14 ms·
Love after life: Richard Feynman's letter to his departed wife (2017)
- kkwteh 3y agoI never knew how to square this with stories about Feynman’s sexual predation. Were these two distinct phases of his life?
- happytoexplain 3y agoThis is a good summary example of something I find distinctly dangerous about the way people think of figures they don't personally know (i.e. how people on the social web treat public figures, or even just any stranger they see on the web). We see snapshots and assemble a person in our head. We can barely do that with any degree of fidelity regarding people we personally know, much less public figures. People do good and evil things. But a person, in virtually all cases, is not "good" or "evil". Even if Feynman was engaging in the two behaviors you are thinking of at the same time (whatever those behaviors are - I'm not commenting), it still doesn't make him some kind of paradox. It does so much damage to think like this. This false dichotomy is especially prevalent for sexual topics, because they trigger stronger emotions and push us towards our "that guy good, that guy bad" instincts.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoWhen you take their actions and consider them as a whole, it clearly paints some as good or evil. Sure, no one is movie villain evil or saint-level good, but when a preponderance of their actions have outcomes that are bad for others, then I think it's pretty clear who they are.
- happytoexplain 3y agoFine, but I explicitly refrained from defending Feynman. The point I made is that it is a sign of a horrible social sickness that we can be confused that it's possible for a person to commit some sexual sin and also for that same person to love somebody. To further clarify, note this sentence in my comment: >it still doesn't make him some kind of paradox I did not say, e.g. >it still doesn't make him, on par, more bad than good
- the_af 3y agoIn addition to your comment, what I find mind-boggling is how easily people swing between the two extremes of opinion: it seems every public figure must either be adored and admired, or reviled and ostracized. People (myself included, I don't exclude myself from being human!) do not want to contemplate public figures as complex individuals with dark and bright aspects. It's always all or nothing. So Woody Allen went from being an adored auteur to someone who not only was declared guilty of a horrible crime in public opinion, but also people felt entitled to declare his cinema was never good to begin with (where were these people before Allen fell in disgrace? Nowhere. They only declared his movies trash once he fell in disgrace). Same with Feynman. Same with Asimov. Same with Picasso. And the list goes on forever. People cannot bear the thought that artists, scientists and public figures in general are real people, with flaws and all.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoI think something you're failing to account for in peoples' reactions these figures is that the relationship between their moral transgressions and their work is not spurious. Feynman was a notable scientist but he was also one of the most famous scientists, he was a great populizer of science especially later in life. Finding out he was a sex pest or womanizer or worse has tangible consequences to that role. Was he a good mentor in general, or only to women he wanted to fuck? Or only ones he didn't? Were there any women pushed out of science because of his inappropriate attention or advances? We now have to ask these questions, and their answers can retroactively change how we evaluate his later life's work as an advocate of science. Similarly woody allen makes movies that are compelling because of their portrayal of human connection and vulnerability. As you said, what woody allen is accused of is a great crime, far far beyond routine human flaws. It does change the context and the meaning of the movie to know that this is what its creator thinks of human connection as well. You can decide not to believe the allegations, but for people who do believe them I don't think it's an error or transgression for them to evaluate his movies in light of them. And it is certainly not true that no one criticized these figures before their "faults" were known. Orson Welles famously with woody allen, Picasso was not always revered, and I disliked feynman from reading his own memoirs. It's just these criticisms are not generally welcomed or amplified for figures in the prime of their accolades. Which is an interesting subject itself, I think.
- noobface 3y agoThe topic here specifically is his love life. If a person I personally knew was accused of half of what Feynman has been, I'd have second thoughts about inviting them over for dinner. If you're going to argue for a gradient of perspective while assessing the character of a person there are better examples than Feynman.
- happytoexplain 3y agoMy response would be the same one I gave here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37916016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37916016 The degree of the subject's immorality has no bearing on my point. In fact, it's arguably better to use a "worse" example, by your definition, since it actually challenges the reader to consider the point more carefully. If the subject's crimes are petty, the reader might accidentally ignore my point, instead just jumping to the easy and fallacious thought, "yeah I agree, that person didn't do anything terrible", and moving on. That said, to be clear, I don't have an opinion on where Feynman's indiscretions fall on the spectrum. I don't know the details beyond womanizing/objectifying/going after women in relationships. Again, I'd make the same comment regardless of the answer.
- _yb2s 3y agoWhat is he accused of?
- happytoexplain 3y agoJust a correction: I am not making a gradient argument. The word brings to mind a one-dimensional scale. That is a measly one-step-up from black-and-white. The implication of a "gradient" is that there is "good" on one side and "evil" on the other, and everybody falls somewhere on the gradient. This is not strictly false in all senses, but it is almost always a gross oversimplification and, effectively, a useless measure. A core part of my point is multi-dimensionality.
- KMag 3y ago"But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
- avgcorrection 3y agoHow about we do away with speculating on the personal lives of public figures unless it is pertinent to some issue? So much judgement and pedestal-making. But people will keep lopsidedly downvoting when someone veers towards the judgement-side. As if putting people on pedestals is any better.
- zingababba 3y agoI find the best antidote for this unfortunate way of thinking is imagining the individual passing gas. It's impossible to not see someone as human when they are farting.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoIt's been many years since I read his memoirs but I remember feeling that he came off as a barely-sympathetic womanizer in them. He had more or less absolute control over his own portrayal of himself so I assume the truth was significantly worse.
- jayceedenton 3y agoYou never considered the possibility he was just being honest?
- foldr 3y agoI'd read that as 'the whole truth' rather than a suggestion that the Surely You're Joking series contained outright lies. The books (obviously) don't go into all the details of Feynman's personal and sexual relations, so there is surely much that is omitted. They also don't exactly convey a sense of extreme veracity, being structured as collections of amusing anecdotes.
- packetslave 3y agoCollections of amusing anecdotes is exactly what they are. Feynman didn’t write the Surely You’re Joking series. They’re stories he told that Ralph Leighton wrote down and collected into books.
- randombits0 3y agoIt taints the whole “woman he loved” routine as he openly acknowledged his misogyny and objectification of women throughout his life. He can’t love women so how can he love this woman?
- watwut 3y agoMen are fully capable to love one woman and see others just as sex. Men are fully capable to write romantic letters and mean them in the moment and seek casual sex two hours later.
- nynx 3y agoPeople are complex and multifaceted.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoand mostly shit.
- nynx 3y agosometimes they don’t fit into your sense of morality
- sonicanatidae 3y agoYou're right. I believe school children should get meals, for free in the richest country in the world. Crazy idea. They don't agree, but are somehow still good people.. lol
- wincy 3y agoRight, because my wife home schools and has chosen to forgo a professional career to care for our disabled daughter, depriving us of a substantial income, and I don’t think the tax dollars I do pay should subsidize the public schools we can’t even use due to our child’s medical needs? Mind you, I live in an area with middle class incomes, so the families can definitely afford the school lunches. Am I a bad person?
- pohl 3y agoInteresting that you framed this not about how perhaps you and your daughter ought be eligible for some subsidies, but rather about what subsidies you feel should be taken away from others, as if their needs have no merit.
- lovecg 3y agoThe only thing that gets taken away here is a part of your income by the government. The rest is arguing over how this taken money should be doled out. Something that was not yours to begin with cannot be “taken away”.
- larrywright 3y agoAs I recall, they married quite young and the womanizing didn’t come until he was older. The optimist in me wants to believe that if Arline had not died, the womanizing wouldn’t have happened. Feynman was a brilliant man but it was clear that losing his wife shook him. Perhaps the womanizing was a consequence of that. It certainly doesn’t excuse any behavior of his, but perhaps it explains it.
- aragonite 3y ago> Feynman was a brilliant man but it was clear that losing his wife shook him. Perhaps the womanizing was a consequence of that. I'm having a hard time imagining how the cause you posited could conceivably lead to the effect in question. Let's also remember that when a guy "plays the field", it doesn't always have a deep story behind it! :)
- larrywright 3y agoIt’s certainly possible there was no cause. I’m just imagining that falling deeply in love with someone and marrying them, only to lose them a short time later could cause one to lose faith in the idea of committing to a single person. I have zero evidence to back this up, it’s just how I felt after reading his books, and the biography by Gleick.
- screye 3y agoWords have meanings. > sexual predation I don't think this term is appropriate for anyone who is less than an attempted rapist. There are many existing words to describe Feynman's behavior. Pervert, philanderer womanizer, consummate cheater.... Let's use existing words that lead to the correct assumptions by those unfamiliar with his sexual behaviors. A sexual predator evokes Harvey Weinstein. AFAIK, Feynman sounds more like an 80s rock-star, and all the positive + negative behaviors associated with that stereotype.
- mherkender 3y agoI dunno, a lot of those 80s rock stars slept with their underage groupies. Harvey Weinstein used his power to pressure young Hollywood actresses, am I supposed to believe that a professor sleeping with his students is a completely different beast? I still think Harvey Weinstein is worse, like you say, but I think it's disingenuous to pretend like they're completely different types of people.
- watwut 3y agoThere is actual difference between threatening people livelihood and actually destroying peoples careers forever and actually using violence. Which afaik, Feynman is not accused of. He did misrepresented who he was in some of those relationships - by pretending he is undergraduate. That is exact opposite of using power, it is pretending you do not have it. Those are completely different types of people. It is not that professors should sleep with students, it is that Weinstein went far far beyond that. Suggesting it is the same is minimizing what Weinstein did.
- watwut 3y agoThose events are perfectly compatible with each other. Also, what you call sexual predation afaik was to large extend engagement in consensual casual sex. Unless there are some stories I do not know about.
- andrewl 3y agoIt’s been easily 15 years since I read Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by by James Gleick, and probably 25 or so since I read Feynman’s own books of stories about himself. I remember lots of stories about flirtation, and very probably promiscuity, but I don’t recall sexual predation. That’s not to say it didn’t happen. I haven’t read everything there is about Feynman’s life, and I don’t remember all that I actually have read. But I do not remember predation.
- fwungy 3y agoHe used to go to strip clubs with his sketch pad and draw the strippers. It was an effective ice breaker and relationships with the strippers outside the club are inferred. Feynman was a successful, charismatic man with insatiable curiosities about many things. He may have caused women to do things they later regretted, but it's unlikely he forced anyone against their will.
- frontman1988 3y agoEven Einstein was flirtatious and a cheater.
- andy_ppp 3y agoI didn’t realise he did anything wrong? Was he forcing himself on women or merely flirting successfully?
- Dig1t 3y agoHe didn't do anything wrong, you can read his book where he talks about his dating life in great detail. He was just successful at flirting. Our puritanical culture just doesn't like it.
- reducesuffering 3y ago"Didn't do anything wrong" is sleeping with married woman and saying in his autobiography: > those bar girls are all bitches, that they aren’t worth anything > I’m not going to be a gentleman to such worthless bitches > I think to myself, “Typical bitch" > I stop suddenly and I say to her, “You… are worse than a WHORE!" Ya, it's just our puritanical culture...
- Dig1t 3y agoAnything sounds bad if you take sentences out of context. Read the rest of chapter and pages leading up to this part. He talks about how he struggled getting back into dating after his wife died and initially he tried dating very chivalrously, being kind and buying drinks for ladies. He found that most women would take his free drinks and ditch him. The lines you quoted from his book are about his mental shift, and after he started doing that it actually worked! He was successful with that tactic, women wanted to sleep with him after he started thinking and acting like that. He didn't break any laws, force anyone to do anything against their will, or hurt anyone. If that's the case, and the women actually responded to it, then what's wrong with it? That's why I think everyone is being puritanical about it. Yes our cultural sensibilities don't like it, but nobody was hurt and he's being honest about something that actually worked, why is that bad?
- reducesuffering 3y ago
- poszlem 3y agoIt's really disappointing to see such a blatant attempt to drag someone's name through the mud. I have seen over and over again people derive pleasure from undermining respected figures, perhaps in a bid to appear more sophisticated or informed. Shame on you.
- fwungy 3y agoIt's almost always straight white males slated for personal destruction. The funniest was probably Marilyn Manson. These women really didn't know that he was a disgusting pervert just from seeing him, then dated him for years, complaining a decade later? Manson is an awful person and makes no attempts to hide it. No one could say to the accusers, "you really had no idea this guy was a horrible person from second one?" If Manson can be attacked and canceled any man can be.
- _yb2s 3y agoWhat stories about sexual predation? That is a pretty serious accusation that most of the other people in here haven’t heard, can you please explain? The rumors and stories from himself suggest he was very successful at dating a lot of women, who were all consensual adults. Are you talking about something else?
- fwungy 3y agoThese stories surround virtually all successful straight men. Even Garrison Keillor, as mild mannered as they come, got taken down for it. We are simultaneously told that women are equal to men, and yet we also are told there are male predators and womanizers who women need special protection against. This dismisses women's sexual agency. Specifically that women may choose, consciously, to exploit their sexual attractiveness to get something from a man. If women don't have agency, i.e. men can manipulate them into damaging sexual relationships which they are helpless to avoid, this posits women as less than equals to men, as men are expected to stand up for themselves when someone attempts to manipulate them.
- peter_retief 3y agoSuch a sad and brave story, makes me count my blessings.
- shmde 3y agoDidnt he cheat on wife with his PhD students, had numerous flings and flirted with other peoples wives ?
- Dig1t 3y agoI've read a lot about Feynman and have never read that. Would love to see a source.
- jseutter 3y agoI have heard about it, but have no opinion on if it is true or false. https://cirosantilli.com/feynman-was-a-huge-womanizer-during-a-certain-period-of-his-life https://cirosantilli.com/feynman-was-a-huge-womanizer-during...
- jjulius 3y agoEdit: Note that I have no opinion here, just answering someone's request for a source. A cursory Google reveals... > Neither were Feynman's escapades limited to bars; more than one of his biographies have documented affairs with two married women, at least one of which caused him considerable problems.[0] Charlie Munger seems to be a source for claims that he would sleep with the wives of his undergrad students[2]. And then there are these passages[1], which appear to be from his own autobiography. This isn't necessarily cheating, but assuming that what he's written is true, they serve to make the accusations of infidelity more plausible. > "... You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything –– not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.” >I adopted the attitude that those bar girls are all bitches, that they aren’t worth anything, and all they’re in there for is to get you to buy them a drink, and they’re not going to give you a goddamn thing; I’m not going to be a gentleman to such worthless bitches, and so on. I learned it till it was automatic. >I think to myself, “Typical bitch: he’s buying her drinks, and she’s inviting somebody else to the table.” >I stop suddenly and I say to her, “You… are worse than a WHORE! ... You got me to buy these sandwiches, and what am I going to get for it? Nothing!” This Baffler[3] piece also focuses on this subject... >He worked and held meetings in strip clubs, and while a professor at Cal Tech, he drew naked portraits of his female students. >Even worse, perhaps, he pretended to be an undergraduate student to deceive younger women into sleeping with him. His second wife accused him of abuse, citing multiple occasions when he’d fly into a blind rage if she interrupted him while he was working or playing his bongos. [0]https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/richard-feynman-sexism-and-changing-perceptions-of-a-scientific-icon/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunctio... [1]https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-feynman-called-a-woman-worse-than-a-whore/ https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-feynman-... [2]https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/richard-feynman-a-womanizer.905155/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/richard-feynman-a-woma... [3]https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-feynman-mcneill https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-fey...
- Gabriel54 3y agoVery touching story. > PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address. Not out of character for how I always imagined his personality.
- growingkittens 3y agoLosing his first wife was a tragedy that seems to have led Feynman down a dark personal path. Everybody likes the funny second wife divorce story - "because he did calculus all the time!" His second wife testified in court that he flew into a rage and choked her if she unwittingly interrupted his calculus. [1] She was granted a divorce due to his "extreme cruelty." [1] p. 64-65 of FBI file - https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#file-4617 https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi...
- yedava 3y agoPlenty of people lose loved ones and manage to remain decent human beings. We can admire Feynman's contributions to physics, but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole. There's no point in looking up to him in matters of how to love another human being. Your everyday nobody is far more inspirational in that regard.
- enraged_camel 3y ago>> ...but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole I don't know about you, but physical abuse (e.g. choking his spouse if she interrupted him while he worked) goes way beyond asshole territory IMHO. We're talking about someone who was essentially an incredibly cruel, if not monstrous person. But what generally happens with these types of things is that history tends to treat famous men very kindly and overlook or even completely erase their dark sides. That is indeed what has happened with Feynman.
- Spooky23 3y agoI’d say having some experience in the area that extreme grief can really affect someone in profound ways. Not making excuses for someone whom I don’t know or understand, but the toxic soup and paranoia associated with where and the nature of his work combined with what seems to a hard loss is a recipe for the type of mental anguish that might explain some of those behaviors.
- BigTuna 3y agoA long time *ago I read re: Feynman's divorce that false accusations of abuse were common back then because no-fault divorce didn't exist. Couples that wanted a divorce would have to concoct a story in order to get a judge to sign off. I don't have strong feelings either way because it's impossible to know what really happened between them, but I found it an interesting counterpoint.
- functoid 3y ago> Marriage, however, proved to be a towering practical problem — Princeton, where Feynman was now pursuing a Ph.D., threatened to withdraw the fellowships funding his graduate studies if he were to wed, for the university considered the emotional and pragmatic responsibilities of marriage a grave threat to academic discipline. You have got to be kidding me. And I thought academia was bad in the 21st century.
- DigiDigiorno 3y agoSmall story about the time I read the collection Feynman's letters (I think it's a book called Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track) The beginning of the book contained a lot of cute letters between him and his wife Arline. I was curious how much of the book would be this, considering I know she died of TB, so I flipped ahead and saw a letter to her quite a few more pages in, so I figured she must survive until at least that point. I continued reading and was emotionally caught off guard when she died only a couple of pages later. I'm not sure why I was so distraught at the death of someone I did not know who died 80 years ago, but I was looking forward to, and had the expectation of, a few more cute letters between them. When I got to the letter that I had originally flipped to, it was the one he was writing after her death as a form of therapy to himself. FWIW, they had a very cute relationship and the letters are worth reading for that alone.
- dang 3y agoRelated. Others? Love After Life: Richard Feynman’s Letter to His Departed Wife (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24204678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24204678 - Aug 2020 (1 comment) Richard Feynman's Extraordinary Letter to His Departed Wife - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19280764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19280764 - March 2019 (12 comments) Feynman's Letter to His Wife - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10375283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10375283 - Oct 2015 (60 comments) Richard Feynman’s Love Letter to His Wife Sixteen Months After Her Death - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7893757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7893757 - June 2014 (1 comment)