Biographical Details or Not? Art & Bitcoin

“Why are you so briefly discussing the life of people you write about? There are not many details of their childhood, education, family, and so on.”

I sometimes receive that question, and that's right; I'm not spending many lines on biographical details, unless there is something exceptionally interesting there, or if some detail of the biography is inseparable from an important part the person's work. I prefer to focus more on the work than on the man behind it. It is part of my opinion about separating the public from the private. The results of published works are public. The lives of the people behind the works are private, and it should stay at least as private as they wish or wished themselves. Sometimes they publish details about themselves, then that part is public, but not really all that interesting anyway.

The work must be able to stand on its own, even if we do not know anything about the creator. Otherwise it is a bad work. Why do you really need to know anything about a composer, artist or author to be able to appreciate his work? Their childhood, their vices, and their love life are certainly irrelevant for the appreciation. Does the fact that a man was a drunkard, a fornicator, or even a murderer change the quality of his art for better or worse? Either the art is good or it is bad. If the man behind it was a saint or an asshole won't change anything. However, our knowledge of his character muddles proper judgement of his art. Better we don't know.

And how about Bitcoin? Nobody knows anything about its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Although a lot of people feel frustration over that, does it at all diminish the greatness of Bitcoin? Are you unable to appreciate or benefit from using Bitcoin just because you don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is or was?

Of course not. On the contrary, I would say. Any knowledge about him could possibly create prejudice and blur our judgement of Bitcoin itself. What if he is something half the world dislike? What if he is a murderer, rapist or heavy drug addict? I have no reason to suspect him to be so, just consider the possibility; would it change your view of Bitcoin?

For many people it would, because they cannot make a clear distinction between the man and his work. It is the same trait that makes some people unable to disagree with someone without getting on bad terms with that person on the whole. One can hate something someone stands for without hating that person as a person. One can hate something someone does, without hating them. You can even love someone, and still hate something they do. There is a distinction between a person and his/her actions, and there is a distinction between different actions from the same person.

In the same way, of course, someone you hate as person, can still do something you like and appreciate. This however, is unfathomable for a majority of humanity.

So yes, in most cases I do indeed avoid engaging in too many biographical details. Some general facts, when they are known, cannot be avoided, but it is the results of the work of people like H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Wagner, Hokusai (or, by all means, Satoshi Nakamoto), that are important from my point of view.

The most important exception was the discussion about creativity, madness, and drug abuse - which unavoidably must lead to a study of certain aspects of the creator's personality. But that was still a study of phenomena, not an unmotivated intrusion into private lives – and it certainly contained no judgemental attitude towards these individuals. (See The Cult of the Green Fairy; La Fée Verte and Mindfood & Drugs, Creative Genius & Insanity)

In the end, for those who desire more biographical details, there are normally many easily available sources on the net. Not about Satoshi Nakamoto, Sharaku or the handful of people who have gone to great length to protect their privacy, but about most others.

Copyright © 2018, 2021 Meleonymica. All Rights Reserved.

(Thumbnail by geralt/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain.)

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