I don't agree with the point of view of everybody who runs a site I visit regularly. For example, Robert Bruce Thompson has some views on guns that I disagree with. Vehemently. Yet he writes a wonderful daily blog that I actually support with my dollars, because he writes about computers and dogs and TV and books and other things I find I agree largely with his opinion about. I like Bill Maher and his humour and share his basic political philosophy from afar, since, afterall, he spouts off about American politics and I live up here in the Great White North where we must make do with Bush-light Light in the form of Stupefying Stevie Harper. But I don't agree with Maher regarding PETA or drugs.
In both cases, I would describe holders of opinions similar to Thompson or Maher as dangerous nutcases, if I didn't know these gents' relatively global world view. Misguided would be my preferred label, since I otherwise value their entertainment and informative views. Does that seem wrong to you?
I ask this because I'm troubled by my continued visits to a weekly blog written by a well-known, award-winning SF writer, who's column is an off-shoot to a daily newspaper on the East Coast of the USA. I won't identify him, cuz he strikes me as the litigious type. I have corresponded with him, discovering in the process that he is a right-wing nutjob who worships at the discarded, soiled unmentionables of one George W. Bush. His recent fawning over the President and his dismissal of all who oppose Bush's worldview as ... well the dirty euphemism he uses is, 'liberals.' His ability to look at numbers and pull out evaluations that paint Bush as a wonderful leader is the stuff of fiction. Science Fiction.
But here's the kicker. I have enjoyed his books in the past and they stood up to a re-reading after I knew he was a kook. Does that seem wrong to you? Seems wrong to me. And worse, I go back and read his weekly column, despite the complete lack of intelligence behind the political analysis and the more than odd reference to his religious values. I tend to glance over those passages, as I do the sections he prattles on about things local in nature to his home town. That might reduce the column to complete unreadability on occasion. But mostly, I get something out of stopping by.
The guy's an idiot, but one who writes well. Is it right to extract worth from such a dubious source, or should I avoid mining the crap to harvest a few pearls of wisdom, since feeling dirty is the inevitable result of spending time with such a misguided mind? He's not the worst I've ever found myself reading (I once mistakenly bought a copy of American Max magazine). And it's not like he's a mass-murderer, although he seems to have affinity for the concept. But is HE the line I shouldn't cross when trying to maintain the moral high ground?
Tis a puzzlement I wonder if I will ever solve.
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