Happy birthday, Walt (a bit early)!
Walt
Whitman's birthday is tomorrow. (It's also my parents' anniversary, so
two events that were deeply formative for me happened on May 31.)
Anyway, check out this terrific response to a truly complicated
situation. I love Walt so much, but yeah, he had some pretty deplorable
ideas. How do we deal with that complicated legacy? Click the link!
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/05/30/quote-for-the-day-ii-69/
2 comments:
I didn't actually know he was a racist, so I've learned something, but I think it all comes down to the idea that we can't judge people from the past with our morals from today. History 101.
One of the hardest things to do as a viewer/reader of art is to set aside an author's personal beliefs/background/actions and evaluate the work itself. I fail at it more times than I'd like to admit, but so many of great artists have also been great jerks and/or people with fallible worldviews; and while it's disappointing, the fact is that what they produce and have produced is still worthy of seeing and reading as well as critiquing and reflecting.
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