I would like to have someone articulate what the actual problem with reading Lewis Carroll is.

I'd also like to point out a certain organization of social groups. We have (a) attackers (b) their targets and (c) those who stand between the attackers and their targets. For instance, in customer service, the (a) irate customer wishes to complain to the (b) corporate leadership but instead is connected to (c) the customer support representative.

So please, in articulating your response, don't be a Karen. I am not Lewis Carroll.

Can we judge people from previous eras with the moral standards we now see as wrong? If the answer is yes, then you will be quite limited in your range of morally acceptable music, art, books etc. etc. Most people, even the most allegedly revered in certain countries (such as the statutes of Washington in the USA) are guilty of heinous crimes and immorality under our current standards...that does not always (though in some cases it does if the individual was hypocritical) negate their contributions or work. Personally, many of my favourite writers, thinkers etc. were misogynistic/held values that I do not hold etc. some very explicitly so. While I condemn those views, it is more effective to consider why these views came about, and how they relate to the wider social systems of the time and place in question.
Merely condemning them does nothing, they are already too long gone to face your moral judgement.
Regarding Lewis Carroll, if he was a paedophile, to what extent was this the result of the sexual culture of the Victorian times? I'm not talking out of my ass here, there are plenty of research on how the puritan culture in Victorian Europe and North America, led to sexual depravities of all kinds. Psychology also backs this up. Its possible if Lewis was a paedophile, he himself was a victim of child sexual abuse. This does not excuse his actions, but from our perspective, may be helpful in ascertaining a pattern of behaviour and circumstance that we can translate to our current times.

OP thinks that people should be more disturbed that the writer of children's books may have been a sexual child predator.
A better question for the OP to ask would be, is there anything is Carroll's books that support or depict child sexual predation. I've never read Carroll, but I believe the answer to that is a resounding No.

Is there any suggestion that Carroll engaged in lewd or sexual behaviour with underage girls? There's no suggestion that he did. The Hollywood Reporter story is exculpatory, if anything. OP seems like 'cancel culture' to me.

A better question for the OP to ask would be, is there anything is Carroll's books that support or depict child sexual predation. I've never read Carroll, but I believe the answer to that is a resounding No. — Grre

We have before us a bare fact. How are we to interpret it? I don't want to be the one to stick his neck out.

As a prestigious figure, instead of being reprimanded or thrown into a Victorian-era prison, he took his numerous child photos. — FrankGSterleJr

What happened to other people (presumably,mostly men) who took such child photos in those times in England?

The kind of concerns you raise-- those related to the character and personal morals of someone of philosophical note--aren't of much concern in this forum, in my experience.

seems like 'cancel culture' to me — Wayfarer

Exactly.

Photographing young naked girls or boys should not, in itself, be a cause for concern. The children didn't mind, the parents didn't mind, and if nothing untoward was done with the photographs, why should anyone care?

If Lewis Carroll himself later found pleasure in viewing the photographs, why should anyone else concerned themselves with the matter?

Photographing nude children isn't the same as photographing children engaging in sexual acts with other children, and children engaging in sex with other children on their own volition isn't a problem either.

What is harmful, and nobody has suggested that Carroll did this, is coercing children to engage in sex acts. It's the coercion that is harmful. Also harmful to a child is parents flying into hysteria with their child, having discovered that they were engaging in voluntary sex play.

Frank, have you been watching QAnon tapes?

others may indefinitely remain in denial — FrankGSterleJr

Like those who voted for serial hair sniffer and public molester Joe Biden? Credible accusations of sexual assault were leveled against him. Kamala Harris said she believed women made uncomfortable by Joe's unwanted touching. You could look it up, I just did. The media buried the story. Same as it ever was.

Imagine if one of those girls that Carroll photographed was, say, 3 months under the age of consent - 16, say. Then photographing her would certainly be suggestive of paedophilia, which is rightly abhored in our culture. Three months later, the same girl turns sixteen, she could then legally become, for example, a cam girl.

A webcam model (colloquial gender-neutral: cammodel; female: camgirl; male: camboy) is a video performer who is streamed on the Internet with a live webcam broadcast.[1] A webcam model often performs erotic acts online, such as stripping, masturbation, or sex acts in exchange for money, goods, or attention.[2][3] They may also sell videos of their performances.
...

Once viewed as a small niche in the world of adult entertainment, by 2016, camming became "the engine of the porn industry", according to Alec Helmy, the publisher of XBIZ, a sex-trade industry journal.[7] — Wikipedia

Then, if you dared criticize such activities, you're no longer on the side of the virtuous, you're an agent of oppression and an enemy of liberty.

Three months.

The media buried the story. — fishfry

To use the time-honored phrase which Lindsay Graham used to describe Trump's 'perfect' Ukraine standover phone-call - a big fat nothing-burger.

Also harmful to a child is parents flying into hysteria with their child, having discovered that they were engaging in voluntary sex play. — Bitter Crank

Not that it's much related to the discussion, but just to say this is a really important point that is often overlooked in discussions about this, understandably, very sensitive topic.

Whilst child molestation is obviously evil and should be prevented, if the very assignation of sexuality is allowed to be determined by strict application of age boundaries and not by the growing child themselves, you end up with deep psychological problems. How is a young adult supposed to have a healthy sex life after the age of consent (in their particular country) if, prior to that age, they have it rammed down their throats that being thought of as a sexual person is so manifestly evil that it should be punished with widespread contempt, yet come the magic 'day-of-change' suddenly they're supposed to now have a positive and guilt-free image of their own sexuality.

On the other side of the coin are children who mature late, in sexual terms, who are left with absolutely nothing to protect them from being seen as sexual objects because no-one is actually asking the child, but deferring to the arbitrary number written on the statute.

Coercing someone into doing something they don't want to do (or can't make a fully informed decision about) is evil, doing so with something as intimate as sex even more so.

Treating sexual desire and the thinking of oneself sexually as something which itself is evil outside of certain prescribed life-stages is nothing but a deeply damaging hang-over from puritanism.

It's a mistake to conflate the two. A mistake which causes a significant number of serious psychological problems for our adolescents. As if they didn't have enough of those already.

It might be relevant to put his photography, and perhaps even his attachment to Alice Liddell, in the context of a contemporary aesthetic movement or tendency, namely the Victorian cult of the child, "which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence". (source)

It might be naive to think that there was never anything erotic about this, but as far as I know there's no evidence that Dodgson sexually abused or assaulted anyone, or "engaged in lewd or sexual behaviour" as Wayfarer put it.

So basically softcore child porn is fine: it's just the hard stuff that's wrong? What if drugs are used so that the child doesn't remember being molested? What if the photographed child becomes traumatised at a later age? Does it suddenly become immoral, say, 12 years after the event?

Imagine if one of those girls that Carroll photographed was, say, 3 months under the age of consent - 16, say. Then photographing her would certainly be suggestive of paedophilia, — Wayfarer

Just to clarify, this is not paedophilia (which is sexual arousal by prepubescent children).

Will Brooker, who also authored Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture, “Lewis Carroll is treated [by his critics] like a man you wouldn’t want your kids to meet, yet his stories are still presented as classics of pure, innocent literature … Compared to some of our celebrities—the sportsmen, film directors and singers who commit real crimes like assault and abuse and are still welcomed back by fans—Lewis Carroll was a regular saint.” — FrankGSterleJr

"Real" crimes is very loaded, isn't it. I'm so used to my male heroes in the arts turning out to be assholes and monsters that it would shock me if anyone I admired artistically turned out to be a decent man.

Further from your link:
/.../
Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's sexual interests. Hugues Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.[88] Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time, and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.

Karoline Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.[89] She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls.

I'm so used to my male heroes in the arts turning out to be assholes and monsters that it would shock me if anyone I admired artistically turned out to be a decent man. — Kenosha Kid

Well, we couldn't have that, could we? Decency is so bourgeois. We've come to associate the arts (and philosophy?) with peculiarity; the more bizarre the artist, the finer the art.

Some works of art could certainly be re-titled, when you think of it. For example, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Asshole.

So basically softcore child porn is fine: it's just the hard stuff that's wrong? What if drugs are used so that the child doesn't remember being molested? What if the photographed child becomes traumatised at a later age? Does it suddenly become immoral, say, 12 years after the event? — Kenosha Kid

There were Victorians producing what we can confidently label "pornography" for sale. It was an up-market trade. Some of it was soft -- from gauzy soft to harder material. What Dodgson was doing might make later observers nervous and squeamish, but it wasn't porn.

The Victorians also liked to make headless photographs. Victorian snuff? More likely they did it because they discovered they could.

How about Wilhelm von Gloeden and his photos of naked Italian boys and young men, or Thomas Eakins' American realist paintings? Was Eakins doing porn or merely realistically painting nude males swimming?

Point is, if we can't keep our categories clear, then any discussion of art, artists, personal preferences, personal practices, and so on ends up in a meaningless muddle.

Distinguishing the artist from his art is a basic skill. As KK observed (hyperbolically) most of his art heroes turned out to be monsters. I hope he can still enjoy the assholes' works.

I'm so used to my male heroes in the arts turning out to be assholes and monsters that it would shock me if anyone I admired artistically turned out to be a decent man — Kenosha Kid

A lot of art (all categories) has been produced by people who were/are known to be happy, pleasant, normal, decent people. And a lot of great art has been produced by people who were/are known to be screwed up, unhappy, abrasive, abusive people.

Sometimes knowing the biography of the artist helps one understand and appreciate a work, sometimes it doesn't. Some people want to prosecute the artist for any moral deficiencies they can find, and other people are content to not turn over every rock, looking for shock value.

Not that it's much related to the discussion, but just to say this is a really important point that is often overlooked in discussions about this, understandably, very sensitive topic. — Isaac

Your insightful comments about

How is a young adult supposed to have a healthy sex life after the age of consent (in their particular country) if, prior to that age, they have it rammed down their throats that being thought of as a sexual person is so manifestly evil that it should be punished with widespread contempt... — Isaac

helps explain the problem raised by @FrankGSterleJr's OP. Despite the several 'sexual revolutions' that have happened, a lot of people are very conflicted about sex and sexuality. People who were screwed up in childhood 60 or 70 years ago have not necessarily become 'unscrewed' over the years. It took me a long time. And despite everything, young people are still getting screwed up.

All that makes it difficult for many intelligent, educated people to think calmly about matters such as Lewis Carroll (Dodgson) photographing nude girls. Lolita, anyone? The middle aged literature professor Humbert Humbert was obsessed with a 12 year old girl, his stepchild, no less. I'm sure there are people who would like Nabokov dug up and posthumously burnt at the stake! I suppose Stanley Kubrick, who produced the 1962 film version of the Lolita should join Nabokov in the fire.

A lot of art (all categories) has been produced by people who were/are known to be happy, pleasant, normal, decent people. And a lot of great art has been produced by people who were/are known to be screwed up, unhappy, abrasive, abusive people.

Sometimes knowing the biography of the artist helps one understand and appreciate a work, sometimes it doesn't. Some people want to prosecute the artist for any moral deficiencies they can find, and other people are content to not turn over every rock, looking for shock value. — Bitter Crank

I think that in part, it's about the mystery of art:
How is it that a thoroughly screwed up person can create works of art that people are so delighted with?
How is it that a perfectly decent middle-class person can love the art produced by a decadent and poor artist?
How is it that one can feel both compassion and contempt for a protagonist of a novel?
And so on.
One of my literature professors said that happy people don't produce great works of art.


One of the reasons why some people are so eager to learn about the artist's personal life is because through this, they hope to justify their fascination with his artworks, or else, overcome this fascination and write it off as inappropriate.

One of my literature professors said that happy people don't produce great works of art. — baker

I've heard that too. It might have some truth to it, and it might also be bullshit or wishful thinking. Maybe I haven't produced anything great because I am just not unhappy enough? "The tortured, anguished artist valiantly overcoming his misery to produce the great work" is more likely a work of fiction by someone who was neither tortured or anguished, at least when writing the book.

My own experience has been that serious unhappiness is not a productive condition.

Why is so much fiction about unhappy people? Because unhappy people are more interesting. As Tolstoy says in the first sentence of Anna Karenina, "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's a more satisfying experience I suppose to produce works of art about unhappy people than find something interesting in boring, monotonously happy people. Happiness, success, predictability, pastel prettiness, etc. make for a very dull story. A good story needs some grit, failure, dark color, misery... to contrast against the sunshine.

All that said, sure: some miserable people have turned out great art. We just shouldn't count on it.

or else, overcome this fascination and write it off as inappropriate. — baker

It's also a way for envious people to cut large figures down to size. "AH HA!!! Lewis Carroll might be famous for this supposedly great story, but he was a pervert, so he's just one less dead white European male making me feel inferior!

Maybe I haven't produced anything great because I am just not unhappy enough? — Bitter Crank

Or because you're just not an artist? :p

Why is so much fiction about unhappy people? Because unhappy people are more interesting. As Tolstoy says in the first sentence of Anna Karenina, "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's a more satisfying experience I suppose to produce works of art about unhappy people

Oh, the drama, the horror!

Don't you find it unsettling that unhappy people seem more interesting? Why is that?

Happiness, success, predictability, pastel prettiness, etc. make for a very dull story. A good story needs some grit, failure, dark color, misery... to contrast against the sunshine.

But why? This expectation about what makes for a good story could be a case of life imitating art.

And where is that sunshine anyway?

I've known about it for years. Still enjoy Carrol. Isn't it obvious form his writing that he was a bit odd? Can't see as it makes a difference.

This case was tried some years ago, with the following outcome:

"That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet,' said the King, rubbing his hands; 'so now let the jury - '

'If any one of them can explain it,' said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit afraid of interrupting him,) 'I'll give him sixpence. I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'

The jury all wrote down on their slates, 'she doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it,' but none of them attempted to explain the paper.

'If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, 'that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know,' he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; 'I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. " - said I could not swim - " you can't swim, can you?' he added, turning to the Knave.

The Knave shook his head sadly. 'Do I look like it?' he said. (Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.)

'All right, so far,' said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself: '"We know it to be true - " that's the jury, of course - "I gave her one, they gave him two - " why, that must be what he did with the tarts, you know - '

'But, it goes on "They all returned from him to you,"' said Alice.

'Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. 'Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again - "before she had this fit - " you never had fits, my dear, I think?' he said to the Queen.

'Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

'Then the words don't fit you,' said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.

'It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, 'Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first - verdict afterwards.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the sentence first!'

'Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

'I won't!' said Alice.

'Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved."

:up:

There were Victorians producing what we can confidently label "pornography" for sale. It was an up-market trade. Some of it was soft -- from gauzy soft to harder material. What Dodgson was doing might make later observers nervous and squeamish, but it wasn't porn.

The Victorians also liked to make headless photographs. Victorian snuff? More likely they did it because they discovered they could. — Bitter Crank

I feel like no one needs to point out the difference between special effects and making a child strip nude, but if the case need be made, I can get into it.

People who were screwed up in childhood 60 or 70 years ago have not necessarily become 'unscrewed' over the years. It took me a long time. And despite everything, young people are still getting screwed up. — Bitter Crank

My wife's a child psychologist, and although she now works with very young children, she did a stint with adolescents, so we had a fair bit of dinner-table discussion of the issues (anonymised, of course!).

Children can be severely traumatised by parents arguing, by 'scary' teachers carrying out legally sanctioned punishments, by school bullies, by poverty, by emotional blackmail... These are all very serious causes of trauma and, as I've said, awakening sexuality is also responsible for its fair share of later trauma.

Yet in our responses to, and about, the child, the first group in that list are all too often shrugged off as 'part of life' whilst the second is increasingly seen as something slightly short of the primary work of the devil on earth (Qanon's chosen crime-de-jour is no accident).

There's no easy answer, but I definitely think we should be careful when condemning exploitation not to equally condemn non-exploitative activities associated with it. Sexual exploitation is not like child soldiers, where both the exploitation and the task at hand are equally bad tout court. An older person exploiting a younger person for sex is evil, but that younger person fantasising about consensual sex with an older person is not even wrong, let alone evil. When we condemn the former, we all to often condemn the act sought as well as the method by which it was sought. All this does is make the child believe that the feelings they are getting during their sexual awakening are themselves evil. That is it evil, as an act, to have sex with someone older than them and so there must be something wrong with them for fantasising about it, or developing feelings for someone older whilst under the age of consent themselves.

Quite frankly, if we have such a epidemic of paedophilia in our society that we have to risk screwing up people's attitudes to sex almost permanently just to stamp it out, then we really ought to be looking at why more than we ought to be just fighting the symptoms off the back foot.

Meantime, some big-celebrity fans will continue viewing their favourites nonetheless, while others may indefinitely remain in denial, as superstardom’s brightness can be blinding—especially when the product becomes legendary. — FrankGSterleJr

I'm surprised you didn't mention Woody Allen in this context. The controversy surrounding him, who sometimes appears to be an old man lusting after young women and girls, seems more current than the controversy regarding Michael Jackson. I think the old saying "there's no fool like an old fool" is quite true, but there are old fools who have the wherewithal to succeed in being as foolish as they please. Did he do what's alleged regarding him? Does it matter if he did if his work is admired? I've enjoyed some of his films but have also found the level of his self-involvement tiring, so feel no need to rush to his defense because of his creations, but clearly others have.

A better question for the OP to ask would be, is there anything is Carroll's books that support or depict child sexual predation. I've never read Carroll, but I believe the answer to that is a resounding No.
_____

Not that I necessarily agree with him, but the English professor emeritus, Donald Rackin, whom I quoted in my original post would argue otherwise.

Along with other examples, he noted the book illustration, created by Carroll himself, of Alice with her neck excessively extended. To Rackin, “this is almost clearly phallic. Alice is phallus, if you will.”