People will let you down. Especially people you admire. I know because I admire some pretty horrible people.
I am re-reading With Love and Irony by Lin Yutang. The first and last time I read the book was when I was 13 and I remembered it fondly. So much so that I included it in this list of books that influenced me. And now, as I read it again, I’m horrified.
Yutang is a misogynist, vaguely racist, exceedingly judgmental and a bit of a prick. I’m aware that he wrote all the articles which were collected in the book pre-1941, and that sexism and prejudice were more acceptable in the early 20th Century than they are today. But it doesn’t change my disappointment as I read the book today. I feel betrayed. This philosopher and writer whom I’d believed for decades was an astute observer of human nature was nothing more than a tool and a gossip.
And I felt so ashamed that I thought he was something special, that I almost went back and removed his book from the article I wrote last year.
But I didn’t.
A conversation on the beach
I was on the beach yesterday. My wife and I were discussing a book she’s reading on manifesting. If you don’t know what manifesting is about, this article from Oprah Daily should get you up to speed.
Now, I believe in manifestation, but not in an overly spiritual way. The way I see it is we only perceive a very small part of reality, which limits what we deem to be possible for us. However, there is so much more that we are blind to that is happening right in front of us every day. In any moment, an infinite number of possibilities and realities are available to us, but we only see those which we allow to enter our consciousness. With practice and through a process of surrendering we’re able to dissolve the stories that inhibit us from seeing the world as it really is and thereby create anything we want for ourselves. For me manifestation is a process of removing social blinkers and embracing creativity to see opportunities.
Anyway, this book that Jane (my wife) is reading is written by Gabby Bernstein. Gabby’s take on manifestation is slightly different from my own, but I’m okay with that. However, as we discuss what Jane found interesting about the book, she mentions that Gabby’s been channelling Wayne Dyer. Who Wayne is isn’t important to this story. The part that is important was my reaction to this news. When Jane told me about Wayne, I turned to her and said that Gabby had lost me, and I was out. That there’s a lot I can swallow but contacting the dead; I can’t follow someone into that forest.
And, just in case you’re interested, I wrote the word channelling in inverted commas in the first draft of this post.
Jane pointed out that she was reading the book and picking and choosing what she wanted to take from it. The channelling piece wasn’t for her either, but she was still getting something from what Gabby had written. Whereas I had dismissed it completely. After all, how can someone who channels the dead be right about anything?
So, I thought about the conversation with Jane, about Lin and his book and about some other writers I admire. And I realised I was a hypocrite. Here I was, about to ‘distance’ myself from a writer who had influenced a lot of my thinking about writing. And discrediting another writer for being flaky because she claimed to commune with the dead. While I happily and openly admired some pretty horrible people.
There’s Winston Churchill
Very few people know that Winston Churchill was a prolific writer. He wrote a novel, two biographies, several books on history and was also a journalist. Even fewer people know that he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. And fewer people still, know that he enjoyed bricklaying and that he’d built several structures and walls at his house in Kent.
And everyone seems to have forgotten that this renaissance man was a racist. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a quote from him to the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937;
“I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
And Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski is one of my favourite poets. And he was a raging alcoholic and a misogynist. He treated people poorly, especially when he was drunk. And if you want to know how awful he could be, it’s not difficult to find video footage of him verbally abusing and lashing out at his wife, Linda Lee Beighle, if you do some YouTube digging.
And Ernest Hemingway
If you read anything about Hemingway, you’ll know he was like Marmite, people who knew him either loved him or hated him. Hemingway was violent, liked shooting animals for sport, and treated many of his friends and the people who supported him with contempt. Furthermore, it is difficult not to identify an anti-Semitic subtext in his novel, The Sun also Rises.
And he was a homophobe.
So, what do we do?
Like lions who sharpened their claws on Acacia trees thereby marking them for ever, so these men have left broad and deep scratch marks on the world of literature. And they were deeply flawed humans. But that shouldn’t deter us from admiring how they mastered the craft of writing or influenced several generations of writers.
Thing is, my wife is right. We don’t have to agree with someone to learn from them. We can think of someone as contemptible and still be inspired by other parts of their personality. I have thought a lot about who we learn from. And it has become easy to dismiss people’s contribution when we uncover that they did or believed despicable things. That is where cancel culture can leave our cultural, spiritual, and intellectual landscapes barren, and us poorer for it.
We should be able to learn from people who we don’t agree with, who make us feel uncomfortable for three reasons. Firstly, in learning about other people’s shortcomings, and by feeling uncomfortable about what they’ve done we can confront and question our own values and intolerances. Secondly, we can become more open to listening to people we don’t agree with. We can teach ourselves to look for the good in others and not be blinded by their flaws. Finally, and most importantly, because limiting who we’re willing to learn from diminishes our potential to live full and meaningful lives.
So, I haven’t taken Lin Yutang’s book off my list of books that influenced me. What he believed or what he thought of others doesn’t interest me. The simple, mundane things he wrote about and the very plain way he wrote about them, that’s what I admire.
And I’m okay with that.