S/O The Epic Fail - When Someone You Looked Up To is Now an Embarrassment

[LibraryLover]

I just want it on record that I never found Cosby's tough love 'humor' about raising kids funny. I thought he was disrespectful . I enjoyed many aspects of his 80's show: Brooklyn, Claire, the grandparents, the Jazz, the art, the diversity of personalities in the kids. But his character always made me uncomfortable. It bothered me that he was an obstetrician. He was totally patricarchial in that role. I wish he had been the lawyer, and Claire the baby doctor. In hindsight, I'm not surprised he made himself the gynecological 'expert', with that degree of power over vulnerable women.

[Junie]

It is still hard for me to say "We Are...Penn State".  :(

[MistyMountain]

I will not listen to Michael Jackson's music even though I liked his songs. I never looked up to him though.

[abba12]

So if, for example, you all found out that my academic degrees are fake (THEY'RE NOT) and that I wasn't actually home schooled (I WAS), I'd think you would be justified in tossing out most of my home schooling advice. But I'm not a Family Togetherness spokesperson, so if my husband and I split up (WE'RE NOT), I personally think you should keep my materials. 

 

I definitely agree with this, if a person can't keep their own teaching I will discard it all. But if they mess up in other areas.... well I can overlook that relevance. So, Josh Duggar has no right speaking on marriage and family, but Doug Wilson's mishandling and complete ignorance about child abuse has little relevance to his introductory logic book (ok, some may see that iself as illogical, but lets ignore that for now) so I will likely still use this curriculum, but may also inform my children of the author and his story so it can have a certain context.

 

There are exceptions to this rule. Australia was rocked when Rolf Harris was found guilty of paedophilia (and his actions in jail since have only made us more disgusted by the man who's name is never uttered). He wrote a popular australian children's christmas carol, a carol which was strangely absent at christmas programs around the country this year. My children will likely never hear any of his music, I sure wont be playing it. Some things are just too serious to compartmentalize. I also cannot watch Bill Cosby anymore, I actually re-watched the series with my kids about 6 months before the allegations came out, but it wont be played here again. 

[Cammie]

My family was heavily involved in a prominent Christian charity.

 

The head of the Charity was really treated as if he himself could walk on water.

 

When his sexual harrassment of other women working at the headquarters became known it was a crisis of faith for many people.

 

When my father was fired for suggesting that the man should be held accountable for his actions we all learned a lesson.

 

When churches around the nation blackballed my father and others for daring to suggest that the organization needed to stand by the women it was a turning point.

 

I don't put people on pedastals.  The higher you put them, the longer the fall.  It is too painful.

[liber]

 

~

I agree that when a text/publisher/author is recommended in TWTM, it can be considered an endorsement by SWB. That's how I read it anyway.

I never considered her recommendations as an endorsement of the people themselves. To me it was just a resource separate from the people themselves.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I think I agree with the posters who are pointing out that personal failings unconnected to the area of expertise are in a different category.

 

So if, for example, you all found out that my academic degrees are fake (THEY'RE NOT) and that I wasn't actually home schooled (I WAS), I'd think you would be justified in tossing out most of my home schooling advice. But I'm not a Family Togetherness spokesperson, so if my husband and I split up (WE'RE NOT), I personally think you should keep my materials. 

 

Which goes towards the Doug Wilson question. The little book on classical education I cite is a good and helpful one and has nothing to do with his theological weirdnesses.

 

But this is a personal issue for me, because I am a Christian and Doug Wilson is a Christian, and I am particularly sensitive towards anything implying that he and I are on the same wavelength in our interpretation of our faith. To be perfectly honest, if he were of another, or no, faith, I'm not sure I'd have the same "I need to distance myself" recommendation. (But I do, and I'm distancing myself. Just trying to sort out my strong emotional need to do so.)

 

I actually reject Bill's assertion (I think it was in the other thread) that quoting someone in TWTM is an endorsement. Good heavens, if that were the case I'd be endorsing scores of people of whom I know very little and certainly wouldn't stand side-by-side with. And although I don't think I have the energy to battle Bill on the A Beka issue, I'd like to point out that recommending a book from any publisher most certainly does not imply support of that publisher's goals and other materials.

 

Although I'm not consistent in that, I think. When I wrote TWEM, I remember hunting all over the place to find an edition of Mein Kampf (recommended for its historical value) that wasn't published by a white supremacy organization, since I didn't want folks to be channeling their money into neo-Nazi coffers.

 

I'm in the throes of picking whom to recommend at the moment, so this issue's very much on my mind.

 

SWB

 

I partially agree but I think you are spinning things a bit to justify promoting materials from the likes of Wilson/BJU/Abeka.  I wouldn't quit using your material (if I still used it) because of something in your personal life (ie your divorce example), but the issues with Wilson/BJU/Abeka are not private matters - they have placed their ignorance on front street and your referencing or recommending them taints your work as well.

 

[Miss Mousie]

Thinking about some possibilities ...

 

Option 1:  I recall one recorded lecture in which SWB discussed a particular writing book, which she likes for X principle or explanation or whatever it was.  Then she said she thought the examples are so awful that she couldn't recommend it in TWTM, but only orally so she could include the disclaimer.  Same could go for DW's book (although I imagine it would be mighty difficult to rephrase "I think he is a morally reprehensible beast" into something more delicate!).

 

Option 2:  There could be a standard disclaimer somewhere in the book that says "inclusion in this volume does not necessarily indicate full endorsement of the material, the writer, or the publisher.  Please research carefully for yourselves before purchasing."

 

Option 3:  I vaguely recall that the recs in TWTM are sometimes noted as secular/Catholic/whatever, but maybe it could be a bit more explicit, like with Dicentra's science curriculum sticky threads on the high school board, wherein each resource's viewpoint is labeled, if known.

 

I hope something here sparks a good idea for you, SWB.

 

[Classical Katharine]

This is a tough question!

 

Betrayal is always a horrible feeling. But as to whether we have to pitch all the books by someone who has betrayed us, I think that's not always the only thing we can do.

 

I wonder if it might be helpful to break it down into two parts. One is what any prospective buyer has the liberty to do or not do. The other, related but not at all the same, is what does someone in SWB's shoes have the liberty to do or not do in making recommendations. (A long-ago series on Christian liberty by a wise pastor is in the back of my mind here.)

 

The prospective buyer of what I'll call a book from a "problem source" has, it seems to me, the liberty to use it or not to use it, but only following the "meat sacrificed to idols" principle from Corinthians. If the book, just taking the words on the page, is a useful item, it's like meat. Edible, able to nourish. But, like the meat in question, a book from a "problem source" is part of an overall project whose aims we can't endorse, and maybe an overall project we must in fact refrain from furthering.

 

Paul didn't tell Christians they couldn't eat the meat at all. It's just meat. The project of idolatry that the meat was used to further did not change the meat into non-meat. You can buy it afterwards at the meat market and get protein from it. Maybe it's even a good value. So if you can with a good conscience, and you yourself are not honoring the idol by doing so--not committing the same sins, or condoning them--you are free to partake. You're also free to refrain just because you feel revolted, even if it wouldn't lead you into sin. (If it would lead you into the idolatry, you are not free to eat the meat.)

 

BUT, if you know your brother will be ensnared by your example (if you eat) into lowering his own guard against idolatry, you should not eat the meat, for his sake. Paul mentions "if he sees you eating in a temple," so the more public, the more responsibility.

 

(It does not say if someone will find out you eat it and judge you for it as carnal, but not be tempted, that you shouldn't eat. Only if your brother might be ensnared to the idolatry, must you refrain. It's the nature of Christian liberty that the one who can't partake will tend to think that the one who can, is sinning. We don't have to avoid being judged; we do have to avoid setting an ensnaring example.)

 

It seems to me that someone in Susan's position faces the issues raised by the last two paragraphs. If she "can eat" a certain book, taking the book in isolation, even if she "can't eat" other books from the same publisher or author, she has liberty to "eat" as an individual. Read it, use it. But should she "eat" such books in front of others? And would including them in WTM be doing so, or would it just be letting others know "here's some meat sacrificed to idols. It's meat. Eat if you wish and can, don't if you can't"?

 

I would think at the very least that it would be necessary, in order to honor the principles of the meat-offered-to-idols passage, to have a warning in the book that everything in the book is "meat" in itself, but not every author is a good egg, and not every other book by same is a good book. A big, hard-to-miss warning.

 

Whether this is enough, I don't know, since we all know (well, ask an author :-) that not everyone reads all the introductory materials to a book. So, you know someone will open WTM in the middle and just start reading the lists.

 

Yet, warnings on every page could be off-putting . . . and the task of having to asterisk some but not other books on a list sounds burdensome in many ways.

 

As for whether we as individual buyers have an obligation to boycott a "problem source" book b/c we don't want to add to the author's prestige, credibility, etc., I think that's a matter of liberty as well. The author may have an innocent, dependent spouse or children who will also suffer if everyone stops buying every single book he wrote. Do we have an obligation to starve them too? I don't think so, myself. However, again, if it turns your stomach to buy a certain book, from a problem source, I sympathize, I might feel the same way about the same book, and we don't have to buy it.

 

If Susan wants to take such books out, though, is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. She isn't obligated to promote them, at least, certainly not if she can find a replacement to recommend.

 

I think the idea is fulfill the stewardship of being a major voice people turn to for sources, yet not ensnare anyone. Oh, and looking out for your own reputation is not wrong, either!

 

I don't pretend to have the answer, only a few cliffs one doesn't want to fall off of!

 

ETA: Here are passage references: 1 Cor. 8, I Cor. 10, and Prov. 22:1 . . .

[Classical Katharine]

P.S. I think it also makes a difference whether the book in question is about the very area the person later epically failed in, vs. about some other topic. It makes a palatability difference, at least. So if someone turns out to be a closet adulterer, I'm going to be way less interested in reading his book about marriage, than his book about accounting. Even then, if it really was a good book on marriage, even though I myself may not want to read it, I'm not going to say no one should. It could be read as a massive warning: here are these great truths, and behold, you can know them and not live up to them; let me be warned . . .

 

That said an excellent tape series on marriage by a man who later betrayed his wife is not one I've ever returned to; I have better sources. The later history leaves me thinking that I might find something fishy in the series after all on second listening, or just find the whole exercise so grievous, that why would I want to do it?

 

 

[73349]

I haven't really had the experience, yet, as far as I know. I'm selective about looking up to people who are still alive, because they can still mess up.

 

Homeschooling books and curricula are problematic in a way that a lot of goods are not because they are about forming young people's thinking, which determines their behavior.

 

I mean, I could have a Joe McSoccer Superstar Athlete soccer ball, and Joe could turn out to be a horrible person, but the ball is still good for kicking (though I might cross out his name with a Sharpie). I could buy a Bobby van Rockstar guitar; if Bobby is hauled off to prison, I could in fact use the guitar to compose my Anti-van-Rockstar Anthem. I would no longer recommend the products to others, because I don't want to support Joe and Bob or their lawyers--but I'd be fine with handing them down to someone with no soccer ball or no guitar. If Joe and Bob die, the products become fine again.

 

But if I buy How to Teach Your Children to Be Awesome Like My Family by David B. Awesomesauce, and the author and his family turn out to be a bunch of sociopaths, and to use their Awesome Logic Skills, Awesome Chemistry Knowledge, Awesome Life Principles, and Awesome $$ from having sold the books to get away with mistreating others, everything he wrote is really irredeemable, isn't it? He wrote about forming young people, but he is himself malformed. Or suppose the Awesomesauce children all turn out to be ignorant, illiterate and generally unemployable, which is perhaps less a moral issue and more a matter of practicality. I still wouldn't feel right even giving it away. Even the author's death doesn't solve the problem. Into the recycling bin it all goes.

 

(I know doing it that way could make a lot of extra work for you, Susan. And no one expects you to predict future scandals/downfalls/etc., unless something is obviously not right in the content.  But I think it's better for your own reputation, which is rightfully clean and yet real rather than Photoshopped, to make an effort to screen out materials by authors and companies who have done wrong.)

[Caribbean Queen]

I don't think any homeschool publishers have done anything bad enough to taint all their books. If Bill Cosby and Josh Duggar co-authored a book on sexual purity, we wouldn't want it, no matter if it is actually (somehow) a great read. But homeschool publishers aren't that bad. Homeschool authors and publishers haven't done anything so despicable. I think TWTM should recommend whatever books have good content. Don't overthink it.

[mommaduck]

Uhm, Doug Wilson wrote for the Omnibus'. I would call what he has said and done pretty high up there.

[Guest]

To the point of the OP, specifically, as I haven't read the subsequent conversation.

 

I have been hit by this twice in my life that I can think of, and I've thought about it a lot since you made your post. 

 

Once, it was by the same person as you are likely referring to in your post.  His book helped me a LOT in deciding for classical education before we decided to homeschool.  But the reason we decided to homeschool was that my son spent K and First Grade in a classical school strongly and personally influenced by this author.  All the staff went to the same church that was in the denomination he founded and the pastor was taught at the seminary founded by this man.  All of the staff bought into the worldview (which I can only describe now as "men rule, women drool"--at least that is how it played out IRL at school).  Mid-year, first grade, my son started having some issues; he changed in his "sweetness" and he became anxious...and he stopped talking about how much God loved him.  That raised my antennae, and we decided not to send him back.  That was when we started homeschooling, and when I found TWTM and it was such a lifeline.  The thing that happened to me personally because of this was that I was sent into a tailspin because I felt like I had been so BUFFALOED and I am not a stupid person, and how did I even associate at arm's length with all of this stuff?  It sent me down a path that radically changed my life; it made me more responsible for learning what is True (not just finding a person who talks well) and for having a spine.  

 

My son recovered nicely and it all worked out.  And believe me, the above paragraph doesn't begin to touch what went on.  I have a 10 page document I wrote up in conversation form with a trusted friend who helped me figure things out.  But I shall spare you.  :0)

 

The other situation was when I read a book about Heroes--why we need them, what it means to have heroes in our midst and so on.  It was a profoundly inspiring book, and was one of the books that helped me build a spine during the previously described fiasco.  I wanted to read everything this guy had written, so I went online to find his bibliography.  Instead, I found his biography, and found that he had cheated on his wife with his daughter-in-law, whom he married, after shattering both marriages, smashing his own family and letting down the entire organization he headed.  That devastated me.  I talked to my dh about it and he had some wisdom about it, I think.  

 

Sometimes people can say and mean things that are beautiful and inspiring and true--and know these things in their heads, but fail to live up to them in their lives, due to some weakness of character.  Feet of clay and so on.  And sometimes what happens is so devastating they can't put it back together, even if they try.  That doesn't negate the truth or the beauty they revealed to you.  HOWEVER, one also feels let down, even as we all learn from the ideas of others and use these as bricks to build our own good lives.  And then you find out that someone's "brick" turns out to be sand...and your own wall is a little compromised by that.  And you feel the loss.  And you probably don't recommend that others build their houses with this guy's bricks...but they might read them with a little less expectation...maybe it's OK to have a little sand in your life...in a sandbox.  

 

That metaphor is falling apart quickly.  Sorry. I'm on the fly here. :0)  

 

If it were me, I could recommend Rediscovering the Lost Tools...as a followup to Sayers' preceding essay.  But I'd probably not recommend Omnibus (because of the distorted historical views of the commentator), and I'd recommend buying any product "used" so as not to enrich the author.  (I very much appreciated what you did re: Mein Kampt, keeping the profits away from white supremacists...)  And there are now other books that compare favorably with Lost Tools, so it would n't be as central a recommendation as it has been in the past.  

 

I also would like to note my opinion that I don't think it is your responsibility to offer a sort of "imprimatur" for every book you recommend.  For heaven's sake, I don't read up on the political beliefs of the company that provides my hamburger for dinner.  I do like to know whether it's grass-fed, but I don't check out *where my money will be going* if I support a particular ranch's beef.  KWIM?  At some point, you are recommending an educational product, not going up the food chain to discover all the goodness and badness.

 

That's my 2cents.  I think you probably deserve some change back from the transaction.  :0)

 

[TerriMI]

Could we make some divisions in this topic?  Can we apply this to not so public people that we heartily disagree with in some areas in the first place, before we are duped about what we disagree with, people like SWB who is a Christian?  Some people adamantly disagree with her in that area, yet will buy her books and use her ideas and recommendations.  Are they supporting her Christian beliefs if they do this?  I myself look to many people who post here and heed their advice on certain subjects and yet firmly and unequivocally consider some of their other ideas as dangerous.  For one example, I wish a certain male member of this community could have taught my children math. I would have paid him to do so, yet I do not consider his views on other things nearly as well.  If I had been able and the opportunity had been there, I would have tried my best to follow his ideas about teaching math.  If I had, would I have been also, at the same time, automatically endorsing and teaching his other ideas?  If I recommend to others that they read his posts on math, am I recommending that they read and follow his other ideas too?  

 

Sometimes I think this and the original thread are quite a lot about being duped.  If we could take that part of the discussion away, the topic is clearer.  Or we could divide it along those lines.  We could ask if  there is a difference between using a curriculum whose author we we know from the start we disagree with in certain areas and using a curriculum whose author we find out later that we disagree with.

[happypamama]

It is still hard for me to say "We Are...Penn State". :(

Yeah.

[TerriMI]

This is a tough question!

 

Betrayal is always a horrible feeling. But as to whether we have to pitch all the books by someone who has betrayed us, I think that's not always the only thing we can do.

 

I wonder if it might be helpful to break it down into two parts. One is what any prospective buyer has the liberty to do or not do. The other, related but not at all the same, is what does someone in SWB's shoes have the liberty to do or not do in making recommendations. (A long-ago series on Christian liberty by a wise pastor is in the back of my mind here.)  ......etc

 

 

Thanks, Katharine!  That post really helps me in my own thinking about this messy thread. I think you did it by first dividing it well with the liberty idea.  Somehow I missed reading your post here before I posted below about dividing the topic.  You have done better than I did imho.

[TerriMI]

Looking at this in the light of informal logical fallacies, I also wonder if we are considering whether we want to commit the fallacy of composition.  This fallacy is about inferring something that is true about a part of the whole is also true about the whole.  In many cases what is true of a part is not true of the whole.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition 

[LearningGrace]

This has been a very interesting thread with numerous points which have challenged my thinking.   I believe that this is most definitely a 'sticky wicket' due at least in part to the fact that so much of this discussion will rest with one's own conscience.  That said, one of the draws of a classical model for me personally is the emphasis on learning to think and reason well.  I believe this has a direct bearing on the discussion about whether or not SWB should continue recommending certain titles or authors or  publishers due to a host of reasons.  Perhaps we would do well to revisit the reasons SWB and her mother gave for recommending any title to begin with.  "The resources that appear in this book are those that combine academic excellence, ease of use for the parent, clarity, and (when possible) affordability."  (TWTM, 3rd ed., p. XXIII)  Personally, I believe that this is a sufficient disclaimer.