The morality of reading, or not reading, Alice Munro

I begin with these thoughts as a response to the controversy surrounding Alice Munro, the celebrated Canadian Nobel Prize winner in literature. Her daughter, Andrea Skinner, wrote an essay in the Toronto Star a few weeks ago, about the fact that she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather. This abuse was known to her mother who aligned with the man against her daughter. The revelation about the abuse was not a secret, as Skinner had filed a police complaint in 2004, following which her stepfather was given a suspended sentence. Munro was awarded the Nobel in 2013. Apparently, this episode did not affect the decision of the Nobel committee.

Skinner’s article has led to a churning in the academic as well as the literary world. Should Munro be taught in class? Should we read her books now? Do her stories represent the attitude that made her behave in this reprehensible manner with regard to her daughter? Should we show our solidarity with feminists and survivors of sexual abuse by censoring her work in our classes, or expunge it completely as a form of posthumous censure?

A line from Skinner’s essay is illustrative. She writes that after she told her mother of the abuse, her mother was not supportive of her. Munro had written a story with a similar plot line of a girl being abused by an adult. Skinner points out that “in spite of her sympathy for a fictional character, my mother had no similar feelings for me.”

This comment captures an important facet of writing fiction. Good writers produce characters who go beyond the frailties of their own lives. Stories are a form of reflection, both for the writer and the reader. Storytelling is not merely a reproduction of one’s own life, although that life can often be the foundation for the narrative.

The controversy now is more than a judgement of her personal life and is about the artistic merit of her work. Despite the successes of the characters in her stories to alert and move readers about certain issues, should she be deemed unworthy of reading and teaching because of her personal failure as a mother/woman/human?

One of my friends refuses to buy anything from a well-known chain because he believes that they follow unethical business practices. It is as if the objects for sale in that shop are tainted by the immorality of the company which owns that shop.

There were some prominent musicians who were accused in the #MeToo movement in music. Many listeners boycotted these musicians as they felt that their music itself was stained by their actions in their personal lives.

On the contrary, famous scientists who have produced great work have not had their work boycotted or rejected because of their immoral personal behaviour. Arguably, the greatest immorality in scientific work was in producing the theory and technology of nuclear bombs. Yet, all those scientists are not only revered but their work has been valourised and developed even today.

Similarly, many famous figures in philosophy have not had their work cancelled or even questioned even though their personal life was built on practices of misogyny, racism and casteism. Philosophy departments around the world teach these thinkers as if their views can be effortlessly decoupled from their regressive and dangerous beliefs and practices.

These examples illustrate a split in the responses to the relation between what is produced and the moral quality of the producer. Modern academic disciplines are built on the assumption that knowledge that is produced should be differentiated from the moral qualities of the individual. This belief was not always held and is part of a specific social process of modernity to liberate scientific knowledge from the constraints of morality.

But art does not have this easy way out. Art has always had a close relation to the world of feeling rather than that of reason. Art moves us in ways that science and philosophy texts don’t. We share a greater familiarity with music and other arts, than with academic disciplines. Because of this aspect, art, particularly stories, are much closer to us and impact us much more than other knowledge productions.

Art has had its share of immoral artists to the extent that the term “monstrous” has now become common in referring to them. There is a long list of famous writers, filmmakers and other artists whose moral lives are “monstrous”.

The problem with these “monstrous” artists is that they produce what is seen as great work but once we hear of their infamous life practices, our reaction, reception and judgment of their artwork gets distorted.

But the conflict rages on between those who think that artworks are independent of the moral qualities of the artist and should be seen as such. When they say this, they are basically converting artworks into pieces of objective knowledge, as in the academic disciplines.

Can art really be seen in this manner? After all, an artwork gets its value through a social process. One becomes a famous writer due to a variety of social factors, the most important of which is the support of a group of people who promote a person’s work. But this aspect is hidden when the value of an artwork is reduced to some independent aesthetic qualities present in the artwork.

But these aesthetic qualities that presumably define great art are as much a product of a community of critics, friends, magazines, socialites and others. An artist who depends on the social world for her legitimacy cannot, when inconvenient, say that they cannot be held accountable to society.

Art has the capacity to show us a world through its own filters. I will read Alice Munro now, not for her stories but to see what those stories can tell me about the terrible human capacity to hurt others around them.

Sundar Sarukkai is the founder of Barefoot Philosophers and author of the novel, Following a Prayer. The views expressed are personal