Another poll down, and the results are rather interesting:
- 18.75% of you said “yes.”
- 43.75% of you said “sometimes.”
- 37.5% of you said “no.”
What does this tell me? That I need to ask another question. If most of you continue reading authors whose politics you disagree with (given that the largest group–the “sometimes” group–still reads some of the authors they disagree with), then the big question is related to how you continue reading them. That’ll be in the new poll.
As to my thoughts on the question (in case you didn’t see my response in the comments section many days ago): I have stopped reading a number of authors whose work I can no longer separate from their politics. In almost all cases where I vehemently disagree with an author, I’ve simply stopped reading. To be fair, though, there aren’t that many authors who ended up in the “no read” pile. Most authors I can’t stand personally still end up on my reading list, but I have found better ways to avoid giving them my support politically (such as not buying their work).
But I’m going to save that for the next poll (coming soon).
2 Responses
I've never stopped reading an author's work who I disagree with, and there are a lot of author's who I politically disagree with. It's not difficult for me to separate the author from the work. Why would I want to close myself off from a huge volume of potentially excellent novels because the author and I differ on how the debt should be cut? It's asinine.
The question says "vehemently disagree with," not simply "disagree." I'm not bothered by someone who has different opinions on relatively mundane things either.
What if someone were to seriously say they think that all religious people should be sent to re-education camps to cure them of their "illness?" Would that change things? And I mean "serious." I don't mean "as a joke."