Cleese turned out to be yet another overprivileged bigoted douche-canoe, though, didn’t he?
Personally, I opt for telling such folks what I think of them in the moment, when they are still around to hear it… and I while won’t actively malign someone’s memory after they die, neither will I pretend that they were better people than they actually were in life.
That’s a very good way of being honest without being needlessly malicious.
That reminds me of the story of the funeral of another notorious arsehole, Columbia Pictures studio head Harry Cohn. Someone there commented to Red Skelton that he was surprised by the massive turnout. Skelton replied “It just proves what Harry always said: Give the public what they want and they’ll come out for it.”.
If anything, being dead both demonstrates that you have no prospect of becoming a better person in the future; as well as negating any of the humanitarian/second chance considerations that sometimes move us to think that perhaps having the crime you did a while back be the first google hit for your name might be excessive and/or counterproductive to your potential future good behavior.
The only reason to pull punches in an obituary, if deserved, is lack of space or cases where telling the truth would expose still-living victims who don’t want the publicity (eg. if you note incest or child abuse of a sexual nature you are so close to outright doxing someone that the distinction is effectively irrelevant; so you’d only do that if the prefer that the truth be told rather than not).
I really like this. Not only was it therapeutic for those who needed it, I think it’s healthy to be honest in obituaries. “Don’t speak ill of the dead” just seems to sweep a lot of abuse under the rug. It seems healthy to acknowledge that people who did great things also did not-great and even shitty things, and even good people could be complicated.
It sounds like he wasn’t one to make solid plans and follow through with them, no matter what they were.
… and literary heroes better than Orson Scott Card?
Now I’m reminded of an apocryphal tale regarding the legendary jazz drummer and legendarily difficult person Buddy Rich.
One of his former band members heard Buddy Rich had died, and called Rich’s widow to confirm it. She did.
He then kept calling her back, pretending to be someone else each time - because it sounded so good to hear he was dead.
Such a great example of the best of someone coming out in their art, while so much of the rest of their thoughts outside the art are just so terrible.
As someone who was already an adult when Ender’s Game came out, I gotta say I was never that impressed
IIRC Norman Spinrad viciously dragged Ender at the time and his critique is still solid
ALSO: The Hatrack River stuff was always racist
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