Polite western society made some agreement when they realized Céline was an incredibly entertaining shitbag. They agreed again with Bukowski, who knows why; they needed a sarcastic troll to counterpoint the really oh-so-sincere trolls. Every moralizing generation like the present Gen Z runs up against the fact that it's more amusing to read some total asshole's view of the world and laugh, than to toe the party line. The more moralizing a generation is, and the more emotionally bound they are to identifying with and reinforcing some prevailing view, the more titillating some drunk psychopath's apologetics will seem to the people who reject their totalitarian ideology. This is the problem for every generation that knows a little, enough to be dangerous, but not a lot, enough to actually control anything. And it's repeated itself in the 1840s, 1890s, the 1920s, 1960s, and again now.

All great art was made by assholes. You still have to be an outcast to make great art. But that doesn't mean being a rapist or something. It means rejecting both the dominant culture of making money and the subculture that demands worship of their totems and fealty to their structured speech.

We should all judge artists - if they're criminals and molesters. But we are not rightly equipped to judge their art unless we really understand it and can do better ourselves. I'mma get flamed for this.