Fistful of Ebola said:
I never claimed that they were the most accepted or most modern idea, and whether that's true or not bears no relevancy to this discussion, the debate was won by being correct.
Correct in what sense? it is not provable in any scientific way and while its reasoning is logical so are the many counter arguments.
The argument assumes that we can trust the artist about his intent, or that we should accept it at face value. Even if I accept this, it doesn't change the fact that people are full of shit [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases]. Skepticism of what an author claims is the meaning and intent of his work is warranted and the position of the author as the only being who can imbue a text with meaning doesn't mean he knows what that text necessarily means.
But if the text is open to free interpretation by anyone it becomes meaningless, I could claim anything I wanted about any work of art, I could say for example a work by Rothko is a horrible distasteful example of homophobia. While of course you will claim this is unfounded because it is based not on good logical reasoning, the unfortunate truth is that critical analysis of art is
not science and what constitutes good reasoning is purely a subjective matter, and you either have to allow all or no interpretations to be taken to avoid bias. Of course you could take the even worse option and be bias in you judgment, instead of casting art from the artist to the people but instead to what is considered acceptable by modern society but in which case demeans the art from being art and instead makes it a tool of society.
Nor does it imply that the author knows what his intent was or that he's being honest when he communicates his intent to us. I'll refer you to my above thought experiment.
You are right in your example when you say that he can wave away criticisms of homophobia, they have no objective proof to show he is homophobic simply their reasoning (which is subjective). The worst claim they can level against him is that is work is an awful representation of his intentions.
No it derives from their status as an authority, which makes the authorial method absolutely an appeal to authority. Worse, you're supporting it with circular reasoning (the author says so ergo what the author says is true).
A circular argument is that is A is true because B is true and that B is true because A is true Ad infinitum
My argument is simply that A (the intention of the artist) is defined by B (the artist) and so if B says A is true it is to all intents and purposes. There is no circularity to this because B is not reliant on A.
None of these things can be misogynistic, but they can convey attitudes and beliefs that are. Or do you honestly believe that art occurs in a vacuum where it informs nothing and is informed by nothing?
Art may inform or be informed by society but that does not mean society should apply its criteria for morality upon art, a work may or may not convey a misogynistic idea but that is uninteresting and irrelevant to art. Saying a work of art has misogynistic meanings is as nonsensical as saying Darwinism can convey evil ideas, it most certainly has in the past with things like eugenics but it is an irrelevant and tedious claim because morality is not the focus of science just as serving the moralistic ideals of society is not a concern of art.
