While not explicitly written in reaction to recent revelations about writer Neil Gaiman, Annie Mueller’s When you love something made by a terrible person is a useful guide to processing the idea of beloved culture created by terrible people.
Mueller’s conclusion:
I believe people can change.
Most people don’t change, though, after a certain point. Changing requires thinking new thoughts, different thoughts. Changing requires adjusting your beliefs. Changing requires letting go of who you used to be and the first step to doing that is to recognize yourself.
But nobody wants to see a monster in the mirror.
Most people stay in the ruts they’ve dug and keep walking, back and forth, back and forth, around and around, deeper and deeper, straight into hell.But I believe in redemption. I believe if you can turn yourself into a monster, you can undo it as well.
What you created, you can destroy.
Annie Mueller was featured last week in People & Blogs; the week before it was my friend Steven Garrity. Neither of them are terrible people in any way.
About This Blog
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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I have been writing here since May 1999: you can explore the 25+ years of blog posts in the archive.
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