Morality Issue

As others have said, if you are able to separate the artist from the music then it would seem you should go. I can't do that, I attribute that to my rigidity of thinking, but I'm not you so that's for you to decide. The opinion in the comments seems to be split fairly equally both ways so there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what would be appropriate here.

I haven't had time to separate the art from the artist.  If they had postponed the tour pending investigation I think it would have been better. For contractual reasons they wont cancel so it's like this the audience is being judged before they've had time to think like we enabled all this to happen, when the majority had no idea. I don't feel qualified to make a decision on this decision and I'm a bit resentful of both the band and the protesters for leaving it to us with this burden. If you show up the band sees it as a win against the protesters, and the protesters see you as an enabler. I'm not an enabler, and I don't support abusers.  I just want to hear some music then go home.

Not quite the same but it's a situation involving my son. He's very bright, reading at the top of the assessment criteria, i.e. at age 16, when he's 9, is advanced across most academic subjects at school and if they allowed him, would be doing work several years above his age. We were asked whether we'd be thinking about him doing the scholarship exams for the local public school as they thought he would thrive there, we replied that we aren't as both my husband and I are morally against the public school system, we wouldn't want to support it by having our son participate, that would be hypocritical of us.

Morals and ethics are pointless if they don't apply to you as well as everyone else.

I also believe that whilst any allegations were being investigated by the police and the employer, particularly ones of such a serious nature, that the accused is usually placed on suspension for the duration of the investigation. I could be wrong, I'll check with my husband as he's done HR work for years. So your hypothetical situation would be unlikely, the doctor would be suspended until the allegations were proven either true, when they'd be sacked, or false, then they'd be reinstated.

What people do, say and believe matters, so whilst they have the right to their own autonomy of action and thought, they don't have the right to no consequences for those things if they're abhorrent, so I also have the right to mine and can choose to not engage with them.

I try to take the points from the information I read, not the feelings.  All news, no matter how independent it tries to be, is biased.  Its just a flux of people talking, and me also being biased by everything I've ever read, experiences, race, age, birth and general preferences, I only really have my gut to work with. I feel, rightly or wrongly, that the odds are quite high that the accusers are correct. Obviously, unless either of us where there, none will will ever know.  With AI and deep fake, our guts are all we really have left these days. All media, Mainstream, social or "independent" is essentially dead and for entertainment purposes only.

Just an opinion. No going to fight anyone on this.

Yes, he was under a death sentence for it in Rome and spent the remainder of his short life on the run, still painting apparently and producing some of his most famous works. That's not to say he was a saint before the sword fight that ended in him injured and the other man dead, he was belligerent, violent and rude, but still very popular as an artist. It shows that whilst he was a killer, people still got past that. I'm not convinced that would happen now, or at least not to the same extent.

He is an interesting moral hypothetical for you then. Suppose you had a child, and that child had an illness and extremely rare illness and an extremely lethal illness.

and in all the world there is one Doctor Who has studied and developed treatments for this one illness.

now suppose this doctor is a Nazi or TERF or even perhaps is accused of being a paedophile. Would you want them to treat your child? What should matter to you more the quality of the treatment or their quality as a human being? There are lots of other doctors who are nice human beings but they can’t save your child.

when it comes to choosing who to go to for products and services what matters more the person or their talent.

I’m pretty sure murder was still frowned upon in Caravaggio’s Time.

Well for starters here we’re dealing with accusations it’s actually quite hard to sack someone on the grounds of an accusation about something that happened outside of work.

also it’s quaint but you think but I buy bread from a little bakery on a corner somewhere. I buy my bread from the supermarket. That bakery is more like a factory with loads of workers and a conveyor belt. I’m willing to bet at least one of them is guilty of something unpleasant.

I believe the law should punish wrong doing not employers. Which means if nothing is been proven it’s not an employers place to guess innocence or guilt. And if something has been proven then they’ve gone to prison then they’ve done their time and it’s not an employers job to add to their sentence. In fact I think it’s very important that people who have come out of prison are allowed to rebuild their lives and re-enter and re-integrate into society. We can’t do that if their employers are always holding their past crimes over their head.

in the UK for the most part we don’t have at will employment for employers. You can’t sack someone for any reason at any time. So if you have someone who has been accused of something outside of work which is unrelated to their work it should be very hard to sack them for that reason alone because in principle you may have to justify that decision at an employment tribunal. So I don’t think bus drivers and lighting directors do get replaced when accusations are unrelated to their jobs.

Which explains my utter bafflement of all religions. I think we should leave it here, we're not going to agree, our positions are polar opposites.

The creator and the created are separate. Amongst other things, this is a bedrock of all 'revealed' religions. 

It's not a moral contagion, I'm not going to catch antisemitism. It's a moral objection to the creator and therefore the piece of work. One is not separate from the other, if I object to one, I object to both. Again, things don't exist in vacuum.

I am entirely in favour of awareness. However, I feel no threat of moral contagion from awareness. I am very aware of the fallacy of Wagner's race theory and the immense and horrific damage it and related racist creeds has created. The 'Ride of the Valkyries', however, still stirs me, and I feel no guilt on that account.

Nothing is ever created in a vacuum, the external always impacts it. That awareness of the external influences flavours it all with many different nuances, and for me, to ignore those makes no sense. I used to teach English and it was just as important to talk about what society was like at the time and how that influenced the work we were study, as the work itself.

Then we fundamentally disagree. I have a non-binary child, for whom the Harry Potter books, that they loved, are now ruined. Though I love my child, it has not had the same effect on me, I can separate the art from its originator. I'm rather glad that I can.

I'd disagree. My enjoyment of something is definitely impacted by my feelings on the artist. I won't knowingly choose to watch or listen to something that involves someone I find morally reprehensible. Even if it was something I enjoyed before. I won't watch anything with Kevin Spacey in for example, or purchase anything Harry Potter related because Rowling is a TERF.

I think the temporal dimension is immaterial. I revere Bob Dylan as an artist, but I do not think that he is particularly wonderful as a human being. He does not have to be for his work to have relevance or for me to enjoy it. No one is responsible for the moral failings of another. No one need feel any moral qualms about enjoying the artistic work of a morally reprehensible artist. Gary Glitter produced some quite catchy pop records, they remained catchy even after his moral depravity became public.

I think for me it's less of an issue if it's a legacy that would be damaged, than if it were someone who is still alive. Although saying that, I won't be listening to lostprophets whether that pond scum is alive or dead. So maybe the modernity of it matters as well.

I would argue they still are reaping those benefits in a way. Eric Gill might be in the ground but if you'd told him that years after his death people were still heaping praise on his works, I'm sure he'd have been pretty pleased by the idea. It's not like these people have no concept of a legacy that will endure. That's why people like Colston were so keen to slap their name on things that would pay them tribute hundreds of years later

I think the key word there is "was". Most of the people you mention are not currently alive and reaping the benefits of their popularity. There's a difference between consuming art from a past age where things might have been viewed differently, and knowingly consuming art from someone current who has done something illegal/immoral by current standards. It's the difference between Wagner and his antisemitism, and Gary Glitter and his child pornography.

I think that art is fundamentally independent of the morality of the artist. Caravaggio was a murderer, Picasso treated women abominably, Yukio Mishima was a Fascist who tried to engineer a right wing coup against the Japanese government, Richard Wagner was a racist, however, I can enjoy the art that these people created. Enjoying any artform is not an endorsement of the morals of its creators, the two are separate.