{"id":8885,"date":"2020-12-10T17:09:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T15:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=8885"},"modified":"2020-12-10T17:09:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T15:09:22","slug":"the-person-behind-the-persona-some-dark-sides-of-our-admired-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=8885","title":{"rendered":"The Person Behind the Persona: Some Dark Sides of our Admired Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Those outwardly respected authors who taught us about humanity and virtue are not always as they seem to be. For all their humanitarian contributions, these writes\u2019 dark sides seem to contrast oddly with their angelic ones.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8886 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"163\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare.jpg 1943w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare-234x300.jpg 234w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare-799x1024.jpg 799w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare-768x984.jpg 768w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare-1199x1536.jpg 1199w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Shakespeare-1599x2048.jpg 1599w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 163px) 100vw, 163px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Shakespeare<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">According to Jayne Archer, a lecturer in medieval and Renaissance literature at Aberystwyth, Shakespeare was repeatedly caught and legally penalized for evading taxes. \u201cThere was another side to Shakespeare besides the brilliant playwright \u2014 as a ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximize profits at others\u2019 expense and exploit the vulnerable &#8211; while also writing plays about their plight to entertain them,\u201d said Jayne Archer. Moreover, he used to hoard food items in his house lest his plays couldn\u2019t yield profits. He sometimes resorted to illegal misdemeanours because of his growing concerns about food scarcity. He was once prosecuted in 1598 for amassing huge amounts of corn during England\u2019s food shortage crisis. He also pursued those who couldn\u2019t pay for him. This doesn\u2019t really square with Shakespeare\u2019s backlash against the 17th century\u2019s merchants and state leaders who scrambled for food at people\u2019s expense during England\u2019s famine at the time, as exhibited in his plays, Corialanus, and The Merchant of Vince. Although Shakespeare was one of the richest property owners of the 17th century, and although his plays always had a great take on themes of upper-class corruption, he was unfortunately a ruthless tax-dodger. This explains why he had retired in a young age to enjoy his fortune while living luxuriously in his house in Stratford-Upon-Avon.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8887 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/charles-dickens.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"148\" height=\"148\" srcset=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/charles-dickens.jpg 300w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/charles-dickens-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 148px) 100vw, 148px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Charles Dickens<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">This might be so hard to navigate, but Literature\u2019s most humanitarian writer had some skeletons in the cupboard. He walked out on his wife many times to pursue his mistresses. He got into numerous relationships with many women but left them soon after the flash of attraction faded away, which hurt their hearts. Dickens was pulled in opposing directions because of having two contradictory personalities \u2014 one of whom treated others with ample love and tenderness while the other treated them with utter brutality. When one of his sons got into debt, Dickens stated: \u201cI honestly think it would be better if he were dead.\u201d According to Claire Tomalin in her biographical book about Dickens, Dickens was remorseful in his death bed as \u201che knew he had a darker side \u2014 but he did his best to conceal it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8888 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Albert-Einstein-jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"153\" height=\"153\" srcset=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Albert-Einstein-jpg.jpg 550w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Albert-Einstein-jpg-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Albert-Einstein-jpg-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 153px) 100vw, 153px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Albert Einstein<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The whole world regards him as the unfailing genius of all times, who taught us about relativism and myriad other stuff. However, for all his genius, Einstein was a diehard racist! Einstein admitted as much by advocating some offensive stereotypes in his dairies. This includes calling Chinese people: \u201cindustrious, filthy, obtuse people.\u201d The said note was dated in 1922, which brings the mind to the times of The First World War, wherein people were governed by an onslaught of disheartening views about ethnicity. Yet, it is quite saddening to find one of our great mentalities harbouring such belittling views.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8889 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"155\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/file-20171220-4973-ldvo63-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 155px) 100vw, 155px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Albert Einstein<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The whole world regards him as the unfailing genius of all times, who taught us about relativism and myriad other stuff. However, for all his genius, Einstein was a diehard racist! Einstein admitted as much by advocating some offensive stereotypes in his dairies. This includes calling Chinese people: \u201cindustrious, filthy, obtuse people.\u201d The said note was dated in 1922, which brings the mind to the times of The First World War, wherein people were governed by an onslaught of disheartening views about ethnicity. Yet, it is quite saddening to find one of our great mentalities harbouring such belittling views.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8890 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Abe-Lincoln_468377946-1_383827-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Abraham Lincoln<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">He was the 16th President of the USA, and is regarded as one of the most humanitarian presidents to lead America. This is attributed to his hard endeavours to maintain The Union and to emancipate slaves. However, multiple politicians and historians consider Lincoln\u2019s act of freeing slaves as a sheer political device! Lincoln even ensured this fact by stating: \u201cIf I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.\u201d Emancipation was, for Lincoln, an opportunity to provide additional troops in Northern America to keep his European enemies far away from borders. Lincoln didn\u2019t even consider to free those slaves in The North as long as the number of the troops he needed was met. Worse, Lincoln didn\u2019t ensure that those previous slaves could be complete citizens with equal rights as their white citizens, remarking that there is no point \u201cto introduce equality between the white and black races.\u201d In addition, Lincoln introduced \u201cThe Writ of Habeas Corpus\u201d \u2014 an act that gave him free reign to prosecute any citizen, whom he deemed an enemy to the county.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those outwardly respected authors who taught us about humanity and virtue are not always as they seem to be. For<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":0,"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8892,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8885\/revisions\/8892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}