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What's to reconcile? You will find character flaws and chronic bad judgement in the most successful/accomplished people–it will just be in some other area than
by callmeed 14y ago
What's to reconcile? You will find character flaws and chronic bad judgement in the most successful/accomplished people–it will just be in some other area than what they're known for.
John Calvin had a man burned at the stake. Henry Ford was an anti-semite. 8 of the first 10 US presidents owned slaves. And, no, I don't think it's a matter of shifting standards. Look at Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, etc.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoConsidering Einstein didn't kill anyone...he did OK. No one is a saint (except for maybe a saint, but then I've heard crazy things about Mother Teresa also).
- philwelch 14y agoEinstein didn't directly kill anyone, but he did sign a letter to President Roosevelt urging him to fund research into nuclear weapons.
- tadfisher 14y agoI think this is a rational thing to do -- after all, he was fearful of what would happen should the Germans have completed their nuclear program first.
- philwelch 14y agoSure, but there's a big moral weight on using your fame and influence to get your government to built atomic bombs. Though this was before the advent of strategic bombing, so I'm not sure how obvious it was to Einstein exactly how such a weapon would ever be used.
- mylittlepony 14y agoYeah, he only helped to build the most destructive weapon ever.
- toufka 14y agoNo he didn't. He understood the science - and wrote a highly-public letter to the president arguing it would be better for the US to build one than to have it dropped on them by the Germans - already at work. But he had no hand in building it. Keep in mind, Einstein would have been in his mid-60s during the war, and a German at that.
- bitwize 14y agoWe'd call him a German. The Germans of the day, indubitably, would have called him a Jew. There's a reason why he moved to America...
- mylittlepony 14y agoHe even became a citizen.
- trentmb 14y agoAnd the Wright brothers helped develop the craft the bomb would be carried on. What a couple of no good murderers they were.
- mylittlepony 14y agoYour comparison is retarded.
- hingisundhorsa 14y agoAgnes Bojaxhiu aka mother theresa is one of the worst media scams out there. Portrayed as a saint, she was actually an extremist religious nutjob. I happen to have visited her hospice in Calcutta and was shocked to see its condition given the significant amount of donations being sent. Victims (not patients, they were poor uneducated rural folk being collected for display) were denied painkillers and modern medication because Agnes believed in the theology of suffering. A quick google will show you that Agnes managed to get most of the donations funnelled back to the Vatican, hence her beatification by the pope. I found the whole thing utterly disgusting and will never trust generic media representations of individuals.
- davesmylie 14y agoPerhaps reconcile was the wrong word . . . I was looking at it more from the "here's a perfect person" image that some historical figures seem to have, versus the fact that everyone (no matter how history makes them out), is still just a flawed human like everyone else. He may have been one of the most brilliant minds in the last 100 years, but apparently he had a love life that was just as messed up as the rest of us =)