How much Should Infidelity Count Against the Good Works of Famous Figures?
It's hard for me to look at "great" men like FDR and MLK without being totally disgusted by the affairs they had. Is it really that hard to be faithful to your wife? No, it's not. Should we even platform men (and women) who cheated on their spouses, no matter what good things they did?
Comments (7)
We - whoever "we" are - should not platform anybody. People are imperfect; it's always a mistake to set some up as idols and heroes when you don't know them personally. Judge them for what they do and how they behave, according to your own set of standards.
OTOH, FDR's infidelity is different from JFK's is different again from DJT's - it is not entirely fair to throw them all in the same bag.
Personally, I try to keep personal lives (of which I know only gossip) separate from professional lives: a person may make terrible choices in matrimony, especially when young, and later go on to do important work. They can cave in to pressure to keep up a pretense of happy domesticity. Their spouses may not be perfect either. Sometimes the actual situation is quite different from the appearance. Whatever goes on in the home, they may be doing competent cardiac repairs or inventing buildings that withstand earthquake or passing beneficial legislation, and I'm not sure my moral repugnance is reason enough to deprive other people of those benefits.
I also keep in mind that if they had not become famous for their accomplishments, their private lives would not be laid open to public scrutiny and I would never know whether they were faithful to spouses, bullied their children or picked their dogs up by the ears.
We all judge other people all the time - but we ought to make some effort to do it fairly.
"Beware lest a statue slay you."
~Freddy Zarathustra
Great persons are still people, like you and I, and we can respect their greatness in spite of flaws because we share those flaws.
I don't see what fidelity has to do with whatever achievements a 'great' figure can achieve. Take J Krishnamurti, the famous 20th century sage. He was unfaithful and vain, but his dialogues about freedom and spirituality remain imperishable classics of their kind.
But I also agree that we shouldn't let the failures of the people who do great things unravel the greatness of the great things they do. Just because Thomas Jefferson had slaves doesn't mean the words of the Declaration should be shredded. He was wrong at each moment he thought he could own another person and treated another person like property, which was every moment of his life. Terrible. But during that time, he was right (or at least his thoughts are worth knowing) about political freedom and equality among citizens the need for self-government to manage that.
By the same token, we shouldn't judge anyone as a bad person. Just because MLK cheated on his wife and I don't, doesn't mean I am better than him. None of us are good enough to be held above the others and therefore none of us are in a position to put others down.
If we recognize all of this, then maybe it can be inspiring to recognize the good things some people do and build a statue or have a holiday in their name. Forgive the sins, and be inspired that any of us might be able to do something good once in a while, like MLK or Jefferson did once in while.
English-speaking country?