Brigitte Bardot dies at 91

[Ladle Ghoulash 32,032]

2 hours ago, Cavadour said:

What a strange irony, but also how logical, to see Jane Fonda's name in these columns. First and foremost, I would like to point out that I have a great deal of admiration for her, her career, her longevity... But also for being someone who has not shied away from controversy in order to assert her opinion. If you don't know what I'm referring to here, just G00gl “Hanoi Jane” and the story that goes with it to get an idea.

Before anyone fires broadsides at me, pointing out the differences between Bardot and Fonda's positions, can we talk about the similarities? Both were married to Roger Vadim, who exploited their sex symbol image in “And God Created Woman” for one and “Barbarella” for the other...

Age is also a big topic in this thread. Younger people emphasize the fact that as we get older, we become, or at least should become, wiser and more discerning. This is generally true, but there are obviously exceptions. In the same thread, we see that the opinions of the olders are often challenged by the youngers, which only serves to highlight that the generational conflicts that have always existed are not about to end.

When you are young—and we all are at some point in our lives—you know that you will grow old—for those who live that long. What you are not really aware of when you are young is how quickly this process will take place. Like a fruit that is still green and sour and becomes more fragrant and sweet as it ripens, some individuals, like fruits, rot and fall before reaching that stage, while others dry up before ripening. Fruits have this advantage over us: they do not have to try to understand the process that affects them in order to improve their coexistence. Fact is, a single overripe pear in a barrel is enough to ruin all the alcohol that can be obtained from it by distillation...

 

"Every individual who leads, who does something, has against him/her/them:
- those who would have liked to do the same thing but did not;
- those who did the opposite;
- and above all, the great army of people who are all the more severe because they do nothing at all."

Jules Claretie 1840-1913

 

...and also, there's none so deaf as the one will not hear.

 

Friendly and respectfully yours,

Respectfully, as much as I get the general points you’re making, it’s much easier than your rhetorical framework suggests to determine that there’s really no particularly solid justification for expressing unrepentant bigotry and making that moral determination isn’t somehow holier than thou because it’s possible to still extend grace to someone even when they’ve acted wrongly. 

Making moral value judgements isn’t equivalent to engaging in moral absolutist condemnations and insisting that it is is essentially the equivalent of moral erasure (“because no one is ever actually absolutely right or wrong, it’s essentially impossible to determine if anyone is ever right or wrong”). 

We are all an amalgam of good and bad traits, we’ve all done things right, we’ve all done things wrong, and I’m not totally sure why merely acknowledging that she’s done something very publicly, obviously, and unrepentantly wrong is somehow defamatory when it’s merely *true* and to act as if it isn’t is entirely disingenuous.

The extent of how wrong you believe it is perhaps more subjective, but pseudo-moral stonewalling to avoid discussion of any wrongdoing strikes me as being in especially bad faith. But, as your reply would suggest, we are almost assuredly talking past each other.