[oska]

> it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead

I take somewhat the opposite view: once someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle.

Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon, which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the same way.

[ncmncm]

The law favors the idea that the dead are beyond harm.