Aaron Tracy

So like in the case of Gauguin, some people will say like, oh, well, we shouldn't have space on our walls to display Gauguin.

We should sort of like take that stuff off the walls.

That's not a very common view, but it has been expressed.

My worry about that kind of approach to the problem is it's like putting the skeletons back in the closet.

It's like not a way of taking the accusations and the moral life of the artists seriously.

In order to take it seriously, you need to confront it.

And then there's a question of what you do once it's on the table.

But if you sort of take it away, then do you also take away this opportunity for a moral reckoning?

My favorite book to read my daughter, our favorite book to read at night before bed is called Pow Pow Fish.

The ending is all about a kiss that is not asked for.

And there's a, instead of changing it, there's simply a disclaimer on the very last page that says, you should always ask.

I would say I read that disclaimer to my daughter.

I have read it once and we've read Pow Pow Fish 1 billion times.

That said, I'm very happy that they did not change the ending.

Well, I mean, you know, also these kinds of like interventions, they don't always have to happen in the moment or every time.

Sometimes I think these are things that come up later in life.

A kid might read some morally problematic content in a book as a kid and nobody talks to them about it at all.

But then when they're a teenager, they think back and they say, huh, that was kind of odd that this happened in the book or sort of raises some worries for me how this character was represented.

And they have that there, right, as a resource for thinking with.

I don't want to sort of oversell the idea that it's about constant discussion and engagement, right?