Fighting the tyranny of ‘niceness’: why we need difficult women

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Well there is always a line and I certainly have not had you experience or could logically relate to it, but I would imagine we have all moved away from people who we have known because they are just too far out there from our own perspective. But that used to be significant.

 

I have a couple of friends who I have a beer with and I sort of consider myself in the middle on most subjects - well I guess I would - but we all get along.

 

Now quite what is driving this rush to purity I do not know.

 

14 minutes ago, laylalex said:

I struggle with this, because I think there are people who should be beyond the pale, who we should not consider as difficult or complicated. I have an ongoing conversation with myself (and others, I'm not quite that mental) about whether it is possible to divorce art from the artist, when the artist is a rapist or a murder or a pedophile or a fascist (to name but a few categories). How should a person who enjoys a work of art or a book or a movie or a song handle the discovery that the creator was a monster? My high school boyfriend, the one who really, really messed with my head, is an abuser and an author. His books are very good -- I have read them all. I remind myself of who it was who wrote these, and yet part of me can still appreciate them for what they are. I do not know if he carried on being a terrible person after we split up and I do not care to know. There is no point in pointing to him to "cancel" him -- I'd be just some other dumb girl who should have said something 20 years ago, and he'd still be writing and getting published.

 

Life is hard, people are messy, and none of us fit in boxes until we're dead. Even then, some of us will find our legacies leaching out in unexpected directions.