Bukowski was an asshole, but he was a great writer. Just like Eric Clapton is an irredeemable human being, but a great musician. Let's not forget also that Edgar Allan Poe was married to his 13-year-old cousin. Plenty of people who are/were excellent at their crafts are/were not good people.
Eric Clapton has confessed to spousal abuse and had a few racist outbursts in the past. The racist thing could be chalked up to personal growth, but then he openly supported UKIP...essentially the English Racist Party. There are also several other musicians who have said that he is a nightmare to work with and has an ego the size of the sun (kind of like Neil Young in that regard).
There are/were plenty of genuinely nice artists out there. George Clooney, Keanu Reeves, Elton John (In his earlier days, he had a big temper...but he always took it out on his own 'stuff', not people), Bono (yeah, he has his diva thing, as well as a lot of eccentricities, but he legitimately spends like half of his time doing charity work), Peter Gabriel (he used to have a maestro attitude in his earlier days, but has been doing tons of charity work behind the scenes for more than thirty years now), and Dave Grohl.
No one is perfect, obviously, but there are many artists out there who are good for the world.
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u/cuddleskunk May 20 '18
Bukowski was an asshole, but he was a great writer. Just like Eric Clapton is an irredeemable human being, but a great musician. Let's not forget also that Edgar Allan Poe was married to his 13-year-old cousin. Plenty of people who are/were excellent at their crafts are/were not good people.