I remember reading Raymond Carver's biography and wishing I hadn't. Ditto Lou Reed's.
In the end, all these facets are a complex hotch potch and I'm starting to learn that while it's easy to have wisdom from the comfort of one's armchair, a more humane approach is to simply not be too judgemental. Another thing I've learned is that when the judgments are to do with politics and the darker shades of history it's always important to understand that an armchair is not privy to all the facts or circumstances: even more importantly, many of the 'moral' calls delivered from this position are biased and polluted by the concept of the Victor's version of history.
These biases, for example, led to the persecution of Furtwangler, who, more than any artist in the time of the Nazis in Germany and Austria, made a stand for moral rectitude.
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Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb