Derb — I want to agree with you on this, but I’m not sure I completely can. You mention Marx. Isn’t old Karl at least somewhat responsible for the results of his writing? Certainly the Communist Manifesto which was, after all, a manifesto confers some guilt on him?

Maybe philosophers are different? I think John Dewey is a man with a lot to atone for given what people did with his supposedly benign writings.

Or consider Rousseau. This is a particular problem for me. I have some harsh words for Rousseau in my book. But I have some friends and acquaintances I admire who just love Rousseau. They say I’m reading him wrong. And as they are close students of the man and I am not, it’s often very hard for me to win that argument.

But when I say, “Hey, look, Robespierre and the Jacobins were even closer students of Rousseau’s and they found something in there that sanctioned the Terror. Did they all misread Rousseau?” And their basic answer is “yes.” To which I say, okay, but does that really let Rousseau completely off the hook? If there’s something in there that led very smart people to believe there was a philosophical and moral writ to slaughter thousands and erase society surely that should count against Rousseau on some level, even if it’s only an indictment against his clarity of thought and writing. No?

Last, all (or nearly) authors want books to have an “impact” as they say today. That is why most writers write. If that’s their intent why does it say “nothing” about them and their books if certain people are particularly moved by those books? Obviously the guilt-by-endorsement can be overdone and often is (you should read my e-mail!), but is the connection really wholly non-existent?

Update: Oh, and I should say something about the Hitler-vegetarianism thing, since I hear that all the time. First, I think it’s not a great analogy (books=vegetarianism). Second, yes, it says pretty much nothing about vegetarians that Hitler was a vegetarian. But it says quite a bit about Hitler that he was a vegetarian, partcularly given all he had to say on the subject. If Hitler were impotent, it wouldn’t say much of anything useful about other impotent people, but it would tell us something interesting about Hitler, right?