[supernova87a]

Is it possible that extreme greatness in certain talents comes with unavoidable flaws in others? Creativity, depression, wit, temper, outbursts, humor, affection. Would banishing some also eliminate the others?

Lots of amazing writers, poets, scientists, are terribly flawed, depressed, tortured souls. Hell, even we here on HN debate every day the ridiculous company founders and VCs whose behavior creates interesting enterprises but leads to inevitable problems later.

We seem to want saints who pique our attention, stimulate our fancy, and amuse/entertain us. But as some witty person said, living in heaven with the saints would be worse than hell.

[zorked]

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

People who actually achieve something are just subject to more scrutiny.

Also changing social mores means you are almost guaranteed to have done something improper if you have been publicly exposed for several decades.

[smhost]

well, i don't know if either of you have been paying attention to anything that's been happening the past several decades, but there's an inherent problem with the codification of offensiveness. if everything's just a bunch of offensive meaningless shit (mormon amusement parks and dragon dildos or whatever), then you run into problems with the the moral relativism of offensiveness (or, in your case, sexual assault) itself becoming some kind of heroic righteous category.

so which is it? should sexual assault be condemned, or should it be celebrated, like you're doing here? to be clear, i care less about where you stand than i care that you pick a fucking stance.

[supernova87a]

I wasn't commenting about those allegations, I was replying to the parent comment about creative types who have extremes of personality.

I personally have no knowledge of those serious claims. I don't read in any reports here or elsewhere that Harold Bloom came close to perpetrating sexual assault. Do you, or do you have personal knowledge? If not maybe you should think about your own relativism as you try to turn every possible act by a person you don't know into a rallying cry to fuel your righteous indignation?

I was commenting that the people who have the most creativity often display severe personality flaws. I wasn't excusing anything. Seems like you're quite angry?

[LeonB]

People in power are the only ones who have opportunities to abuse power. People who are given power and abuse that power should have that power taken away from them. There’s plenty of other people who will fill their role.

[coldtea]

And what if they people who "are given power and abuse that power" are still by far the best for the role?

One can imagine a politician who is a thief for example, stealing public money or who uses the state to harm his personal enemies, but is still a genius of public policy, great for steering the economy, a great leader at war, and so on. In the end, the amount of money they stole e.g. (in the case of the embezzler) is insignificant compared to the good he hid for the country as a leader.

You'd replace them with some "good person" if said good person's weren't as good?

And here's the catch, history accounts are filled with such people.

[LeonB]

The case at hand is an older man who interacts with younger students. Half of them don’t feel safe around him. He’s going to have to do an astounding job with the remaining 50% to make up for that.

It’s not about declaring some people “good” before hand. It’s more about spotting when power is being abused and giving someone else a go.

A government area very close to here recently arrested a politician who was also the most popular politician in the country (by % votes). He’s now been found guilty of some crimes the scale of which is quite small compared to the absolute scale of the area he ran. But all of his decisions and appointments will now be examined. There are definitely plus and minuses to his downfall. But on balance I’m glad that people didn’t continue to turn a blind eye to his corruption, even if some of it “got the job done” faster.