice you're hearing in Wish You Were Here, it's actually Gilmour, who has a much nicer voice. Listen for example to Comfortably numb which sings Waters and compare.
This is so personal, of course, how much you can separate a creator's odious beliefs from their creations that benefit you. For me, Roger Waters' level of Jew-hatred puts him beyond the pale, but I can also see the sneaky little joy of continuing to enjoy his music, knowing it might unfuriate him that his music is benefitting the people he hates! So many writers have been antisemitic because it was part and parcel of their time and place. Edith Wharton is one of my favorite writers, a genius in my opinion. Her occasional sketches of an unpleasant, wealthy, unattractive Jews rankle a little, but I can live with it. At that level, I just accept. Denial of mass slaughter of my people? That is a bridge too far for me.
*shone
„Remember when you were young
You shine like the sun
Shine on you crazy diamond !
Threatened by shadows at night
You return to the light
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND“
I love this notion that a good story is smarter, better, more compassionate than its creator. this says much about the sum of us all and hope we can find each other.
This piece makes an important point that I have often made myself. It is vital to separate the art from its creator; to search for the nuanes therein. It is reminscent of the regular arguments about playing Richard Wagner's work in Israel. He was a vile Jew-hater whose works helped to inspire Nazism. But there is no point in banning or censoring his output as that serves only to make potential audiences yearn to listen and watch his work all the more. I finish with a personal memory of a distinguished German-born Othodox rabbi who lived much of his life in Manchester, UK. Felix Carlebach, after whom a series of Halle Orchestra concerts was named, always insisted that he would listen to Wagner's music - but first removed his yarmulke!!
This is beautiful to read.
I don't believe that boycotting is the answer, however I would ask you a question. Can you ever truly separate the art from the artist? Will you ever hear "Wish you were here" again divorced from the reality of the ugliness of Waters?
I can not. If I was a Kanye fan I couldn't listen to his music. I'll never hear Van Morrison in the same way again, or be able to enjoy a Woody Allen film the way I once did. It's very difficult to separate the art from the artist, the artist casts a shadow that remains in the work.
Great art (or at least "different", non washed-out art) comes from people who doesn't fit social behaviour expectations. It's just what being a complex human being is, but in a level they must create something beyond just "regular living" to cope with the experience.
If we had to consume art only from likeable people there wouldn't be any masterpieces around. Of course, liking the person behind it or not is to the consumer's discretion, but it might as well be irrelevant to the strenghts of the piece (which will survive the author) itself.
I agree and I find it perfectly natural that a person wouldn’t want to listen/read someone because the personality of the artist will stand in your way. What is crucial though that there won’t be a protocol for that . It is a personal and intuitive reaction. Somehow I feel that these days we are asked to outsource our compassion and let a system take decisions for us which are totally our own business.
How true, Etgar!
Outsourcing!!! is the word for all these banning talks and actions.
How deep you are! Thank you so much for this comment & of course this story . Thank you very much.
I agree. I think yours is the best answer to this dilemma I’ve encountered. Art is separate from the artist, but not immune to the artist’s influence.
Well said. I never knew that about Waters but it’s not surprising. I love his music though. There are other artists who stand for things that I could never support. At some point I made the decision to not follow him or her as a person but I will continue to consider certain songs of theirs part of my life. Songs take on a personality of their own and form their own relationship with their listeners.
The big problem with cancelling all of Waters' music is that the songs of his that people actually care about were from his days in Pink Floyd. There were 3 other people in that band, and none of the others are remotely antisemitic. None of the classic Pink Floyd songs were in any want antisemitic. How far do we have to cast the net? If you collaborate with someone and then 40 years later they do some awful that is unrelated to your work together, do you have to get cancelled too?
Its a good point, guilty by association . We need to choose our friends carefully . For those in the limelight, more so.
Wish you were here^^
what do i do with -not so smart- story? should i put it aside and work on it? post it in this platform? put it in a drawer to never see the sunlight?
It is Less about it being smart and more about it telling you something that you didn’t know before. If it doesn’t , give it a chance and work on it but the moment it will become frustrating you can leave it for another story. It’s cruel , I know.
What a great advice. It clicked something in my head.
I wish we talked about it before i posted my last story 😅
I’ve encountered this situation several times in my life. It would be helpful if a term was coined for this. Perhaps the Etgar Keret Effect
YEAH we should number them, then.
Etgar Keret Effect #1, Etgar Keret Effect # 2 … and so on, shouldn‘t we? For every Etgar Keret Stories that helps us regrasp our tenderness ?
Roger Waters most certainly isn't an unpleasant guy who hates your people. He merely calls for Israeli oppression of Palestinians to cease.
Here he is with Jewish activists Naomi Klein and Norman Finkelstein, who certainly don't consider him antisemitic in any way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7AwigLLGSY
If he supports Palestinians, I hope he sits down with Mossab Husein Yousef who is Palestinian. And Yoseph Haddad, a very well-spoken Arab Israeli. A YouTube video with the two of them would be great.
Over such statements as this and what it responds to in the original post, I can’t help but shake my head and lament how quickly people reduce each other to a viewpoint without nuance, even when they clearly intend to do — are even saying they’re doing — the very opposite. Don’t either of you think it’s possible, indeed likely, Waters is well-meaning, cares about the Palestinians’ suffering, isn’t antisemitic, AND he’s said some misinformed, myopic, or flat-out wrong things about Oct. 7th that were irresponsible for him to say at the least? In what world are these mutually exclusive?
I think back to an interview Waters gave a couple of years ago. It’s no secret he’s highly critical of Western imperialism and capitalism. He makes strong, worthwhile arguments about that (his better arguments are in some of his songs). Yet he’s also something of an apologist for the Chinese communist government, and in that interview, he waved away China’s human rights abuses like they didn’t matter. It was rather disgusting. And it made clear that someone can be clearsighted about one thing and both blind and dead wrong about another.
YEAH we‘ve got 2 eyes (mostly): One may be straight and the other crooked
Since the comment is regarding the question of Waters' alleged antisemitism, his attitude toward human rights abuses in China may be hypocritical or even lamentable but they aren't directly relevant to the issue at hand.
As for whatever he may have said about October 7th I would like to see a quote or citation before I either condemn or defend it. So far all the attacks I've seen on Waters are of the nature of the German government concocting a spurious case against him in his show for antisemitism which is clearly not justified by the facts.
I don't respond particularly well to either head-shaking or finger-wagging, as in fact most people don't, so if you intend to convince me, you maybe should put those appendages away and concentrate on arguments. Shake away if you must, but you've just steamrollered over one critical nuance by bringing in an issue from a completely different place and essentially ad hominemed him about a different thing altogether.
Pfft. Ad hominem it is not. I know China is a separate topic. I was just illustrating a point, and you’re clearly smart enough to grasp that (and what my point was). If you care to be certain you’re not defending someone voicing an atrocious view — and I think maybe you should care about that — it’s easy enough to look up what Waters said in the recent Piers Morgan interview. I googled “Roger Waters Oct 7th” and got news stories about it (and the boycott) immediately. If you think that there’s no onus on you to do any research — that we have to cite till the cows come home while you put up your feet and criticize sources — well, I’m done playing that game with people on the Internet. Look it up yourself.
Sorry just wanted to add that I had no idea about this interview with Piers Morgan and it wasn't referenced at any point in the article. So it's the first time I've seen it. Generally I follow hard news sources and have no time for celeb views, but I have seen his shows attacked unjustly beforee this.
OK I just looked it up and I saw some comments that are very far from atrocious. I saw the following: “If someone invades your country, kicks all the people out of their home, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years you have an absolute right to armed resistance.”
This is correct in my opinion. Whether the Hamas actions were correct actions either morally or pragmatically, an occupied people has the right to resist. My great-grandfather was considered a terrorist 100-some years ago but is now called a patriot. He resisted occupiers.
The other statements made with Piers Morgan are not completely defensible, such as the claim that there is no concrete evidence for certain crimes. The correct situation is that there’s no evidence of systematic use of those crimes, not that those crimes didn’t occur in some places. But the truth of that (number of incidents) will never be known. Fact is, a major NYT story on that issue was completely falsified, leading Waters perhaps to misunderstand the issue.
My conclusion is that Waters is a committed anti-Zionist who may not have understood all the nuances in the reporting on these cases, and so misstated some of the facts regarding ‘those crimes’, but that miststatement by no means qualifies as atrocious or antisemitic.
I’m not defending all he said, only his principal claim that the Hamas attack is provoked by a condition of occupation that has no other remedy than armed resistance. How such anticolonial resistance is carried out is always a tricky and vexed question. But that it is necessary to defend your people somehow when no other redress is possible, that’s a given.
Thank you for looking up the interview and digging deeper for the nuance. I'm generally in agreement with you and Waters about the Palestinians' right to armed resistance and the absurdity of calling every instance of that "terrorism." I don't think this qualifies as an antisemitic opinion, either. But I think, too, such a right to armed resistance has moral limits, as does the right to self-defense (the IDF has grossly overstepped those limits since Oct. 7th). Now, whether or not "those crimes" -- let's be blunt about what we're discussing: alleged rapes of Israeli women -- were "systematic," actually I do think it was rather atrocious of Waters to spout off in public about whether there's evidence of them when the simple fact is that he doesn't know any more than the rest of us do. I think it's atrocious to wave away such a crime as of no concern. But this is a matter of ethics about which we each doubtless have some knotty ideas, and I'm fine with not batting it back and forth with you all day. Thank you again for looking beyond my head-shaking to the substance of what I wrote.
Good to have a considered discussion and in fact I learned a whole heap more in the back and forth with you than in I did from this article, which takes it as read that the reader is up to date with the latest celeb interviews.
Not referring to the sexual crimes by name is a habit I picked up in discussions with younger Americans who believe that the word itself is a very bad word and cannot be spoken. I've had perfectly respectful conversations terminated by those who think the R-word may not be uttered even in a discussion about that very thing. This sensitivity to words more than deeds themselves that characterises that generation...
Regarding Waters' words on that issue I agree with you completely, though I can imagine he was confused by the refutation of the NYT report by the UK Times.
Anyway we can leave it there. It's been a valuable exchange of ideas I think.
I don't find the old moral question of the links between the person and the work of art very interesting: can we calmly admire the creations of people we'd be reluctant to shake hands with? Should we boycott them? The reality is much simpler: have these works touched you? Did they resonate with you? If so, even if their author is a disreputable individual, or even a creep, this proves that he is nonetheless a human being, your fellow man. You can criticize him and his works, but you mustn't excommunicate him or burn his works.
More important, it seems to me, is the advice given to apprentice writers. Today's global marketing system has decided that we are all artists, just waiting to blossom. Anyone now can be a musician, painter or writer. Publishers are crunching under manuscripts, self-publishing is flourishing, online art galleries are "exhibiting" hundreds of thousands of artists and millions of works waiting to be discovered and celebrated. The road to stardom seems open to everyone. Tik-tok will make you queen or king. In this context, your advice can't be repeated often enough: iif you don't take risks, if you don't venture into the unknown, if you don't twist your brains and guts to extract the unexpected, then you'll just add some more clichés to the déjà vu.