#Žižek quotes Patricia Highsmith as the author of his favourite mystery stories. As a big genre buff, I figured I'd check her out. But hold on, she was a raging xenophobe, probably, clearly was living with an ASPD and abusing people around her.

Here I invoke my solution to the paradox of the author's death.

Assuming mystery novels as a form of art (which they oftenn are), when we're talking about artists who were people-hating monsters, there are two options:

A. Their art was good. Then it relays the #ideology of the author. Gauguin's Thaiti is perfectly relaying colonial fantasies and act as a seductive commercial for French exploiting native population. Gauguin was an ideological colonialist and his good art weaves colonialism into it. If Highsmith was indeed good, her art then weaves racism and sociopathy into it.

B. Their art was shit. But then it contains no ideas beyond, perhaps, delusions of the person interacting with the art, but then one can just look at the clouds and interpret their shapes. There is no reason to interact with shit art.

Thus, the answer to "artist vs art" paradox is simple: don't interact with art which was made by shitheads.

I don't blame Žižek for entertaining Highsmith's works, however. He is the world's best stand up comedian and stand up comedians are meant to provoke.