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[lliira]

So Alice Walker is a big David Icke fan. She compares him to Malcolm X.

The link is years old. But it's probably the best example I've ever seen of the fact that being even a great writer of fiction does not make someone qualified to do political analysis. At all. AT ALL. Yet we keep demanding not only writers, but also actors and pop artists, get deeply involved in politics. Then listening to them, then getting angry when they don't live up to whatever standards we have for them this millisecond, and so on. (When I say "we" I do mean "we" -- I've been pretty damn guilty of this myself.)

It's kind of like asking a cat to tapdance. It's possible a particularly skilled cat could tapdance. I'm not discounting the possibility entirely. But it's pretty awful to be mean to a cat because they can't tapdance.

Comments

[iosonochesono]

Oh Lord. She believes in the lizard people? An antisemitic conspiracy theorist? And I always respected her work so much.

But yeah. I've said the same thing - except in regard to Bill Nye, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. They ask for their political opinions or opinions on historical matters even though they have no expertise in those departments. Or even trying to make them both spokespeople for GMOs. Neither of them are biologists. Neil in particular is an astrophysicist. And they distract people from the real issue about said topics, too (e.g. emphasizing that GMOs are not inherently dangerous, while ignoring the problem of corporations being able to patent gene sequences or agriculture and livestock.)

[lliira]

Yep. They can't be experts in everything. And people expect Neil deGrasse Tyson to be exactly like Carl Sagan, who did have a history degree and was pretty expert on beginner to intermediate-level historical topics. Everyone can't do everything.

I still respect Alice Walker's fiction immensely. It's like how Mozart wrote some of the most brilliant and transcendent music ever, but in his personal life was a philandering jackass. Greatness in one area often comes with downright goofiness (at best) in other areas. And then there are the people who are not necessarily great, but are simply competent and popular, who are thrust into the limelight and expected to be paragons. Fame does strange things to people.