[watwut]

> It must be so exhausting to go through life only enjoying things that match one’s up-to-the-minute current moral views.

It is not that much exhausting to not celebrate abuse. In fact, most people are not abusers, most books are not celebrating it. But, there are subcultures that do treat abuse as a cool inspirable thing to do. That is what the quote references. And it is exhausting to be around such cultures once you have seen or understand consequences of what they celebrate. And that ideology is how one gets Epstein enablers.

Vice signaling and principled opposition against "acknowledging there are victims here" are weird and destructive taboos.

>I guess all biographies of influential people are basically out, as being successful in 1000BC or 1500AD required one to do things considered unethical today.

Maybe this means we should not celebrate success itself, but acknowledge harm many successful people do to make themselves famous, rich and powerful. But more importantly, this claim of yours is frequently just not true. It is something people say to defend their heroes, trying to defend unusually horrible stuff that back then people themselves found horrible back then, fought against and criticized a lot. You can write about bad stuff historical person caused without framing it as good or cool thing, really. You can even acknowledge that their opposition had a point.

We know that being abuser is something that makes certain people admire you more.