Will,

Interesting piece. Enjoyed it.

Did not know anything of Asa Earl Carter and of course it begs the question if his past will affect my read.

And that's the question de jour isn't it?

Are you being a good person by refusing to read it because of the author's past and not his prose?

In today's piranha-like feast on objectionable artists, from whatever century, it would seem that a virtue signalling appetite overules context let alone content.

For instance, The Sierra Club recently cancelled John Muir.

That's right, the guy who talked Congress into creating, among many national parks, Yosemite.

His crime?

Still in his early 30's, 'Muir expresses his ambivalence toward Indians in the following significant statement: "Perhaps if 1 knew them better, I should like them better. The worst thing about them is their uncleanliness."

Of course, after his travels to Alaska and after many conversations with Indians, he changed his attitude and his writings showed that.

While I am having trouble finding Muir's supposed opinion that Blacks were 'lazy Sambos', it's hearsay as far as I can find.

IOW, he matured and rose above his stereotypes.

Who'd have thought that?

But that's not enough for the very club he helped found.

Once it was found that he had a friendship with a eugenicist, Henry Fairfield Osborn, who published a treatise on its advisibility, years after Muir's death, Muir had to go.

It was guilt by decontextualized association.

John Muir has been cancelled.

Back to your piece: let the writing stand on its own.

Thanks for a good read.

"John Muir also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America."