Apolitical Borges
September 17, 2025
Jorge Luis Borges is an aesthete. He likes a good story, no matter who is telling it or why. He doesn’t care who comes out well or who comes out poorly, or whether the story promotes ethical or unethical behaviour. All of these qualities that Borges cares little about are what we might call the “political” aspects of a story, using the word in its broadest possible context (as is the current vogue.) All of these aspects are, also, metatextual. They refer to the world situation surrounding the story. When analyzing literature, we can choose to place a work in its contemporary (historical) context, or we can reckon with it as an entity existing in our current context. We can do either of these things, but we can also do what Borges does, which is remove the story from any context whatsoever.1
Borges holds firmly to the belief that a story, once written, has nothing to do with its author at all. The author is a mere category by which we organize works. These works may share certain traits, in terms of style and form, and might pertain to a common set of subject matters. They might even relate to aspects of a particular biography. But this is all in an abstract sort of way. To Borges, the author is a species, not a human being.
To showcase Borges’ critical faculties in action, I give you a few quotes about Rudyard Kipling, author of Kim:
“Impossible to mention the name of Kipling without bringing up this pseudo-problem: should art be a political instrument or not? […] [T]hose who bludgeon us (or amuse themselves) with such a foolhardy inquiry seem to forget that in art nothing is more secondary than the author's intentions.”
“Whether detractors or worshipers, they all reduce him to a mere apologist for the Empire, and tend to believe that a couple of simpleminded political opinions can exhaust the analysis of the diverse aesthetics of thirty-five volumes. The error of so dim-witted a belief is exposed by merely alluding to it.”
“Kipling dedicated his life to writing in accordance with a given set of political ideals, he wanted to make his work a tool for propaganda, and nevertheless, at the end of his life he had to confess that the true essence of a writer's work is usually unknown by that writer; and he remembered the case of Swift, who while writing Gulliver's Travels wanted to raise an indictment against mankind and instead left behind a children's book.”
No one else in the world could so effortlessly and gracefully brush aside the thorny tangle that is Rudyard Kipling as a political entity. I personally find it nigh impossible to write about Kipling without endlessly waffling back and forth between myriad opinions, none of which I can hold on to with any amount of conviction. But to Borges, politics is so decidedly unimportant that it’s quite simple to view Kipling merely as a medium by which certain stories came into the world. The central question he wants to know is: are these stories interesting?
Borges discovers here an obvious yet hidden truth: that writing an interesting work is not a moral act. It does not communicate anything about an author’s moral character. Many works are interesting in spite of the author’s meddling. Many works fail to be what the author wanted them to be, and are great nonetheless — maybe great because of this fact. Many works are inspired by worldviews that are misguided, immoral, or just plain stupid, and yet turn out to be great stories.
Are any of the 108 heroes of Outlaws of the Marsh (aka Bandits of the Water Margin) actually a hero? Do any of the denizens of that fortress at Lianghan Marsh do anything that we could call ethically good, and if so, do they not follow it up by indiscriminately murdering someone on the next page? The story is barbarous, infused with a code of honour that is nigh incomprehensible. It would be impossible to wholeheartedly consider the work of any political or social value whatsoever. But it’s a great book. It’s a fun book, and it’s emotionally absorbing. You end up rooting for these guys simply because they’re there — because of their presence in this book that you enjoy.
A question commonly asked nowadays is, “Can you separate the art from the artist?” The answer is yes, but it’s not as simple as pretending that a particular artist does not exist. It requires a fundamental re-thinking of how art and artist relate in the first place.
(For a more detailed look at this question, see the Appendix)
The question operates on two levels that are often conflated: a personal level and a social level. On a personal level, it doesn’t matter at all what you do with art, if you keep it to yourself. Your relationships with works of art are like your thoughts; they don’t exist for anyone else unless you choose to share them. You can have the most immoral thoughts imaginable, but if you keep them to yourself, they can’t really be said to have any moral quality whatsoever.
The social level is where the question becomes more interesting. The answer comes down to how art, as a general thing, is perceived. Those who argue that art cannot be separated from the artist do so for a few reasons.
If the artist in question is contemporary, aka still alive, then there is the fact that many works of art are a product in a marketplace. In a direct way, by buying a ticket to a movie, you are giving money to the people who made that movie. Further, by talking about a movie in a positive way, you are acting as an advertisement for that movie, indirectly leading to even more sales. Since money is a symbol of both power and value, giving money to someone (even in exchange for goods & services) is an ethical decision, a sort of tacit approval.2
If the artist in question is dead, then the question turns to one of influence. By praising their work, you are expanding its influence, thereby legitimizing the message or worldview that is either explicitly or implicitly represented by the work.
In both of these examples, we see that art is being considered as a particular thing: a medium by which people spread ideas. The ideas that a work spreads are automatically assumed to be those of the author, and the intention of the work is assumed to be the spreading of these ideas. That is to say, all art is essentially propaganda.
Within this framework, there is no way to separate the art from the artist, because there is no way to separate the art from the author’s intentions. In a certain sense, the work itself becomes almost irrelevant. It is imbued with its inherent qualities at the moment it is conceived, such that it is equivalent to a thought. The transition from intention to reality is ignored, and therefore the work has no independent qualities. If its creator were to vanish into non-existence, the art would go with him.
In a world of influence, this is the prevailing conception of art. In a world of followers and subscribers, works are subjugated to the person behind them. The greatest compliment for your work is that someone follows you — you, not the work. It’s not enough that someone enjoys one book, or one video, or one essay, they have to enter your sphere of influence, they have to become part of the mass, the “audience”, awaiting your next work.
In such a system, are we actually creating works of art, or are we just selling ourselves? Do we truly care about our works, or do we just want people to like us?
Is it possible to divorce oneself from this framework? Can one pursue art as a free creation, unshackled from our individual egos and monetary interests?
Are you capable of truly letting go, and allowing yourself to be seen, not as a person, but as a category? Of letting your works sit there, not as a reflection of your personality, but as discrete objects unto themselves, that contain their own reflections? Will you allow others to write their own story about you, one that’s not a true biography at all, but a bibliography? Can you stand by passively as they tell you how you feel?
Borges never told me he’s an aesthete. He wrote a bunch of stories, as well as plenty of non-fiction. I read these, and decided that they tell me he’s an aesthete. I can do this because Borges is not a human being. There certainly was a human being named Jorge Luis Borges, and he did many things, knew many people, and thought many thoughts. But that’s not who I’m talking about when I talk about Borges. I’m talking about Jorge Luis Borges, the name on the cover of some books.
And who am I? Am I the man slouched in an old office chair in his messy little study, typing away with aching hands as my wife gathers our two cats and gets ready for bed? The man who, today, watched tennis, and who, tomorrow, will go out for a hike? Or am I Balckwell, the name in the banner atop this webpage; the name of a user account on Wordpress and neocities; the pen name of Mike Blackwell, author of Only in Dreams? What is it to be an author, but to commit the magic trick of existing in two places at once, and in no place at all — yes, both existing and not, in all places and at all times.
APPENDIX: Can We Separate The Art From the Artist?
POSITION 1: You can not separate the art from the artist.
ASSUMPTION 1A: ART IS A COMMODITY
As a commodity, art has monetary value. The actual amount of dollars and cents doesn’t matter; what’s important is that money is transferred from the audience member to the artist. The transfer of money, per our current norms, has moral value. It is immoral to transfer money to immoral people, even in exchange for goods or services. This is because having money gives people power, and providing power to immoral people is immoral.
This comes at a time when 90% of the money spent by the average money-spender finds its way, directly or indirectly, to immoral people who are insanely rich. Many people would say that being insanely rich is an inherently immoral position, but there still exists a moral imperative that money ought to go to moral people. This contradiction is very tricky, and reminds us that social norms don’t necessarily have to make sense.
Since purchasing art is a monetary transaction with moral value, it makes sense that a conscientious person should not buy art created by immoral people. This is why people do things like boycott Harry Potter. This is a coherent political position.
Under this assumption, art is a commodity regardless of whether any particular audience member pays money for it. For example, if I pirate an album by Kanye West, and then say, “That was a good album,” I am still violating our above moral imperative, because if art is a commodity, then any discussion of art is marketing. If a friend gives me Tupperware, and then I go to another friend and tell them Tupperware is a good way to store food, then I am indirectly promoting Tupperware, even without any money changing hands. The reason this kind of interaction counts as marketing is because manufacturers and brands say it is so: they call it “word-of-mouth marketing.”
ASSUMPTION 1B: ART IS A MEANS OF EXPRESSING SOCIAL VALUES
In this view, the purpose of art is to express social values. An artist and/or art manufacturer (i.e. Disney, etc) is trying to essentially “infect” the world with a particular message. Essentially, we can say that all art is propaganda.
This is another reason why word-of-mouth promotion (i.e. discussion) of art with immoral values is immoral. It doesn’t matter whether money changes hands or not — as long as people are being exposed to the social values contained within the art, the art has been successful. Even if everyone pirates the work, its social values are being spread. Since the purpose of art is to express social values, we can then call the art a success. If immoral actors succeed, this is a bad outcome.
CONSEQUENCE:
When operating under the above assumptions, it is easy to see why separating the art from the artist is impossible. The above position is the dominant position. This is not only because it is the majority position, but because it effectively pushes away the recessive position (below) in any discussion. This primary reason for this is that the above position is tangible. It makes political and economic sense, in a world where politics and the economy are the two most “real” domains. It is the position of a responsible adult existing harmoniously within society.
I find this position fundamentally untenable, for reasons I will make clear after outlining the opposing position. This untenability can not be found within the logic of Position 1 itself. Position 1 does not contain inherent contradictions. It only becomes untenable when we introduce some sticky and unintuitive characteristics of art and humanity.
POSITION 2: You can separate the art from the artist.
ASSUMPTION 2A: ART IS A FREE CREATION
Art is not a commodity, but something created and distributed freely. I do not mean “free” in the sense of “not costing money,” for we showed above that art can be acquired for no cost while still being thought of as a commodity. If we consider art a free creation, then the opposite is true: even if art is bought or sold, its monetary value is not an inherent quality of the art itself. Its monetary value is something tacked on and enforced by social norms.
What does it mean, then, to be a free creation? To put it simply, it means something is created and distributed for no other reason than its own creation and distribution. In other words, “art for art’s sake.” It’s like telling a joke to a friend; you do it because you want them to hear the joke. Since they’re already your friend, there’s no ulterior social motive, or explicit gain to be had; it’s just fun to make your friend laugh. It’s like walking down the street and kicking a rock along as you go. You aren’t trying to put the rock in a particular place, nor are you trying to hone your kicking skills. It’s just something to do.
ASSUMPTION 2B: ART IS A MEANS OF EXPRESSING PERSONAL SENTIMENT
The difference between social values and personal sentiment is this: social values only have significance if shared by others. Therefore, the only reason to express a social value is in the hopes that others will either already share it with you, or will be convinced to share it with you. Essentially, expressing a social value is an attempt to make it normative, if not across the broad population, then at least within a certain group. (For example, the purpose of this essay is to express a social value: one pertaining to the conception of art. My hope is that readers will come to agree with my position.)
Personal sentiments have significance regardless of whether they are shared or not. An opinion is a personal sentiment. If you just want to share your thoughts, with no care as to whether anyone agrees with you or not, then that’s a personal sentiment. People might relate to it or they might not. If there can be said to be a goal in expressing personal sentiments, then it might be having other people say, “Oh, interesting.”
ASSUMPTION 2C: ART IS NOT REAL
In order to adopt Position 2, we have to accept a reality (or unreality) beyond political and economic considerations. We have to recognize that we do not exist merely as responsible adults, but as strange emotional entities with non-corporeal needs and desires. We have to accept the idea that our thoughts do not merely exist to be turned into action, but can be used instead to escape the world of action altogether.
Within this framework, art is escapism. This is not a reductive claim. Escape is good. Escaping means that you thought you were trapped, but you found a way out. The World — in its physical and social manifestations — is a constrictive place. There are laws that must be followed. Imagination gives us the ability to function beyond these laws. Art is a product of imagination — it is the means of sharing our imaginary creations.
Thus, art is a depiction of unreal things. By this I mean that it represents phenomena differently than how they exist in reality, and even presents phenomena that do not exist in reality at all. Its impossible for art to exist without exhibiting these characteristics; therefore we can say that they are inherent to art itself.
This being the case, art exists outside of the realm of reality. Similar to a thought or a fantasy, it doesn’t have to follow the laws that govern real entities. This includes social norms.
CONSEQUENCE:
If art is not real, and therefore does not lie within the purview of moral norms, then the creation or enjoyment of art does not have moral value. It is amoral. Free from profit-driven or propagandistic motives, art is a fulfillment of a basic human desire: the expression of personal sentiments.
While this does not necessitate separating the art from the artist, it does make it possible. Because what we mean by separating the art from the artist, is separating the artist’s moral character from our appreciation of the works they’ve created. This is impossible within our current norms regarding commodities and social values. It is only possible within the free realm of art for its own sake.
The two positions outlined here are mutually contradictory, and yet able to co-exist. There are a lot of artists and/or art manufacturers who explicitly create commodities as a means of expressing social values, and it’s impossible, due to the nature of our language, to not call them artists. However, we must remember what Borges said:
“In art nothing is more secondary than the author's intentions.”
As critics and audience members, we can choose which paradigm to operate within. We can treat a cynical corporate cash-grab as a free creation, or a poem scribbled on the back of a to-do list as a commodity. We can also vacillate back and forth between the two as we see fit. The only thing we can not do is operate within both frameworks at the same time, for this creates intractable contradictions. In order to avoid such contradictions, it's helpful to recognize which assumptions we are adopting at any given time.
We could say that art exists in two realms — the Worldly realm, as a political and historical object; and the Heavenly Realm, as an object outsice of time and space. Such are its qualities that it can be reckoned with in both ways with equal efficacy, and without each getting in the other’s way.
To put a fine point on it, the answer to the question “Can we separate the art from the artist?” is yes. Technically, we can. The question, “Ought we to separate the art from the artist?” depends on where we set the limits of moral action. People tend to operate under confused, unprincipled, and contradictory moral codes — this author is no exception.
1. This is not precisely true. For Borges does place works within a context: a literary context. He sees that literature is a language that transcends time and place, an alternate history-stream by which two authors separated by centuries can be contemporaries. For after books are written, they stay around, and each time they are read, they say anew what they said all those years ago. And so an author’s context lies not in geography or history, but in bibliography.↩
2. Of course, everyone understands that this has its limits. For example, I buy food at Walmart, even though I don’t like whoever the guy is that owns Walmart. I do it because it’s a store that has the things I need, and it’s close by. This type of act is why there exists the slogan “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism,” which tries to absolve a purchaser from ethical sin when it comes to necessities. The people who most often employ this slogan are also those who argue that you can’t separate the art from the artist — which is curious, but not that curious. ↩