[HN Gopher] No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His L...
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No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His Late Wife,
Arline
Author : Stratoscope
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-12-25 08:22 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sothebys.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sothebys.com)
| tchalla wrote:
| > After the initial fear of a cancer prognosis, Arline was
| diagnosed with lymphatic tuberculosis in 1941, possibly
| contracted from unpasteurized milk.
|
| I want to take a step back and realise how far humans have come
| in 80 years.
| bskinny129 wrote:
| Plus I believe Feynman's baby brother died from an infected
| hangnail. Going off memory from Gleick's book, so please
| correct if slightly off.
| orgels_revenge wrote:
| Here here. What a great thing to no longer confront in our
| daily lives.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It always irks me how people bash modern food and its safety
| and glorify all the natural handmade and handpreserved food.
| Literally zero respect for painstakingly developed processes
| that save life and health of hundreds of thousands people on
| daily basis.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| There is something indescribably vulgar about auctioning off a
| letter a man wrote to his dead wife. I am quite sure that when
| Feynman penned that letter he had no idea it would eventually be
| sold by strangers for profit.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I wouldn't be as harsh. We do not really know the entire
| picture and we are too often primed for outrage nowadays.
|
| Perhaps the heirs ran into some serious trouble that can be
| alleviated with money. If a kid needs an expensive operation or
| a paralyzed person a better wheelchair, may the letters of the
| dead help them.
| [deleted]
| ykevinator2 wrote:
| On the other hand he knew we were all just carbon and that
| morality is exclusively a weapon for the living.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| When my grandmother died, one of her children discovered a box
| full of correspondence between her and my grandfather while he
| was in the war. They subsequently turned this collection of
| letters into a book and published it. I was horrified, but the
| rest of the family seemed to think it was a great idea. It's a
| real head-scratcher to me.
| kaiwen1 wrote:
| Perhaps it's just too soon? Would you feel the same about
| Solomon's letters to his (first) wife? Or Mark Antony's letters
| to Cleopatra?
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I think a reasonable bar is when a person passes out of
| living memory. Once it's reasonably likely the last person
| who knew them is also dead, there's no material harm that can
| be done by revealing their correspondence and the benefit to
| historians would outweigh any potential hurts to living
| people's memory of someone.
| kurthr wrote:
| Agreed... met the man. Refuse to read the letter.
| hirundo wrote:
| Is it the selling of these historical artifacts that offends
| you, or just the fact that they have become public documents? I
| don't think we can categorically call it vulgar to make public
| the private correspondence of long dead historical figures.
| They can certainly help us understand those people better.
|
| So is it the fact that someone is making a profit from the
| transaction that you find disturbing? That doesn't bother me.
| It just transfers the letters from someone who values the money
| more to someone who values the documents more. I don't find it
| tasteless or indecent for the previous or new owner to make
| that judgement.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I doubt anyone values the documents that much. They are just
| another financial instrument now.
| 300bps wrote:
| Not OP but similarly offended.
|
| To me it's that I assume these items went to a next of kin
| possibly multiple times to get to a person who cared so
| little of them that they are cashing in.
|
| It's not just the letters either. His prestigious awards and
| other things are for sale on that site.
| echelon wrote:
| Just wait until they auction off the frozen body of Ted
| Williams in a hundred years or so. The moral questions over
| private correspondence will pale in comparison.
|
| I imagine if buying dead people becomes as commonplace as
| buying art, some future _Cards Against Humanity_ performative
| comedy outfit might try an analogously outrageous "cut up a
| Picasso" stunt.
|
| Which is all to say that selling love letters is relatively
| tame in the scheme of all the things that happen after we
| die.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Look up Body Worlds. The owner has been obtaining bodies
| primarily from China, plasticizing them, and displaying
| them all over the world (primarily in the US) charging
| public admission for all to see.
|
| There is significant controversy and speculation about the
| origin of the bodies themselves, such as being Chinese
| political agitators and/or originating from "camps". Some
| "returned" bodies clearly died of head trauma, others of
| bullet wounds. Two doctors in Russia were charged with
| supplying 56 bodies without consent that included homeless
| and mentally ill.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| > They can certainly help us understand those people better.
|
| What exactly do you think you would learn about Feynman that
| is so important you feel your right to his personal
| correspondence to his wife outweighs his privacy (even from
| the grave).
|
| It's not a new or novel debate, one of the more famous
| discussions on the topic would be the publication of the
| diary of Anne Frank. Unlike Feynman she wasn't a historical
| figure, until after publication of her diary. If you agree
| with the publication do you object to the decision to
| withhold publication of a number of pages and if so on what
| basis?
|
| It's also not entirely unrelated to archeology/grave robbing.
| What exactly gives people/governments the right to dig up and
| loot tombs? Courts are still trying to figure out the
| remedies where those bodies/artifacts were taken by foreign
| governments and are currently being proudly displayed in
| foreign museums to the public. Presumably you might think it
| tasteless to go down to a local cemetery and begin digging up
| graves in search for jewelry and personal affects, but would
| being a "historical figure" really change your mind? Do you
| not see the connection? If not what is your moral distinction
| since you don't think it's tasteless so long as the market is
| deciding the value?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Honestly, the best people to make that kind of judgement
| would be the person's personal relatives. It seems like
| Feynman's estate is selling the objects, it's not like
| someone robbed his grave.
| saagarjha wrote:
| One of the problems here is that the Feynman estate has a
| significant conflict of interest when making this
| decision: namely, they get money from it.
| tcgv wrote:
| > the best people to make that kind of judgement would be
| the person's personal relatives
|
| To expand on that the best person to make this kind of
| judgement would be Feynman himself.
|
| But then I'm not sure if had he ever made a claim on
| whether he would allow these letters to become public /
| be sold, if such a claim would have any legal value to be
| enforced after his death.
|
| In the end we are left with his personal relatives, and
| what the law regulates regarding their rights to share
| Feynman private letters posthumously.
| stickfigure wrote:
| They're dead, they're beyond caring. Honestly this
| "sanctity of the dead" concept is a bit antiquated. Cremate
| the bodies, recycle the physical goods, move on.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| You may not care, yet Humans have codified an entire body
| of law known as estate planning to see deceased's wishes
| carried out.
|
| Do you not have an estate plan on the basis once you're
| dead you are beyond caring? Or do you have an estate plan
| but feel it is ok to violate on the basis you will be
| beyond caring and there is no sanctity of the dead?
|
| Why even suggest cremation? Such a preference seems to
| contradict being beyond caring.
| mattigames wrote:
| I hope someone publishes the sex tapes of your
| grandparents 33 years after their death to help you put
| things into perspective, or perhaps you really believe
| what you are saying and would consider the enjoyment of
| those videos by strangers as "recicling".
| wyager wrote:
| You should apply chesterton's fence to long-standing
| social traditions like this. There are certainly
| compelling reasons to respect the dead's wishes, even if
| the reasons are not apparent to you personally.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Chesterton's fence is hard to apply in a vacuum,
| especially for subjective matters. Got any clues as to
| where to start?
|
| If not, this is just like when business people talk about
| "scalable" in meetings. Means nothing without more info.
| kodah wrote:
| I think it's less sanctity of the dead and more consent
| on what is allowed to be published. It's a fair argument.
| If I stumble across someone's messages to their ex-
| girlfriend who is now well-renowned in my circles, am I
| allowed to publish them? If they're dead does it really
| impact the ethics?
| ignoramous wrote:
| Privacy of their personal information is now well and
| truly something for the famous to consider codifying it
| in their Will going forward...
|
| Much like in the Google/Meta dominated online world, the
| default is _opt-in_ , it'd seem, as that likely generates
| capital such "estates" need, to survive.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > If they're dead does it really impact the ethics?
|
| Yes? I feel pretty comfortable saying that the live/dead
| status of the author (and subjects) is one of many
| factors that affects the ethics involved in publishing
| something like that. That seems to be the question of
| this thread, no?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The answer appears to be pretty plain in the original post:
| the letters are deeply personal.
| randombits0 wrote:
| toolz wrote:
| Can you elaborate how sleeping with many women or
| enjoying strip clubs is related to "not equating yourself
| with women"?
| option_greek wrote:
| And that makes it okay to make private communication
| public?
|
| Isn't it hypocrisy to argue to for privacy of the living
| (HN being pro privacy) but not of the dead.
| stathibus wrote:
| Fortunately Feynman is already dead and doesn't have to
| endure random strangers on the internet reading his
| personal letters _or_ making sweeping moral judgments
| about his true nature based on anecdotes.
| gigatexal wrote:
| pjc50 wrote:
| I think that was _after_ his first wife died. I do wonder to
| what extent his later somewhat casual sex attitude was
| influenced by the traumatic experience of his first deep love
| dying young.
| mynameisash wrote:
| My understanding is that this attitude predated Arlene's
| death. In his writings (I think it was _What do you care what
| other people think?_ ), he noted that someone told him Arlene
| (his then-girlfriend) was 'running around' with other guys.
| It was an attempt to make him jealous, but he noted that he
| was dating other girls, so it was only fair. (My phrasing,
| not his.)
|
| It very much sounded like they were both comfortable with
| their relationship. Granted, this was _his_ writing many
| years after the fact.
|
| I don't think the claims that he was a womanizer are relevant
| or fair. People say that kind of shit about MLK to discredit
| him. Similar claims against Feynman don't discount his love
| for his wife.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Interestingly, your wife isn't Feynman's wife.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Contrary to stereotypes, many men seem quite capable of both
| deep, loving devotion...and of enjoying various sorts of
| commercialized sex (strip clubs, "dirty" magazines, etc.,
| etc.).
|
| It makes for a _lot_ of miscommunication and drama.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Huh. Mine loves strip clubs.
| [deleted]
| 02020202 wrote:
| rurban wrote:
| Not his late wife, his first wife, who died early. With his 2nd
| he took a miss. She was a right-wing radical McCarthyan who
| denounced him to the FBI as possible Russian spy. His third and
| late wife was finally ok then.
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(page generated 2021-12-25 23:01 UTC)