Nostalgia, personal experience—these things become meaningful in terms of calculating the badness of the act against the greatness of the work. Greatness isn’t something that is simply agreed upon by authority—as we’ve seen, that authority too often runs contra to the interests or the experiences or simply the aesthetic tastes of too many people. What makes great art depends on who we are and what we live through. It depends on our feelings. It’s too easy, when we’re running the calculus, to forget love. Love that is a quiet voice next to the louder call of (even deserved) public shaming.
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