Love after life: Richard Feynman's letter to his departed wife (2017)
themarginalian.orgSmall 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.
Very 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.
> 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.
Related. Others?
Love After Life: Richard Feynman’s Letter to His Departed Wife (2017) - 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 - March 2019 (12 comments)
Feynman's Letter to His Wife - 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 - June 2014 (1 comment)
Losing 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...
Plenty 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.
>> ...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.
A 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.
Do you remember what paper in particular? I would like to read the study about rates of false abuse accusations in areas with strict divorce laws.
Wikipedia says:
> In many other states, especially California, the most popular allegation for divorce was cruelty (which was then unavailable in New York). For example, in 1950, wives pleaded "cruelty" as the basis for 70 percent of San Francisco divorce cases.[41] Wives would regularly testify to the same facts: their husbands swore at them, hit them, and generally treated them terribly.[41] This procedure was described by Supreme Court of California Associate Justice Stanley Mosk:
> > Every day, in every superior court in the state, the same melancholy charade was played: the "innocent" spouse, generally the wife, would take the stand and, to the accompanying cacophony of sobbing and nose-blowing, testify under the deft guidance of an attorney to the spousal conduct that she deemed "cruel."[42]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#Bypassing_the...
I'm not seeing sources that try to separate "real" cases from "false" cases in that section. Both types are included in that 70 percent figure.
The cited book provides very interesting background:
> Admissible grounds varied from state to state. [...] In the other states, the common grounds were adultery, desertion, and cruelty; but there were all sorts of state idiosyncrasies. [...] Cruelty became the grounds of choice in the twentieth century; it overtook adultery in 1922, and in 1950 accounted for almost three-fifths of all divorces. Most states recognized cruelty as a valid reason for divorce—New York was a prominent exception.
> What accounts for this outbreak of marital cruelty? Nothing. It was, in fact, an outbreak of collusion. Most "cruelty" cases were uncontested. The plaintiff (usually the wife) filed for divorce. The husband made no defense. Divorce was granted, by default. Collusive divorce had become common in the late nineteenth century; in the twentieth century, it was absolutely pervasive. In legal theory, a collusive divorce was void. Husband and wife had no right to agree to split. In practice, collusion was the rule, not the exception; and the judges all knew it. Their (implicit) motto was: don't ask, don't tell.
> The precise form of collusion did vary from state to state. It mirrored the state statute; it was, in a sense, "cheating in the shadow of the law". In California, as in most states, cruelty was the courtroom favorite. In case after case after case, the wife complained that her husband cursed her and hit her, and made her life miserable. [...] In 1921 in San Francisco, the wife was plaintiff in 70 percent of divorce cases; and she alleged cruelty in 40 percent of the cases. By 1950 the percentage of accusations of cruelty had reached 70 percent.
> In New York divorce was available, practically speaking, only for adultery. This was an extreme situation; but any and all attempts to amend the law ended in shipwreck in the legislature. The demand for divorce, however, was as strong in New York as it was elsewhere. One end-run around divorce was annulment. Annulment is a declaration that a marriage never was valid, because of some kind of fraud or other impediment; in most states, annulment was a rare beast—usually fewer than 4 percent of all dissolutions of marriage. But New York was an annulment Mecca. By 1950 there were ten counties in New York which granted more annulments than divorces; and for the state as a whole, there were two-thirds as many annulments as decrees of divorce.
> New York also developed a weird form of collusive adultery—one might even call it soft-core adultery. A man would check into a hotel, a woman (usually a blonde) would appear, together with a photographer; the photographer would take pictures of the couple, in pajamas or underwear or even naked; the woman would get her fifty-dollar fee, and lo and behold! here was evidence of adultery. The flavor of this charade is neatly captured in the title of a magazine article from 1934: "I Was the Unknown Blonde in 100 New York Divorces".
Taking the above at face value, we have strong evidence that lots of people went to major lengths to establish a legal pretext for divorce. Cruelty allegations going from 40% to 70% in one city, and apparently making similar changes elsewhere, is certainly very suspicious—does it seem likely that husbands' behavior actually changed in that way? Allegation statistics varying significantly from state to state would also be rather suspicious; the book alludes to that but doesn't give details. The cited book itself has citations for several of the numbers and the magazine article, which one could chase down if one wants more detail and confirmation.
No fault divorce did not exist before the rise in cruelty claims. What caused the sudden rise in cruelty claims? None of these sources contain any sort of analysis, they're just a narrative with number aids.
The crime and violence wave of the century was beginning, which would end with a whisper in the 1990s as crime and violence dropped everywhere in the US regardless of enacted laws.
Women's rights were taking hold. Men's behavior didn't necessarily change - the social ability to escape that behavior did.
I don't think that social sciences are as technically advanced as you want them to be. They are in their infancy.
I doubt you’re to find good statistics on domestic abuse in the 1950s.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were only slightly higher than modern ones. Humans historically become less violent but it's very gradual.
The 1950s isn’t pre-modern.
Perhaps contemporary would be a better word. I'm not a native speaker.
Exactly! So we shouldn't draw any conclusions based on such statistics.
This was probably 20 years ago now but I don't think it was a formal paper
I tend to agree with "where there's smoke, there's fire," but I'm also cautious reading too much into what a single person -- in particular, an ex-lover -- has to say when forming an opinion about someone. Obviously if it's a pattern, that's another story. But I've lived through some things, and witnessed people make claims that were stronger than what was justified.
I once told my partner that there was a musician he listened to that really relished putting women down. He thought I was talking about one song, but I didn't remember enough to give details. A few weeks later, he comes back - "It's not just one song!"
He never noticed until he had the right frame of reference. It was easy to gloss over each individual instance because the songs weren't referring to him. He experienced an entirely different reality based on his perspective of existence.
There are ugly patterns in Feynman's writings about women. Not everyone has the luxury of ignoring these patterns as they read his work.
I’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.
Feynman clearly did not lead an exemplary personal life but his second wife also accused him of being a communist so I'd take her testimony with a grain of salt.
I'm having difficulty finding a source for this to read more. The closest thing I found are a few blog posts that suggest it might have been her.
You're right -- it's not known for a fact that the allegation came from her.
Such a sad and brave story, makes me count my blessings.
Didnt he cheat on wife with his PhD students, had numerous flings and flirted with other peoples wives ?
Presumably, the allegations were during his second marriage. This letter was to his first wife.
If the love of my life were to be cut down in the prime of her life, I imagine I'd be emotionally scarred for life. Sure, I'd make every effort to move on, but I just can't imagine the amount of emotional scar tissue that would remain permanently.
The second wife was the one that reported him to the FBI for being "a communist" or something like that?
Yeah allegedly because Feynman took Oppenheimer’s side while his wife didn’t in the whole debacle.
I've read a lot about Feynman and have never read that. Would love to see a source.
I have heard about it, but have no opinion on if it is true or false.
https://cirosantilli.com/feynman-was-a-huge-womanizer-during...
Edit: 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-wavefunctio...
[1]https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-feynman-...
[2]https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/richard-feynman-a-woma...
[3]https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-fey...
We alway cut great minds a lot of slack. I have a mental experiment for this: imagine a man beats his wife. Terrible right? Now imagine the same man cures cancer. Well suddenly everyone is curious about the complexities of his marriage. That’s morality for most people.
It's interest balancing. If you do a lot of good, more evil is excusable in the mind of the average person. It doesn't make the bad things less bad, but it makes the person more human, as opposed to them being a virtuous angel, which nobody likes.
Albert Einstein being a perfect example.
I was thinking of Sir Isaac Newton but yeah Einstein probably has some ghosts in his closest.
I don’t condone or defend anything he did, but following some of those links back, there seems to be a game of telephone, inflating the claims slightly each time. Munger for example seems to have said he was flirty with his students wives, but not actually sleeping with them. The nude drawings of students appears to have been in the context of an official art class, and not his students.
Regardless, this behavior was clearly inappropriate and should not be tolerated at a university. It does not appear to be actually criminal or predatory, unless I am still missing something.
It's worth including the conclusion Feyman makes in his autobiography about that episode:
> But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.
There's an alternative universe where Feynman came of age in the 90s.
Instead of learning to play the bongos he dropped a series of EP's detailing how he really felt about the opposite sex.
We'll never know what we missed in this timeline, the Tom Lehrer of gangstah rap was never born in our universe.
Gosh! A male mammal is obsessed with it's female counterpart. What could explain such odd behaviour?
It's funny how we like to think we're not animals when we really are.
Name one other mammal that has shown an understanding of their behavior’s long term emotional impact on their life partner…
It's not wrong to have those animalistic instincts, it's how you act on them and treat/speak to your sexual counterparts that is important.
so what?
Not all couples subscribe to monogamy. There is no reason to be judgemental about this in the absence of other information.
I’m polyamorous. Being poly involves clear communication and consent of all parties involved. It involves respect for the other people. If Feynman was sleeping with his students wives and openly denigrating women, that sounds much more like the behavior of someone cheating than the behavior of someone practicing ethical non monogamy. Remember that back then, ethical non monogamy was much less common. The foundational books on the subject came out in the late 1990’s or after, and before that people didn’t even have the language to describe and negotiate what they were doing. It was much more common for one person inclined to this behavior to just cheat.
Feynman has been a huge influence on me. His outlook on science and the world helped shape my own. But we can’t ignore the flaws of our heroes, and it really sounds like he had a dark side.
Where are the flaws? That the guy was attractive and managed to seduce others? He may have gone with other people's wives but that is on the wife to say no, not on him.
Ethical non monogamy requires ethical behavior. If you’re seeking out students wives, that is predatory and unethical behavior. If you’re also denigrating women that is unethical behavior. While it’s possible that Feynman, the students, the students wives, and Feynman’s wife all consented to this behavior, it seems unlikely.
I do not believe “that is on the wife to say no, not on him”. If these allegations are true, he was a teacher engaging in predatory behavior. That is simply unethical due to the power imbalance. And the fact that he was asking people to cheat is unethical.
If he knew the woman was married, he shares in that blame. At some point you know you are pushing someone else into doing something wrong, so you share that blame.
This is how the crime of "Solicitation of Murder" came to be.
I never knew how to square this with stories about Feynman’s sexual predation. Were these two distinct phases of his life?
This 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.
In 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.
> People cannot bear the thought that artists, scientists and public figures in general are real people, with flaws and all.
Possibly related to the Fundamental Attribution Error in psychology:
"The fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or over-attribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations."
https://www.simplypsychology.org/fundamental-attribution.htm...
Yup. We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions (Just keeping this mind helps me stay calm in traffic)
I wonder if this deterministic labeling of persons as good/evil as a whole is what Nietsche meant with "slave morality"?
> 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
To enjoy entertainment of anyone not a saint makes you a bad person. And I want to state emphatically for the record I am a good person. I believe in all the right things, and disbelieve all the wrong ones. When those things change next year or tomorrow, I too will change and forget that I ever believed otherwise.
If I understand what you wrote correctly, you only enjoy entertainment of saints? Also, when you find out later they are not, you will change your opinion?
It feels a bit off to me. People are not good or bad. First of all what is good or bad depends on culture/geography. Second, every person has many good and bad treats according to any culture.
You are in agreement with the comment you're replying to.
The commenter is using irony to make a point.
Somehow I felt it was too off to be serious, but it appears I still got fooled. :)
> Also, when you find out later they are not, you will change your opinion?
Hardly. I always knew they weren't saints, and always disliked them for being Nazis.
Bad people can't be talented or skilled. If they were, it would be as if the universe was condoning their behavior.
I 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.
> 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.
Yes, this is a fair assessment. The criticisms are given voice and spread once the person falls in disgrace. They are sometimes declared "unpersons", which I find deeply irritating. I suppose this happens to artists or scientists nearer in time; nobody cares to censor/cancel a Greek philosopher if he abused boys, it's just a footnote in their biography.
It might be different if you could go talk to the boys - with these modern folks you can often literally interview the victim(s) and I think that makes a difference for the reaction
Yes, this is a good point. Talking to victims or aggrieved parties is something ancient history denies us.
On the other hand, what if we could -- would we cancel all those Greek philosophers, or artists and scientists of antiquity? Strike them from the classroom, or focus the lesson entirely on how bad they were as people? Would mankind be better if that were the case?
Then again, plenty of times they are not declared unpersons nor treated horribly. Oftentimes just mentioning that this or that person did something bad at some points is enough for everyone to get outrage over "how dare you to say that".
As in, criticism is silenced until it breaks.
> 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.
I want to make clear that when someone commits a horrible crime (not a minor transgression) they should be held accountable. So rape/abuse/murder is horrible, being a bad husband/wife or an uncaring parent is bad but not "horrible", etc. Also, people are flawed, and everyone engages in bad behavior that wouldn't stand up to public criticism. Your mileage may vary, of course.
What I object to is canceling a person's work because of alleged crimes. People confuse "I don't like what it's alleged this person did in their personal life" with "this is not relevant art/science, I wish cinemas/schools/museums didn't mention this person anymore".
Saying he did X is not the same as cancelation. Also, if actual art piece is related to the real world acts, it is entirely fair to talk about it. Just like when we talk about political purposes of art.
There is also difference between "not mentioning person existed" and refusal to celebrate that person as hero or moral founder. Or just, putting contemporary complains about historical character into context. The "do not mention this person" is quite rare, actually. What people object about regarding cancelation is adding shade of grade to the person story or refusal to celebrate them.
> Saying he did X is not the same as cancelation
Cinema students are literally asking teachers not to include Woody Allen in their syllabus. I don't know if everywhere, but I'm telling you of a second hand account of someone I know who witnessed this. And it's not the only example.
> There is also difference between "not mentioning person existed" and refusal to celebrate that person as hero or moral founder.
This brings us back to the initial comment I posted in this thread: why celebrate a public figure as a hero or moral founder? People seem to want to do this. Everyone must be either a hero or a villain; and a hero who falls from grace and turns into a villain in the public eye is doubly reviled!
It's fascinating but also irritating how we are so eager to create gods and then destroy them.
Same with Asimov.
What did Asimov ever do?
https://lithub.com/what-to-make-of-isaac-asimov-sci-fi-giant...
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2020/01/08/isaac-asimov-p...
https://daily.jstor.org/asimovs-empire-asimovs-wall/
...and those are just the first few that came up on Google. I'm too sad to look for more... :-(
I wouldn't be too sad though; that was my point.
Asimov made many women uncomfortable with his behavior, yes. He was also an all-around friendly and approachable guy, a bright mind, one of the giants of sci-fi, and also a great science communicator.
He had this flaw. It's on us to deal with it, and not let it mar his otherwise great memory. (It's not like he raped women either, however bad his behavior was. Not all sins are equal).
To the majority of humans (women), he was distinctly not all around friendly and approachable. That is the point.
I'm not condoning his behavior, I'm saying it didn't define him or his impact on literature, science or science fiction; therefore it's not particularly sad.
The majority of humans -- or even the subset of most of his readers, women or men -- never even met him personally and so this personality flaw never affected them. I acknowledge it was however a very uncomfortable experience for young women who got to meet him face to face (or hand to butt, I suppose), which is unfortunate. I also see how his behavior would have discouraged women who wanted to write and would have sought his mentorship; that is truly unfortunate.
I wish he hadn't behaved like this, but this doesn't define Asimov. His contributions far exceed this personality flaw, and therefore I don't feel particularly sad.
He was reportedly very "gropey": https://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2012/09/09/we-dont-do-t...
Excerpt:
> "It is in this correspondence that we can find how the conrunners of the time treated Asimov’s harassing behavior. To be explicit, Asimov was well known for pinching the asses of women who were unlucky–or unwarned–enough to get on an elevator with him alone."
"But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
The 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.
My response would be the same one I gave here: 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.
Just 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.
What is he accused of?
How 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.
When 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.
Fine, 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
I 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.
Words 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.
I 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.
There 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.
As 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.
> 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! :)
It’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.
It’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.
He 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.
Even Einstein was flirtatious and a cheater.
What 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?
People are complex and multifaceted.
and mostly shit.
sometimes they don’t fit into your sense of morality
You'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
I suspect most people would agree with this. What they don't agree on is how it gets paid for.
Right, 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?
Interesting 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.
The 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”.
You’re certainly an uncaring person. You already struggle to care for your own child, and now you take that bitterness out on everyone else. Why should other parents not be provided free public school, regulated by the government, where they can send their children during the day while they work to support their family? How heartless to deny others that.
Public education is free for everyone. We all pay for it because it is in our best interest collectively. What makes you think you deserve access to other public programs and assistance, given that you’re not willing to extend others the same courtesy?
Those 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.
I didn’t realise he did anything wrong? Was he forcing himself on women or merely flirting successfully?
He 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.
"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...
Anything 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?
> but nobody was hurt
You actually have zero idea who or how people were hurt because this is one side from Feynman. It's bad for the same reason that a goal of making lots of new friends and then backstabbing them is bad. Sure, it can be highly successful to making new friends. Not so long term beneficial, friendly, or moral though...
He said that he would get verbal agreement to sleep together before buying drinks.
How is getting consent to have sex and then later having sex equivalent to stabbing a friend in the back? I don’t understand the analogy.
Unless you think one-night stands are morally wrong, I don’t really see any problems with his actions.
> He found that most women would take his free drinks and ditch him.
If the option to ditch him wasn't there then the drinks weren't really free, were they? It sounds more like him buying someone a drink came with expectations attached.
He specifically says in the paragraph OP is quoting from that he would ask them outright for verbal agreement that they would sleep with him later before he bought them drinks. If he got consent before anyone drank anything, what exactly is the problem?
And you actually believe that (1) this one sided story is the truth and that (2) even if it is that verbal agreement is enough in a case like this? I'd expect the vast majority of the people that you made such an offer to to treat it as a joke and if it wasn't to teach you an object lesson in what is and what isn't a binding offer. To treat this as a study in contract law is weirding me out on multiple levels at once, Feynman's, and those that think this is a normal interaction between people. Revolting, really.
It'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.
It'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.
It'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.
You never considered the possibility he was just being honest?
I'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.
Collections 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.
It 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?
>He can’t love women
This is a false premise and an oversimplification motivated by (understandably) bitter emotions (I go into this more in another comment).
I’m only suggesting that the great mind is flawed and contradictory. He is a man of his time, of course, but just perhaps a bit too quick to settle into the advantages of being a man of significant influence.
People change and perhaps I’m being harsh. I just thought the paradox was interesting.
Men 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.
The seeming frequency in this thread with which people seem unable to distinguish between love and lust (or how one can lead to the other, and their otherwise complex interworking) is evidence many have yet to experience one or the other. The 'other' being rather self evident. And that's quite sad.
One of the few times I'm reminded how much time I spend posting in an online text forum, and oh boy what a bubble we enjoy conversing in.
It is perfectly possible to love one person and have lust to another. Which is what original poster deemed shocking. The complain here is "how it is possible for him to be in love with one woman while also being womanizer in completely different relationship".
It's also possible to love multiple people at the same time, or in different ways. Nothing about human relations is binary.
some men. As well as some women.
These 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.