I’m a scientist. I look at the empirical evidence. The empirical evidence is that the most monstrous of the arts is writing in the grammar and semantics of fictionalism (pseudo-science, pseudo-rationalism, and pseudo-mythology), and in particular the conflation of all of the above.
The greatest cause of death in history, other than the great plagues and malaria, is the conflationary grammar of fictionalism. The origin of the conflationary grammar of fictionalism is Pilpul – which is argumentatively indifferent when applied to wisdom myth, literature, history, law, astrology, and numerology.
So whether men do evil directly, promote evil by intent, or inspire evil indirectly, there is no difference between the evil wrought at interpersonal, social, and civilizational scale – except, that scale. And of those evils, there is none greater than the use of fictionalism. And no good greater than truth that defeats it.
All people are capable of free association. Common people lack the agency to separate the great arts of men, from their great crimes. Simple people never grasp the art, only artist – they are incapable otherwise.
But the truth is, without exception, men of low character produce low art. Unfortunately, there is a large market demand for low art by people of low character, whether it be decoration, craft, design, art, myth, literature, history, law, science, or … magic, mysticism, astrology, or numerology.
Woody Allen is about as bad a person as walks the earth – which was obvious from his works at the time for those of who have an education in the arts. What difference is it if he produces moving pictures from scripts rather than plays, versus the writings of rousseau (far worse than woody allen) or the works of Foucault (a bad person for certain), or the works of Picasso who was terribly ill mannered, and very close if not certainly a pedophile.
And I can’t think of a reason not to destroy their works, for in retrospect, they were all results of the sick minds that made them, and perpetuation of that memory is harmful.
But if we are to destroy works, how do we select what to destroy? This is the hard question. And this is why we don’t destroy (many) works – we instead create new ones that demonize the producers and their work.
The world will not be harmed by the burning of certain films. Although, it is often better to leave the example of their criminality and evil in the historical literature as a warning to those who might venture into similar territories once again, if they had not that reference to draw from.