Shakespeare: Young earth creationist? (and other interesting views by "great" men)

One example is nearly all of f/sf before the 60s. Terribly sexist and racist (and most other -ists you might want to throw out there). Goes for a lot of f/sf during and after the 60s, too, but at least it has been improving. Naming writers in this case is pointless.

One thing that seems bizarre now is one of the examples that Darwin used to explain a particular point about inherited traits.

He explained that if a white person was trapped on an island with blacks, his superior genes would ensure that he would be much more successful than the locals, so he would survive better - even likely to be crowned their king and so his genes would propagate to the point that they would dominate in the local gene pool.

It is so wrong it's hard to find it offensive - because in fact we have examples of where it occurred in history - and the exact opposite happened.

When Burke & Wills (British Explorers) were in the Australian Outback they ended up marooned in Queensland. They were malnourished and exhausted. The local aboriginal tribe actually took the poor, weak whites in and fed them as sad charity cases.

Even worse - the locals taught the poor English men how to collect the local grasses and make seed cakes which the locals were thriving on. The English men collected the same ingredients and tried to prepare it but literally ended up starving to death surrounded by food - because they didn't have the skills to prepare it.

So much for Darwin's example !!!

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I find almost any politics from previous years impossible to understand. For example, when China decided that drugs like Opium were a health hazard they banned them.

So England sent troops in to invade to ensure that the British drug dealers wouldn't lose money. Queen Victoria literally sent troops to kill the other guys until they dropped their objection to addictive drugs. She was like the enforcer for low life drug dealers.

Yet it was accepted - nobody seemed to have the idea that maybe killing anti-drug campaigners was a bad idea - it was jut accepted that it was the 'right' thing to do.

And here's a link (via Boing Boing) to Mickey Mouse cartoons extolling to kids the virtues of popping Amphetamine pills:

http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/mickey_mouse_medicine_man/mickey_mouse_medicine_man.shtml

The real question is what are we doing now that future generations will cringe at ?

Mac

If you want a fairly recent example, William Shockley, inventor of the transistor (and thus, the father of modern electronics) believed that that white people are genetically superior to blacks and other minorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

I rarely hear the support of eugenics held against such august personages as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Sanger, John Harvey Kellogg, or Linus Pauling. FDR's BFF relationship with Uncle Joe Stalin and Operation Keelhaul are never mentioned in polite company, nor is Lincoln's late arrival to the abolitionist party or his suspension of habeus corpus.

On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence (which originally included condemnation of slavery, removed by the Continental Congress), author of recommendations for the freeing of Virginia slaves in 1779, author of a bill to abolish slavery introduced in the Continental Congress in 1784, and enjoined by the laws of Virginia until 1782 from freeing slaves, is routinely condemned off-the-cuff for his (legal at the time) ownership of slaves.

George Washington also owned slaves, and signed the despicable Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 into existence. Yet no such protests are heard against him.

Not that there's any bias in our view of history, or anything.

Add them to the list.

Michael Wolfe said:

Greetings all,

So, yesterday I attended a production of Shakespeare's As you like it. There's a part in the play where Phoebe talks about the earth being 6,000 years old, which I thought was funny, but not really surprising - after all, Shakespeare came from a time when scientific knowledge was much more limited. It didn't make me think any less of Shakespeare as an artist or as a thinker.

But it did get me thinking about other writers, artists and philosophers who have taken up views (especially political views, though not necessarily limited to this) or actions that might generally be considered wrongheaded.


So, some of the questions I have are:

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any responses,

Michael Wolfe

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Thoughts are that it is Rosalind who says it not Pheobe

ROSALIND
No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, ...

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Act IV scene i line 90, but this may depend on the edition you have.

Shakespeare is using Biblical Chronology that makes the age of the earth about 6000 years.

An interesting out-of-the-box thinking exercise.

1) Note the names mentioned in post #5. List, in one column, those who supported the ever-growing power of the state over the individual, the elite over the common man. List, in the other column, those who supported the rights of the individual over the state.

2) Note the 'subtle slant' of the common view of history created in each of the cases in that post.

3) Note that state-run organizations approve textbooks, and therefore the 'official' view of history.

4) Now tell me, with a straight face, that 1, 2, and 3 are in no way related.


No statement is more true than "the victors write the history books."

Michael Wolfe said:

You're right. I corrected the post. Thanks.

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You are welcome!

Don said:

I rarely hear the support of eugenics held against such august personages as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Sanger, John Harvey Kellogg, or Linus Pauling. FDR's BFF relationship with Uncle Joe Stalin and Operation Keelhaul are never mentioned in polite company, nor is Lincoln's late arrival to the abolitionist party or his suspension of habeus corpus.

On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence (which originally included condemnation of slavery, removed by the Continental Congress), author of recommendations for the freeing of Virginia slaves in 1779, author of a bill to abolish slavery introduced in the Continental Congress in 1784, and enjoined by the laws of Virginia until 1782 from freeing slaves, is routinely condemned off-the-cuff for his (legal at the time) ownership of slaves.

George Washington also owned slaves, and signed the despicable Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 into existence. Yet no such protests are heard against him.

Not that there's any bias in our view of history, or anything.

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Thomas Jefferson is considered a Southerner. We all know how Southerners are the epitome of evil...meanwhile, the Brits have really cool accents, so Opium Wars and things are easier to overlook

Nietsche (sp?) is considered racist by many, as to the OP. My German professor said it was his daughter and son-in-law who played up his stuff that way, not him. Also, there is some doubt about Wagner, I thought?

I have a problem enjoying Woody Allen's stuff since he showed himself to be so scuzzy. And other examples like him.

Music, I don't think I'd care so much. Writing/directing feel different to me.

Michael Wolfe said:

Three examples that come to mind are Heidegger (he supported Nazism)...

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There's a book (lots of them actually) that makes the argument that it was a philosophical necessity, of sorts: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520210026/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

The author goes too far, imo. But it's a fascinating argument (very heavy stuff, btw).

...and Wagner (he was an anti-semite).

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Wagner's anti-semitism was, imo, central to a number of his works, especially the Ring cycle and Parzival. The latter, in particular, is loaded with such symbolism.

And Nietzsche's sister was very much of a similar mind. The man she married--Bernhard Forster--was a fanatical anti-semite. He took her--and many others--to Paraguay in 1886 to establish a colony of racially "pure" Germans. Wagner sent him a note, wishing him good luck on his endeavor.

Here's another book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/006097561X/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

It's not about Wagner, but rather Forster's attempt. Still, well worth the read.

As to Wagner, there is this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300076401/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

Ghandi was a racist toward black people.

I was gonna post that.

Michael Wolfe said:

Interesting. Personally, Woody Allen is one of my favorite filmmakers and I've always been able to separate his work from his personal life. I respect him as an artist, but not so much as a person.

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I'm the same way. While I haven't actually seen any of Woody Allen's movies, I can usually seperate a person's art from their personal lives. I can still enjoy someone's music, art, atheletic perfomances, etc without necessarily likeing them as a person.

robeiae said:

Wagner's anti-semitism was, imo, central to a number of his works, especially the Ring cycle and Parzival. The latter, in particular, is loaded with such symbolism.

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As a musician, I find Wagner's works amazing. As a Jew, I find it very hard to listen to Wagner without unease gnawing at the back of my mind.

Frenchman Louis-Ferdinand Céline wrote Journey to the End of Night, one of the most influential novels of the 20th century.

He was also a fascist, an anti semite, and a convicted collaborator during WWII

So the question becomes, can you separate the author from the creative works? Can you appreciate them in a vacuum -- and should you?

What about a great painter, like Picasso, who was a complete egotist and jerk in his private life? Does that affect how you perceive his paintings?

Not to mention Gandhi's habit of sleeping naked with pre-pubescent young girls later in life. (Including a 12 year old)

It wasn't a cultural thing - it was harshly criticized among his own peer group at the time. He argued that resisting the temptation to have sex with them by sleeping naked with them was soul-building. Which is a disturbing defense in itself - if he just argued that people are misinterpreting it might be a curious cultural misunderstanding.

If he were a school principal or church preacher who did that today he'd probably be reviled as a pedophile. A racist pedophile.

Mac

Bigotry is a natural human state. It begins the moment we believe all babies are ugly but ours, and ends with our last breath.

Helen Keller believed in Eugenics. How ironic is that?

rugcat said:

As a musician, I find Wagner's works amazing. As a Jew, I find it very hard to listen to Wagner without unease gnawing at the back of my mind.

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I can bring myself to distance myself from things like Wagner, or any number of other personally abhorrent people when I teach. I do have to know and teach works that I do not like by authors I'm less than fond of. I try to be honest, and fair.

It's much easier for me if the person is dead, and there's a span of history/time as insulation.

But I do not want works by Martion Zimmer Bradley in my home, after learning about her collusion with her husband's molestation of young boys.

I don't want Orson Scott Card's books after hearing him expound about queers as . . . well you don't want to know.

Instances like the ones mentioned really boggle my mind. I can sort of understand people being a product of their times, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that, for instance, the same guy who wrote The Speaker of the Dead feels the way he does about gays.

Mr. Anonymous said:

Instances like the ones mentioned really boggle my mind. I can sort of understand people being a product of their times, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that, for instance, the same guy who wrote The Speaker of the Dead feels the way he does about gays.

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OSC is active in the LDS church, who were instrumental in getting prop eight passed in California. That, I believe, is where his beliefs stem from.