Half my ancestry is Jewish. I'm sure plenty of dead people hate me for one reason or another. But, they're dead and I'm alive. So why should I care?
Its kind of a weird move but there's plenty of other ways we can weave meaning out of whats happening here.
- We could say "Ha ha - you hate Jewish people but your life's work still involved giving beautiful books for me to enjoy! Sounds like you lose, Dahl!". Taking treasure from a dragon is more virtuous if the dragon you're stealing from is evil.
- Or turn this into a story about mending fences. Here's an antisemite and a semite bonding over our shared love of stories. Sounds like a lived example of us being more alike than we are different, after all. Racism, in all its forms, diminishes through empathy and shared understanding. If two communities read different books growing up, they're much less likely to understand each other. If two communities enjoy the same books, they'll find it easier to connect and build bridges. He may have been antisemitic. Isn't that even more reason to use his life's work to bring people closer together?
This might sound weak or saccharine. But I find it pretty hard to imagine any scenario in which enjoying Matilda will somehow incite people to blame "the Jews" for a bad economy. That sounds pretty far fetched to me.
> Taking treasure from a dragon is more virtuous if the dragon you're stealing from is evil.
This is a good way of phrasing what I haven't been able to put into succinct language. I also find it interesting when performers and writers want to choose who is allowed to enjoy their publicly available work based on whether or not values align.
If those stories are allegorical or are reinterpreted in future, inspiring a new generation of anti-semites, then the vitality of the author quickly becomes irrelevant.
Is Matilda allegorical? Can you give me an example from the text?
We don't get to control how people in the future will reinterpret the stories we have today. People in the future could reinterpret anything. That's their right, once we've moved on.
At a practical level, it makes no sense to live in the shadow of future generations' judgement. We're going to earn their scorn regardless. And so will they, if humanity survives long enough.
That's up to you but I think I'd be very concerned about my part in publishing what later went on to incite acts of hatred. I believe Matilda does not promote anything like that, but it's only by considering it in context that I would have thought to look for it and make that determination. Caring about it doesn't automatically mean wanting to see the work censored, or worse, silently modified. But personally if I saw a problem like that I wouldn't want to be involved in the publication or promotion of it.
Its kind of a weird move but there's plenty of other ways we can weave meaning out of whats happening here.
- We could say "Ha ha - you hate Jewish people but your life's work still involved giving beautiful books for me to enjoy! Sounds like you lose, Dahl!". Taking treasure from a dragon is more virtuous if the dragon you're stealing from is evil.
- Or turn this into a story about mending fences. Here's an antisemite and a semite bonding over our shared love of stories. Sounds like a lived example of us being more alike than we are different, after all. Racism, in all its forms, diminishes through empathy and shared understanding. If two communities read different books growing up, they're much less likely to understand each other. If two communities enjoy the same books, they'll find it easier to connect and build bridges. He may have been antisemitic. Isn't that even more reason to use his life's work to bring people closer together?
This might sound weak or saccharine. But I find it pretty hard to imagine any scenario in which enjoying Matilda will somehow incite people to blame "the Jews" for a bad economy. That sounds pretty far fetched to me.