From a discussion of Bad Men and Good Books by the editor of The Common Review:

A different category of badness, and one that gives greater pause, pertains to writers with egregious political histories, such as philosopher Martin Heidegger or literary critic Paul de Man. Both men cooperated with the Third Reich--and both made significant contributions to the intellectual history of Homo sapiens. More over, in fields other than philosophy and literature we have countless examples of great minds whose political associations put their work under a permanent cloud. For beginners, think of Wernher von Braun, the father of the American space program, whose blueprint for travel to Mars is probably on its way to fulfillment. Von Braun cut his rocket scientist chops by inventing the V-2 rocket that rained death on Britain during World War II. Or take the case of Werner Heisenberg, the eminent nuclear physicist who continued to work for the Fuhrer for the duration of the war. This does not suggest whether or how these men should have been punished. It does, however, acknowledge significant intellectual achievement.

My undergraduate advisor was a brilliant scientist who do critical work figuring out how rocket nozzles and jet engines work by calculating the entropy at various points in the system. His worked allowed engineers to design the jet engines that fly us around. Had I opted for thermo instead of fluid dynamics, he would have been my graduate adviser too. Today he shows up in this FBI list of Nazi war criminals.

My maternal grandfather fought on Franco's side. During the civil war he would lead posses from the village into the mountains of Galicia to hunt down communists. "Why'd you do that?", I asked him once. "They were allied with the Anti-Christ--they burned down churches."

The answer was clear-cut for him, but many similar choices are obscured in historical contingencies. People are forced to make choices every day. They have imperfect knowledge about the past and the present, and they know that the future will unfold down indeterminable paths. Yet people still have to make those choices everyday. With hindsight it is too easy to pass facile moral judgments regarding decisions made in the past.

Sicilians in the 4th century BCE may have hated Plato for supporting Dionysius the Elder, the tyrant of Syracuse, but that doesn't prevent us from reading Plato today.

Thoughtful people must examine the past and reap the valuable from the diabolical.  ¶ 1:05 PM