Excellent video, Nick. Informed, nuanced, and handled with intelligence and sensitivity. I’m not sure I can bring anything new to the discussion that isn’t already broached in the video itself. This is a complex topic and one where my response tends to change based on a variety of factors. It’s definitely a dilemma, as the title here states, and one that I wrestle with quite often.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot, especially coming from you. And I completely get it-my response to this keeps shifting, too, depending on context, new information, and, honestly, just where my head is at on any given day. It’s a conversation rather than a conclusion, and I think the wrestling with it is probably the most important part.
I struggle with this also. I appreciate you sharing your perspective and insight. I need to sit with this a bit more, but wanted to say thanks for putting it out there.
I completely understand-this is something I’m still sitting with, too. There aren’t easy answers, and I think the best we can do is keep engaging with the discomfort rather than looking away. I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and reflect on it. If you ever want to share where you land after sitting with it a bit more, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you so much-I really appreciate that! These conversations aren’t always easy, but I think they’re necessary. The more we grapple with these questions together, the more nuanced our understanding becomes.
I can't agree with rewriting (= sanitizing) books to please readers. As for the downright silly opinions voiced by writers, I usually don't pay much attention. Of course we expect writers to be wise, but they rarely are; they are fallible, and so are we. As for cancelling this or that author, I believe that each of us should be free to decide; no book bans, please, imposed by politicians or institutions.
I tend to agree with you on rewriting books-it’s one thing to provide context or critical framing, but altering an author’s words to align with modern sensibilities can feel like erasing the complexities of history rather than engaging with them. Readers are capable of grappling with difficult material, and I think there’s value in seeing books as products of their time rather than as something to be continually updated to fit the present moment. That said, I think there are ways to approach books with problematic elements without erasing them entirely. A great example is the recently published authoritative edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins (www.ucpress.edu/books/island-of-the-blue-dolphins/paper), which includes previously excised chapters, a critical introduction, and essays that provide historical, archaeological, and colonial context. Rather than sanitizing or updating the book to remove outdated ideas, this approach allows readers to engage with the work as it was written while also providing necessary framing to understand its historical and cultural implications. It acknowledges both the book’s literary significance and the harm that can come from an uncritical reading. As for writers and their personal views, I think that’s where it gets messier. We do often expect writers to be wise-or at least, to embody some of the moral clarity or insight they bring to their work-but as you said, they are fallible, just like the rest of us. The challenge, for me, is navigating the space between recognizing that fallibility and deciding where my personal limits are when it comes to engaging with their work. And that ties into canceling authors, too. I absolutely agree that each of us should have the freedom to decide what we read. But I also think about how canceling an author can create an environment where reading their work becomes quietly unacceptable-not through outright bans, but through social pressure. It’s not the same as political or institutional censorship, but it can still lead to books disappearing from the conversation. It’s a strange binary: we oppose banning books, but we also create spaces where certain books are effectively removed from public discourse. I haven’t fully made sense of it myself, but it’s something I keep turning over. As always, really appreciate your perspective on this.
Ooh this is such a deeply important conversation to have. I have wrestled with a lot of this and had many conversations with friends as well. There are so many facets to this conversation and I think you draw a lot of those out really well in this video. For me, personally, my answer is dependent on a variety of factors. I grew up in a fundamentalist cult and trying to sort through various speakers or authors of my youth has taken some time. Not to mention all the continued scandals that (thankfully!!) are being brought to light, in the religious sphere, Hollywood, author lives, etc. Is it possible to still read and appreciate the work of someone who I know now to be a person who made abhorrent choices? Is it possible to still respect their work? Or is all respect and appreciation lost? Or does it depend? Honestly, sometimes I think that I have reached my conclusions to all of this, other times I feel just confused again. And other times, I just see a whole lot of nuance and complexity.
This is such a thoughtful and deeply personal reflection-I really appreciate you sharing your experience and the work you’ve had to do in sorting through all of this. It’s one thing to grapple with these questions in a general sense, but when they intersect with personal history-especially coming from a fundamentalist background-the emotional and cognitive work is so much more layered. I want to recognize the effort that takes. I really resonate with your description of feeling like you’ve reached a conclusion, only to be thrown back into uncertainty. That cycle of clarity, confusion, and recognizing nuance feels like a hallmark of engaging honestly with these questions. There are days when I think I’ve landed on a set of principles that make sense for me, and then something happens-another scandal, a new perspective, a shift in my own thinking-and suddenly, the lines blur again. I had that experience recently with Blake Bailey’s Cheever biography. I had rationalized my personal, ethical stance on it, deciding that I could engage with the work because I was interested in Cheever’s life and Bailey, despite his alleged actions, is a strong biographer. I included it in my TBR because I was prepared to have a discussion about it, and sure enough, that discussion happened. It was valuable-it forced me to examine why I felt comfortable moving forward with that book when other cases have given me pause. It wasn’t about looking for a perfect framework to apply universally, but about sitting with the contradictions and making a decision I could live with. I think your point about whether respect and appreciation can-or should-survive knowledge of an author’s actions is crucial. Sometimes the work itself holds meaning independent of its creator; sometimes, that connection is impossible to untangle. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe part of this process is learning that our engagement with books and authors will never be static-that it’s an ongoing conversation, not just with others, but with ourselves. I really appreciate your insight and willingness to sit in the complexity of it all. It’s not easy, but I think these conversations are necessary, and I’m grateful to be having them with people like you.
A very sincere video which I also have some mixed feelings on. In short, if they took away or people didn't engage with problematic (I really hate that word) authors and other creators, then there would be a lot of empty shelves, silent concert halls and vacant churches. How far does it go? For example, if you chose not to read Lovecraft, do you also choose not to read authors inspired by him? Regarding Bradley, I read Mists before I knew the history and enjoyed it quite a bit. Now I wonder how much her personal life might be reflected in the book. The publisher is also donating the royalties to abuse charities.
I really appreciate your thoughtful response-this is exactly the kind of discussion that feels important to have, even if it doesn’t lead to easy answers. On the question of royalties being donated to abuse charities, I’ve seen that claim circulating as well, but when I went looking for a primary source, I couldn’t find anything definitive. The only reference I could track down was from SFGateway in 2014 (web.archive.org/web/20140714164724/blog.sfgateway.com/index.php/marion-zimmer-bradley/), but since they no longer control Bradley’s back catalog, it’s unclear if that donation policy ever applied broadly or if it was just a one-time gesture from that particular publisher. The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust (www.mzbworks.com/) doesn’t seem to have made any public statements on the matter, at least that I could find. If you have a more recent or verified source, I’d love to see it. What I do find interesting is how frequently this claim pops up, especially in discussions about The Mists of Avalon. I think it circulates in part because it offers a way to reduce the cognitive dissonance that comes with purchasing and reading Bradley’s work. If readers can believe that buying Mists or her other books financially benefits abuse survivors rather than her estate, it makes engaging with her work feel less ethically fraught. And honestly, I get why people would want that to be true-it would make these decisions a lot easier. But without clear documentation, I’m skeptical. If a publisher or the Trust were actively donating all royalties, I’d expect them to be loud about it, and yet, there’s very little transparency on this. That doesn’t necessarily mean it never happened, but it does make me hesitant to accept it at face value. I also really appreciate your point about whether an author’s life influences how we read their work. Mists was formative for a lot of readers, particularly in its feminist reinterpretation of Arthurian legend. But knowing what we do about Bradley, it’s hard not to wonder how much of her personal life shaped the book in ways that are unsettling in hindsight. That tension-between what a book meant to us then and what we know now-is something I’ve been wrestling with myself. At the end of the day, I think these conversations matter, even when they don’t lead to neat conclusions. And I appreciate you engaging with it so thoughtfully. Sidenote: edited because I forget I can embed links in a comment, so they are above in all their complete URL glory.
I'm going to ask a question not asked in the video. If so many of the teachers of a point of view were hypocrites, what does that say about that point of view? Were the concepts these people taught true/valid? I ask because I left a patriarchal religion partly on that basis.
First, I want to recognize the strength it takes to leave a patriarchal religion. That’s not an easy decision, and it requires immense courage-not just to question deeply ingrained beliefs but to actively step away from a system that no longer aligns with your values. That kind of reckoning isn’t simple or straightforward, and I deeply respect the work you’ve done to reach that point. When the people who are supposed to model a belief system fail in fundamental ways, it’s absolutely reasonable to question whether the system itself is valid or just another means of maintaining control. At the same time, I think there’s a distinction between the failure of individuals who espouse certain values and whether those values themselves hold truth. A hypocrite can preach justice while acting unjustly; that doesn’t mean justice itself is flawed, only that they were never truly committed to it. But when hypocrisy is widespread-when the same patterns repeat across multiple figures, institutions, or movements-it forces us to interrogate whether those systems were ever truly about what they claimed to be. I think about this a lot in relation to literature, too, and I talk about Junot Díaz in the video for exactly this reason. His work deeply examines machismo, misogyny, and the cycles of trauma-yet he was alleged to have engaged in verbal abuse and misconduct by multiple women. His fiction doesn’t justify these allegations, but if they are true, his failure to live by the ideals his writing explored complicates how we engage with his work. Does that mean his work was hollow? Or does it mean he failed to live up to what he himself wrote? That tension-between ideals and actions, between systems and individuals-is something I don’t think has an easy answer. But what you’re asking gets at something deeply necessary: When a system, whether religious, literary, or otherwise, is dominated by people who contradict its stated values, maybe it’s time to question whether those values were ever truly upheld-or if they were just a cover for power all along.
In videos past I had commented about the Cheever biography not because I was all that concerned about your humanity but because of potential channel backlash. Your video might show the most internalized/personal reaction to not reading authors again that you find have done something horrible. Author cancellations are usually a lot more performative with some bargaining (especially with Harry Potter) thrown in. I'm sorry you're struggling with making peace with your reading relationships with these writers. People always use the phrase "parasocial relationships" online and that's true of your reading relationships with authors. You were the one that did the heavy lifting in your relationship with Alice Munro. You're the one who made her matter.
You always manage to pinpoint exactly what I need to sit with a little longer, and I appreciate that. The Cheever biography comment makes a lot of sense in the context of potential channel backlash, but honestly, my bigger struggle isn’t with backlash-it’s with recalibrating my own politics. I mentioned Cheever and included it in my TBR because I had already worked through rationalizing my personal, ethical stance on it (as much as one can under late capitalism). It wasn’t an unexamined decision-I knew it could prompt discussion, and I was ready for that. And it did spark a conversation, which you and I had and which I really appreciated. I wasn’t looking to sneak it past anyone; I wanted to engage with the complexity of that choice openly. Beyond that, though, I think the real struggle for me is recognizing that my framework for making these decisions isn’t-and shouldn’t be-static. There’s this idea of being politically correct-which, let’s be real, is a moving target at best-but then there’s being correct within one’s own politics, and that’s where I feel like I’m shifting. It’s not about performative cancellation; it’s about wrestling with what still holds, what doesn’t, and how I want to move forward. Your point about parasocial relationships really hits home. I made Alice Munro matter to me. I put in the work of making her books a cornerstone of how I think about storytelling. And now I have to sit with the fact that the person behind those stories wasn’t who I wanted her to be. That’s not about cancellation; that’s about personal reckoning. And part of that reckoning is realizing that my internal framework for these things isn’t fixed. It evolves, and it should evolve. So this is me revising my politics-actively reconsidering how I engage with literature when the lines aren’t as clear as I once thought. That discomfort isn’t a side effect; it’s the work. Thank you for this. You’ve given me even more to think about-again.
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Excellent video, Nick. Informed, nuanced, and handled with intelligence and sensitivity.
I’m not sure I can bring anything new to the discussion that isn’t already broached in the video itself. This is a complex topic and one where my response tends to change based on a variety of factors.
It’s definitely a dilemma, as the title here states, and one that I wrestle with quite often.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot, especially coming from you.
And I completely get it-my response to this keeps shifting, too, depending on context, new information, and, honestly, just where my head is at on any given day. It’s a conversation rather than a conclusion, and I think the wrestling with it is probably the most important part.
I struggle with this also. I appreciate you sharing your perspective and insight. I need to sit with this a bit more, but wanted to say thanks for putting it out there.
I completely understand-this is something I’m still sitting with, too. There aren’t easy answers, and I think the best we can do is keep engaging with the discomfort rather than looking away.
I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and reflect on it. If you ever want to share where you land after sitting with it a bit more, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Really well done video on something we all need to think more about.
Thank you so much-I really appreciate that! These conversations aren’t always easy, but I think they’re necessary. The more we grapple with these questions together, the more nuanced our understanding becomes.
I can't agree with rewriting (= sanitizing) books to please readers. As for the downright silly opinions voiced by writers, I usually don't pay much attention. Of course we expect writers to be wise, but they rarely are; they are fallible, and so are we.
As for cancelling this or that author, I believe that each of us should be free to decide; no book bans, please, imposed by politicians or institutions.
I tend to agree with you on rewriting books-it’s one thing to provide context or critical framing, but altering an author’s words to align with modern sensibilities can feel like erasing the complexities of history rather than engaging with them. Readers are capable of grappling with difficult material, and I think there’s value in seeing books as products of their time rather than as something to be continually updated to fit the present moment.
That said, I think there are ways to approach books with problematic elements without erasing them entirely. A great example is the recently published authoritative edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins (www.ucpress.edu/books/island-of-the-blue-dolphins/paper), which includes previously excised chapters, a critical introduction, and essays that provide historical, archaeological, and colonial context. Rather than sanitizing or updating the book to remove outdated ideas, this approach allows readers to engage with the work as it was written while also providing necessary framing to understand its historical and cultural implications. It acknowledges both the book’s literary significance and the harm that can come from an uncritical reading.
As for writers and their personal views, I think that’s where it gets messier. We do often expect writers to be wise-or at least, to embody some of the moral clarity or insight they bring to their work-but as you said, they are fallible, just like the rest of us. The challenge, for me, is navigating the space between recognizing that fallibility and deciding where my personal limits are when it comes to engaging with their work.
And that ties into canceling authors, too. I absolutely agree that each of us should have the freedom to decide what we read. But I also think about how canceling an author can create an environment where reading their work becomes quietly unacceptable-not through outright bans, but through social pressure. It’s not the same as political or institutional censorship, but it can still lead to books disappearing from the conversation. It’s a strange binary: we oppose banning books, but we also create spaces where certain books are effectively removed from public discourse. I haven’t fully made sense of it myself, but it’s something I keep turning over.
As always, really appreciate your perspective on this.
Ooh this is such a deeply important conversation to have. I have wrestled with a lot of this and had many conversations with friends as well. There are so many facets to this conversation and I think you draw a lot of those out really well in this video. For me, personally, my answer is dependent on a variety of factors. I grew up in a fundamentalist cult and trying to sort through various speakers or authors of my youth has taken some time. Not to mention all the continued scandals that (thankfully!!) are being brought to light, in the religious sphere, Hollywood, author lives, etc. Is it possible to still read and appreciate the work of someone who I know now to be a person who made abhorrent choices? Is it possible to still respect their work? Or is all respect and appreciation lost? Or does it depend? Honestly, sometimes I think that I have reached my conclusions to all of this, other times I feel just confused again. And other times, I just see a whole lot of nuance and complexity.
This is such a thoughtful and deeply personal reflection-I really appreciate you sharing your experience and the work you’ve had to do in sorting through all of this. It’s one thing to grapple with these questions in a general sense, but when they intersect with personal history-especially coming from a fundamentalist background-the emotional and cognitive work is so much more layered. I want to recognize the effort that takes.
I really resonate with your description of feeling like you’ve reached a conclusion, only to be thrown back into uncertainty. That cycle of clarity, confusion, and recognizing nuance feels like a hallmark of engaging honestly with these questions. There are days when I think I’ve landed on a set of principles that make sense for me, and then something happens-another scandal, a new perspective, a shift in my own thinking-and suddenly, the lines blur again.
I had that experience recently with Blake Bailey’s Cheever biography. I had rationalized my personal, ethical stance on it, deciding that I could engage with the work because I was interested in Cheever’s life and Bailey, despite his alleged actions, is a strong biographer. I included it in my TBR because I was prepared to have a discussion about it, and sure enough, that discussion happened. It was valuable-it forced me to examine why I felt comfortable moving forward with that book when other cases have given me pause. It wasn’t about looking for a perfect framework to apply universally, but about sitting with the contradictions and making a decision I could live with.
I think your point about whether respect and appreciation can-or should-survive knowledge of an author’s actions is crucial. Sometimes the work itself holds meaning independent of its creator; sometimes, that connection is impossible to untangle. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe part of this process is learning that our engagement with books and authors will never be static-that it’s an ongoing conversation, not just with others, but with ourselves.
I really appreciate your insight and willingness to sit in the complexity of it all. It’s not easy, but I think these conversations are necessary, and I’m grateful to be having them with people like you.
A very sincere video which I also have some mixed feelings on.
In short, if they took away or people didn't engage with problematic (I really hate that word) authors and other creators, then there would be a lot of empty shelves, silent concert halls and vacant churches.
How far does it go? For example, if you chose not to read Lovecraft, do you also choose not to read authors inspired by him?
Regarding Bradley, I read Mists before I knew the history and enjoyed it quite a bit. Now I wonder how much her personal life might be reflected in the book.
The publisher is also donating the royalties to abuse charities.
I really appreciate your thoughtful response-this is exactly the kind of discussion that feels important to have, even if it doesn’t lead to easy answers.
On the question of royalties being donated to abuse charities, I’ve seen that claim circulating as well, but when I went looking for a primary source, I couldn’t find anything definitive. The only reference I could track down was from SFGateway in 2014 (web.archive.org/web/20140714164724/blog.sfgateway.com/index.php/marion-zimmer-bradley/), but since they no longer control Bradley’s back catalog, it’s unclear if that donation policy ever applied broadly or if it was just a one-time gesture from that particular publisher. The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust (www.mzbworks.com/) doesn’t seem to have made any public statements on the matter, at least that I could find. If you have a more recent or verified source, I’d love to see it.
What I do find interesting is how frequently this claim pops up, especially in discussions about The Mists of Avalon. I think it circulates in part because it offers a way to reduce the cognitive dissonance that comes with purchasing and reading Bradley’s work. If readers can believe that buying Mists or her other books financially benefits abuse survivors rather than her estate, it makes engaging with her work feel less ethically fraught. And honestly, I get why people would want that to be true-it would make these decisions a lot easier.
But without clear documentation, I’m skeptical. If a publisher or the Trust were actively donating all royalties, I’d expect them to be loud about it, and yet, there’s very little transparency on this. That doesn’t necessarily mean it never happened, but it does make me hesitant to accept it at face value.
I also really appreciate your point about whether an author’s life influences how we read their work. Mists was formative for a lot of readers, particularly in its feminist reinterpretation of Arthurian legend. But knowing what we do about Bradley, it’s hard not to wonder how much of her personal life shaped the book in ways that are unsettling in hindsight. That tension-between what a book meant to us then and what we know now-is something I’ve been wrestling with myself.
At the end of the day, I think these conversations matter, even when they don’t lead to neat conclusions. And I appreciate you engaging with it so thoughtfully.
Sidenote: edited because I forget I can embed links in a comment, so they are above in all their complete URL glory.
I'm going to ask a question not asked in the video. If so many of the teachers of a point of view were hypocrites, what does that say about that point of view? Were the concepts these people taught true/valid? I ask because I left a patriarchal religion partly on that basis.
First, I want to recognize the strength it takes to leave a patriarchal religion. That’s not an easy decision, and it requires immense courage-not just to question deeply ingrained beliefs but to actively step away from a system that no longer aligns with your values. That kind of reckoning isn’t simple or straightforward, and I deeply respect the work you’ve done to reach that point.
When the people who are supposed to model a belief system fail in fundamental ways, it’s absolutely reasonable to question whether the system itself is valid or just another means of maintaining control. At the same time, I think there’s a distinction between the failure of individuals who espouse certain values and whether those values themselves hold truth. A hypocrite can preach justice while acting unjustly; that doesn’t mean justice itself is flawed, only that they were never truly committed to it. But when hypocrisy is widespread-when the same patterns repeat across multiple figures, institutions, or movements-it forces us to interrogate whether those systems were ever truly about what they claimed to be.
I think about this a lot in relation to literature, too, and I talk about Junot Díaz in the video for exactly this reason. His work deeply examines machismo, misogyny, and the cycles of trauma-yet he was alleged to have engaged in verbal abuse and misconduct by multiple women. His fiction doesn’t justify these allegations, but if they are true, his failure to live by the ideals his writing explored complicates how we engage with his work. Does that mean his work was hollow? Or does it mean he failed to live up to what he himself wrote?
That tension-between ideals and actions, between systems and individuals-is something I don’t think has an easy answer. But what you’re asking gets at something deeply necessary: When a system, whether religious, literary, or otherwise, is dominated by people who contradict its stated values, maybe it’s time to question whether those values were ever truly upheld-or if they were just a cover for power all along.
In videos past I had commented about the Cheever biography not because I was all that concerned about your humanity but because of potential channel backlash. Your video might show the most internalized/personal reaction to not reading authors again that you find have done something horrible. Author cancellations are usually a lot more performative with some bargaining (especially with Harry Potter) thrown in. I'm sorry you're struggling with making peace with your reading relationships with these writers.
People always use the phrase "parasocial relationships" online and that's true of your reading relationships with authors. You were the one that did the heavy lifting in your relationship with Alice Munro. You're the one who made her matter.
You always manage to pinpoint exactly what I need to sit with a little longer, and I appreciate that. The Cheever biography comment makes a lot of sense in the context of potential channel backlash, but honestly, my bigger struggle isn’t with backlash-it’s with recalibrating my own politics.
I mentioned Cheever and included it in my TBR because I had already worked through rationalizing my personal, ethical stance on it (as much as one can under late capitalism). It wasn’t an unexamined decision-I knew it could prompt discussion, and I was ready for that. And it did spark a conversation, which you and I had and which I really appreciated. I wasn’t looking to sneak it past anyone; I wanted to engage with the complexity of that choice openly.
Beyond that, though, I think the real struggle for me is recognizing that my framework for making these decisions isn’t-and shouldn’t be-static. There’s this idea of being politically correct-which, let’s be real, is a moving target at best-but then there’s being correct within one’s own politics, and that’s where I feel like I’m shifting. It’s not about performative cancellation; it’s about wrestling with what still holds, what doesn’t, and how I want to move forward.
Your point about parasocial relationships really hits home. I made Alice Munro matter to me. I put in the work of making her books a cornerstone of how I think about storytelling. And now I have to sit with the fact that the person behind those stories wasn’t who I wanted her to be. That’s not about cancellation; that’s about personal reckoning. And part of that reckoning is realizing that my internal framework for these things isn’t fixed. It evolves, and it should evolve.
So this is me revising my politics-actively reconsidering how I engage with literature when the lines aren’t as clear as I once thought. That discomfort isn’t a side effect; it’s the work.
Thank you for this. You’ve given me even more to think about-again.