When someone is remembered as a genius, little else about them as a person is made public. Why would we care that Einstein cheated on his wife like, all the time? The guy invented gravity, he was awesome!
In a similar vein, there are other geniuses from a variety of respective fields that are, or were, straight-up awful people, despite how little attention people pay to that fact. People like …
10. Bobby Fischer
The name Bobby Fischer is synonymous with genius, mainly because he kicked so much ass at chess he brought it back into the mainstream. People who’d never played a game in their life were enthralled by this chess wizard as he stomped all over Russian grandmasters like they were cockroaches made of eggshells.
His influence on the world of chess was so great, that his match with Russian master, Boris Spassky was front page news. Following his victory, the entire US was taken in by what is now colloquially referred to as the “Fischer Boom,” which saw chess receive unprecedented amounts of media attention.
Field Of Awfulness: Anti-America, Anti-Semitism
Despite the fact that Fischer quickly became a media darling following his victory in 1972, and many thousands of Americans cheered his name, Fischer’s stance on America was anything but kind. Claiming that he hated the country he once called home, Fischer was quoted as saying about 9/11, “I applaud the act” and within the same breath, “F**k the US I want to see the US wiped out.”
He was also a raging anti-Semite, to the point even his most die-hard supporters found him repugnant. But boy, was that a good chess game, eh guys?
9. Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf is a name that will likely always be remembered. One, because it’s awesome. Two, because she made some of the greatest contributions to the literary arts in recent history. Basically, if you haven’t read one of her books, chances are you’ve at least heard of one of them, making her more famous than 99% of writers ever.
Field Of Awfulness: Intellectual Superiority, Elitism
Today, her books are studied and read by millions of children. But unless those kids have a trust fund, Woolf would have hated the thought of them reading her work. You see, Woolf was a staunch supporter of the leisure class (In other words, people with enough money to not work) and was quoted as saying that reading and learning should be exclusive to them. Yes, Woolf felt that learning and reading was a special gift that belonged to rich people.
She took class snobbishness a step further in her own home. When her diaries were made public, people combing through them noticed a rather unsettling trend. Woolf loved talking smack about her servants. In her private diaries, she expressed everything from disgust to pity at the people literally cleaning up after her mess. She felt they deserved more, but also believed they’d never be able to enjoy life on as deep a level as she did.
Woolf eventually took to giving all her servants orders via notes she’d leave around the house and, when her orders weren’t followed, she’d note in her diary that this only proved the “inherent stupidity” of the working class. You know, instead of saying something to their faces, like an actual human being would.
8. Richard Dawkins
Dawkins is the guy who came up with the theory of social memes in his book, The Selfish Gene way back in 1976. The book was an instant classic and is still considered by many as required reading for anyone interested in evolutionary biology or social theory.
However, despite this, Dawkins is mostly known today as the author of The God Delusion, which is a shame. Instead of being known as the guy who developed a massively important theory which helps explain cultural evolution and why we as humans act the way we do, he’s known as the guy who wrote the book on being a turd online.
Field Of Awfulness: Being A Turd Online
Dawkins has a reputation for being a very active and avid user of the Internet. However, rather than use his many years of scientific experience, and his deep knowledge of human and evolutionary biology, to educate people, he’s taken to basically becoming a comment troll.
For example, when Rebecca Watson, the founder of the mega-popular Skepchick blog, attended a conference on skepticism, a random guy cornered her in an elevator and asked her if she’d like to come to his room. At 4 in the morning, meaning he likely did not have movies and board games in mind. Watson firmly told the guy to do one, and wrote about the experience online. In a nutshell, she said that what that guy did was creepy as all hell. Which to be fair, it totally was.
Dawkins, for some unknown reason, then appeared in the comment section of her site and made a wildly sexist and demeaning comment addressing a fictional Muslim woman called “Muslima.” Essentially, he said that Watson’s experience was trivial in comparison to other things that are happening in the world, so she had no right to complain about something that made her feel massively uncomfortable. Yep, according to Dawkins, you have no right to complain about stuff that’s important or personally affects you, unless you are literally the single most oppressed person on the planet.
Unless, of course, you’re Dawkins, and you want to act super butthurt about people calling you out on proposing a sliding scale for sexual assault. Then you can complain all you want, because that’s way more important than raising awareness about sexism.
7. Aristotle
Aristotle is one of those names that is just dripping with good vibes. As one of the ancient world’s most famous philosophers, Aristotle’s life and work are still studied today, thousands of years after he kicked the bucket. Aristotle is credited with being the mind behind some of our most enduring philosophical concepts, including basic freaking ethics. Though Socrates beat him to the punch, Aristotle expanded upon the concept, and encouraged people to be good to one another.
Field Of Awfulness: Sexism
Unless that person was a woman. Aristotle’s views on the fairer sex are so expansive that they get their own Wikipedia page. He basically asserted that women should be subservient to men, to the point where they shouldn’t even be allowed to eat as much food. He also claimed that women were basically incomplete men, and thus, inferior.
But so what, right? This was 2000 years ago; surely everyone was like this back then. Except they weren’t. For example, Spartan women from the same time period were treated with a relative amount of respect. Queen Gorgo of Sparta famously responded to one person asking why Spartan women could rule men with the frankly badass line “because only Spartan women produce men.” Yes, she actually said that. It wasn’t just put into the film 300 for effect. Spartan women were that awesome, and Aristotle was that pig-headed.
6. Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton has made a bigger impact on science and physics than just abut anybody, and will go down in history as the guy who pretty much came up with the theory of gravity.
Field Of Awfulness: Endless Feuding And Grudge-Bearing
Throughout most of his adult life, Isaac Newton had an ongoing feud with one Robert Hooke. Some of you may recognize that name, but the majority of you won’t, and that has a lot to do with Newton.
Hooke theorized the existence of gravity before Newton did. The only problem was he wasn’t smart enough to calculate the exact math behind it. When Newton published Principa, in which he shared his famous gravitational law, Hooke pointed out that he should have gotten some of the credit. Newton disagreed, since although Hooke had formulated and hypothesized gravity’s existence, he sucked eggs at the mathing part, and therefore wasn’t allowed in Newton’s book.
Because Newton was more famous than Hooke, he supposedly used his influence to suppress Hooke’s work until after his death. Newton even took to outright slandering Hooke, calling him an idiot in open letters. In fact, Newton’s famous “standing on the shoulders of giants” quote was a direct insult to Hooke, in reference to the fact Hooke was simply observing something much greater than himself.
It’s even suggested that Newton destroyed the only known portrait of Hooke after his death, because that is how you make a statement. Today, Newton lives on as one of the most famous minds in scientific history, whereas Hooke is just a footnote in a scientific textbook.
5. Thomas Edison
Though Thomas Edison’s reputation has suffered a slight knock in recent years, due to the fact that Tesla has become the patron saint of the Internet, he’s still regarded as one of the foremost inventors in history.
Field Of Awfulness: Killing Animals
During the so called “War Of Currents,” Thomas Edison had an ongoing feud with the aforementioned Tesla, over which form of electricity was superior: Edison’s DC current, or Tesla’s AC. The obvious answer was AC current, based on Tesla’s designs, because it was invented by the much more handsome scientist. Also it was, like, wicked efficient or something.
Not wanting to be proven wrong, and determined to keep America shackled by stupidly inferior DC system, Edison tried to prove to America that AC current was dangerous, by murdering puppies with it. Yes, when faced with the fact that someone had invented a much, much better system for providing electricity than his own, Edison committed puppycide as a retort. When proving that you’re smarter involves animal murder, you’re not an inventor; you’re a serial killer in training.
4. Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla is hugely famous online, and within pop culture. Though in his lifetime his contributions to science and technology were largely overlooked, today he’s widely regarded as one of the best minds science has ever known.
Field Of Awfulness: Eugenics
Eugenics, for those of you too lazy to open up a new tab on Wikipedia, is the art of selective breeding on a mass scale. It’s the act of actively denying people with undesirable traits (such as infirmity or stupidity) the right to reproduce, which supposedly betters the human race. You’ll notice that this is a terrible, horrible idea, if only because if it happened, we never would’ve gotten reality TV.
And Tesla loved that idea. In his writings, Tesla extended the notion that “The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established,” referring to it as important for “weeding out undesirable strains.” Of course, none of this alters that fact that he was a fantastically gifted mind, but it’s more than a little disconcerting to realize that this guy fully supported the thought of certain people getting denied the chance to mate. Especially once you realize he never took a wife or had a kid. This is one of the smartest people to have ever lived, and even he didn’t think he was good enough to have a baby; how high were this guy’s standards?
3. John Lennon
Peace, love, and goodwill to all men: that’s what John Lennon was all about. Well, that and taking enough drugs to cause sniffer dogs to go into early retirement. Lennon is effectively the face of the 60’s and, by extension, the hippie movement. And those guys were all about peace, so what could Lennon possibly have done wrong?
Field Of Awfulness: Hitting Women
Lennon was the Chris Brown of his day. That’s not us making a cheap joke; that’s a direct comparison that has been made about him. Lennon openly admitted that he used to beat the living crap out of women, in an interview with Playboy Magazine, a magazine literally dedicated to appreciating the awesomeness of womanind, albeit the naked variety. Woman beater or not, you have to admire his sense of irony.
The kicker of this is that very few people know this about Lennon. Whereas Chris Brown has become a walking joke, and has his domestic violence charges listed very clearly on his Wikipedia page, not a single mention is made of John Lennon’s similar abuse, despite him being massively more famous and influential than Chris Brown will ever be. And when it is mentioned, his fans are so quick to defend his actions that they almost break through time and land on the receiving end of one of his punches personally.
2. James Cameron
If you’re about to complain that we’re putting James Cameron on the same list as Isaac Newton, just remember that this guy won 11 Oscars for a film everyone already knew the ending to, and convinced people to pay $15 to see Dances With Blue Aliens. If that’s not genius, we don’t know what is.
Field Of Awfulness: Ego
Cameron’s ego is legendary in the film industry, but the guy made Titanic, so surely he deserves to be a little proud of himself, right? Sure he does; we’d never begrudge him for being proud of his work. We will, however, begrudge him for yelling at actresses until they cry, and nailing people’s phones to a wall. Which are all things he has done in the past.
But to truly see how much of a douche Cameron is, you only have to read this quote he once said to Linda Hamilton, his wife at the time: “Anybody can be a father or a husband. There are only five people in the world who can do what I do, and I’m going for that.” Come on, Cameron. Yes, Titanic was good, but it wasn’t good enough to get away with saying that to your wife. It’s not like you wrote Star Wars.
1. Henry Ford
Yeah, this guy made cars and revolutionized how they were manufactured. And yeah, you’ve probably heard that he was a raging anti-Semite. However, the extent he went to express this notion will likely surprise you.
Field Of Awfulness: Inspiring Hitler
Yes, that Hitler. Though Ford’s anti-Semitic views are well known, few realize just how far they went. Hitler was quoted as saying he was directly inspired by Ford, even hanging a portrait of Ford in his office. Just re-read that last sentence again. One of the most evil, reviled men in history hung a picture of Henry Ford on his wall. He was also the only American Hitler referred to by name in Mein Kampf. Talk about an honor.
We could go on, but honestly, how the hell could we top inspiring Hitler? We don’t even think Satan has the files in his office to classify something that awful.
42 Comments
My IQ dropped 50 points just by my having read this drivel. Still must be 100 points higher than the judgmental twat who wrote it.
Gravity wasn’t invented, it was discovered. Newton is the one credited as discovering it, although honestly, I find it hard to imagine no one ever wondered why things fall and why when we jump we come back down before him. Seems a bit crazy to me. But Newton did a bunch of experiments to test and measure the force of gravity.
Yup, disagreeing with an online feminist is WORSE than thinking that poor people should die in their own shit just because. And hitting a woman is worse than electrocuning stolen pets. Horrible list!
Intro: Einstein invented gravity? What did Newton get up to?
Did I just see Richard Dawkins on this list? Richard’s God Delusion is a remarkable book. Not only in disproving Religion but in introducing rational argumentation. If it weren’t for that book (including a few others), I would still be believing in much of the nonsense I was sold during my youth.
That Tesla avowed eugenics actually is part of his awesomeness.
People that consider eugenics bad either:
-have little intelligence.
-have been brainwashed with the ideology that came after WWII (prior to that eugenics was well seen in many countries, not only Germany).
-politically correct morons.
-people in power that don’t want harder to control more intelligent masses.
This is more like a list of clues that you’re a giant mangina.
Dawkins told Rebecca Watson to stop whining, and this makes him a shockingly horrible person? lol Biased list is biased. Stopped reading there.
RE: Virgina Woolf
Woolf’s attitude toward reading and learning was not uncommon amongst the “leisure class” of her time. Heck, even today, many elitists believe that higher education is a privilege that should be reserved for those who can pay for it.
As to her “talking smack” about her servants in her private diaries, is that really more “shockingly horrible” than belittling people to their faces? Lots of people vent in private journals. It can be therapeutic, which brings me to my next point:
Did you know that Virginia Woolf was mentally ill? “Much scholarship has been made of Woolf’s mental illness, described as a “manic-depressive illness” […]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf#Mental_illness
“The sudden death of her mother in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half-sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia’s several nervous breakdowns. […] The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalised.[5] Modern scholars (including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell) have suggested[8] her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were also influenced by the sexual abuse to which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth.”
“Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by periodic mood swings and associated illnesses. She spent three short periods in 1910, 1912 and 1913 at Burley House, 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham, described as “a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder”.[9] Though this instability often AFFECTED HER SOCIAL LIFE [emphasis mine], her literary productivity continued with few breaks throughout her life.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf#Early_life
Woolf’s condition eventually deteriorated to the point that “On 28 March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, walked into the River Ouse near her home, and drowned herself.”
Before killing herself, she included the following lines in a note to her husband:
“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf#Death
All this to say that many people suffering mental illness experience difficulty and even anxiety during face-to-face communication with other people — IT AFFECTS THEIR SOCIAL LIVES. This could very well be the reason she left notes for her servants. That, in no way, qualifies someone as a “shockingly horrible person”. However, anyone who would willfully ignore these readily available facts, and describe a mentally ill person as “shockingly horrible” for possibly being unable to face people, AND implying that she is not an “actual human being” because of it, most definitely belongs on this list!
Shame on you for attacking the entire character of people based on a few cherry-picked facts about their lives taken completely out of context just to boost your site hits. If you have a shred of integrity or even human decency, you will remove this article at once and post a public apology for your shockingly horrible character assassinations.
“In a similar vein, there are other geniuses from a variety of respective fields that are, or were, straight-up awful people, despite how little attention people pay to that fact.”
“Straight-up awful” is entirely subjective and, therefore, does not qualify as “fact”, by definition. Apparently the people running this site wouldn’t recognize a fact if it slapped them across their collective faces.
Wow! Exaggerated claims with no citations (linking to yourself as a source doesn’t count), remarks taken out of context and misrepresented, apparently no fact checking whatsoever, spin, spin and more spin, all following the idiotic claim that Einstein “invented gravity”. Only extremely feeble-minded people would take any of this tripe at face value. But, of course, the feeble-minded are a tabloid’s bread and butter.
For the record, Richard Dawkins was responding to this quote from Rebecca Watson’s (aka Skepchick) very own vlog where she described the elevator incident and quoted the alleged sexist as saying to her, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Watson#Elevator_incident
THAT is what Watson called sexual harassment and/or sexism, and her claim is what Dawkins objected to. I object to it as well because it minimizes and trivialized the plight of true victims, and I’m glad that someone had the guts to challenge Watson. I only wish Dawkins hadn’t been bullied into apologizing for it.
As to John Lennon, here is the full quote regarding violence against women:
PLAYBOY: “Getting Better.”
LENNON: It is a diary form of writing. All that “I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved” was me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically — any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am not violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.”
http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/bbs/jl_yo.playboy/lennon4.html
Yes, what he did was despicable! But it’s rare to see someone who behaves that way, later showing enough self awareness and regret to publicly admit how awful it was. That doesn’t excuse the violence, but I think it should excuse Lennon from being described as a “shockingly horrible person”. I mean, how many abusers ever take responsibility for their actions, AND go on to advocate for women and the feminist movement itself?
There are other people whose lives have been misrepresented here, and others have already pointed that out. I think whoever wrote this piece should be added to the list of “shockingly horrible people” for misrepresenting the facts of other people’s lives and thoughtlessly attacking people’s character — especially people who can no longer defend themselves — solely for the sake of site hits. True bottom-feeders, the lot of you.
Everything was sourced from third-party sites, check the links again. We don’t link to ourselves as a source. We add links to our other articles as a matter of courtesy on certain keywords and phrases, not for citing sources. I’m glad you found this article worth reading and commenting on. Thanks for adding more information; we always appreciate it when our readers get involved.
Being smarter than most is extremely challenging.
Top Tenz — How would you know?
Well written article. A little sensationalist at times, but some interesting facts in there that I never knew.
I wouldn’t take any of it as “fact”, when it follows the ridiculous claim that Einstein “invented gravity”. Anyone who would publish such an idiotic statement doesn’t give one flip about facts.
Lennon was a Genius? Who knew? Another blunder in the list is that Aristotle never existed.
dawkins made the list for a internet blog comment?..
he was right anyways…the chicks gonna bitch and moan online cause a guy tryed to pick her up in an elevator….there ARE alot worse things that could of happend.
Nikola Testla’s view on eugenics is more like something “amoral” though since he never mentioned anything about how humanity should carry out eugenics. Is that through mandatory means? By oppression? Or is it voluntary? Would it be carried out using artificial or alternative means? We can’t tell. The article doesn’t tell us anything.
It would seem to me that Tesla’s support on Eugenics is more like a “concern” for the future of humanity since he’s a well known perfectionist. He is known for being a bit of an antisocial though and he even commented that the only good women does is to rip him away from his work.
I would say:
Thomas Edison
Field Of Awfulness: Thomas Edison
Well, I agree that Nietzsche wasn’t, but Wagner was a greedy adept of nazi perspective.
in line with the logic expressed above, Nietszche and Wagner were Nazi too.
You put together a whole webpage to make a thinly veiled attack on Dawkins, Wow,
Seriously? Nikola Tesla? The man was smarter than the other 9 on the list! SMH. Compared to the others on the list eugenics seems like the lesser crime…..
Forgot Steve Jobs!
thankfully TN only seems to be interested in vandalizing wiki articles that are of no real importance. Most of them are about Marvel comics, the Transformers or other works of fiction.
Maybe TTN has mistaken wikipedia for Encyclopedia Dramatica?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Dramatica
https://encyclopediadramatica.es/Encyclopedia_Dramatica:About
Please proofread your articles prior to posting. It’s a site where people read articles. Even if we disagree about the validity of the items, the least that can be done is make sure that the sentences are complete and not missing words. It’s just basic editing.
The author also made a mistake in his first paragraph….Einstein didn’t invent GRAVITY..Issac Newton did.
Kind of hard to take anything as TRUTH after that huge mistake…lol
What? He didn’t invent gravity,gravity was always there
So in essence you are saying that James Cameron is only one spot below a man that directly inspired Hitler? Don’t get me wrong I know all about Camerons douchy behavior, but come on nailing a phone to a wall compared to the holocaust doesn’t seem like they belong on the same list……..
Dawkins said something douchey once doesn’t make him a “shockingly horrible” person. You must have had to stretch a good ways to make this list.
Cameron nailed people’s phone to the wall if it rang during filming… good for him. As for Ego… he made the two highest grossing films of all time, like it or not, he’s earned it.
this is by far the worst list i have seen on this site
#2 is REAL thin….most actors are pretentious douchebags, why hold Cameron to a god like standard? and whats the back story on him nailing phones to the wall? Maybe it was cause he’s trying to FILM A MOVIE and they wont stop yapping to their friend about what kind of latte they had that morning…and so what if people think he’s an egotistical jerk, ONLY someone with an ego that big can pull off films of his caliber…I never thought in a million years I’d be the guy defending James Cameron, but it seems that post is based more on jealousy than anything substantial….he may a bit of a jerkwad, agreed, but calling him out on a list of “horrible people” might be a bit of a stretch
Why even bring up Titanic (ha ha, see what I did there?) when Cameron directed Aliens, a movie franchise that has spawned role playing games, video games, sequels, a whole genre of “space marines vs. aliens” fiction, and is one of the most influential and easily in the top 10 best action films of the 80’s?
Aliens, dude. That movie is far more important in the scheme of film than Titanic. He may not have taken it as seriously, but it is a MUCH more important movie.
And evey one knows Lenon was a douche.
Jeeze, almost anyone of incredible talent and or intelligence is a douche.
A lot of this list is guilt by association. Inspiring Hitler isn’t saying much, since Hitler had tons of inspiration, much of it good ideas from good people. It took Hitler to pervert those ideas.
I’d also like to add that the excuse made to include Aristotle on this list is faulty. The fact is that his own country – Greece – is not only not the same as the counter-point nation – Sparta, it’s also not even comparable in timeframe. The whole “only Spartan women give birth to real men” line was 150 years old by Aristotle’s time, when Sparta was in a pretty serious and precipitous decline in comparison to the rest of the Greek world. In the end, his views mirrored the beliefs of many, many societies.
Let’s also be honest – the idea that women should be subservient to men is not a uniquely Aristotean belief. Historically, it’s more difficult to find societies where women (who are typically physically weaker than men) were not subservient.
But only Aristotle is Aristotelian. He was THE go-to guy during the so-called ‘Middle Ages’. If Aristotle wrote it, it was gospel. Period.
He even wrote that women had fewer teeth than men. He couldn’t even be bothered to look in his wife’s mouth.
I’m not thinking Middle ages, I’m thinking Aristotle’s contemporaries. His beliefs, however influential they were, were not unique – they were reflective of commonly accepted beliefs.
And yes, he claimed (or at least the translations of his works claim) that women have fewer teeth. That makes him a pretty poor scientist, but that’s really about it. Plus, I possibly could argue that, linguistically, he may have been trying to say that women have smaller teeth than men, but even if the translations are correct, in context, he wasn’t saying “women have fewer teeth than men therefore women are to be abused by men” – he was just, poorly, trying to make a scientific commentary after failing to actually observe what he was reporting on.
Meanwhile, he also said that no animal – including man – sheds its molars. He also said this gem of a scientific observational failure: “The Egyptian hippopotamus has a mane like a horse, is cloven-footed like an ox, and is snub-nosed. It has a huckle-bone like cloven-footed animals, and tusks just visible; it has the tail of a pig, the neigh of a horse, and the dimensions of an ass.”
No joke I was just about to “complain” and ask why you included Cameron in such list and then I read this “(he) convinced people to pay $15 to see Dances With Blue Aliens. If that’s not genius, we don’t know what is” and I laughed my a$$ off LMAO. You are so RIGHT!!!!!!!
But let’s be honest Cameron ain’t no genius, he is just sneaky and deceived us with this one hehe.
However that’s an awesome list. Good job!
Inspiring hitler doesn’t have anything to do with why HE HIMSELF is horrible hitler was also catholic so by that logic Catholicism caused the holocaust
Hitler wasn’t Catholic, Catholicism demands faith to be justified by good works and Hitler shows he had neither but operated on a scale of anti-christ by using religion to inspire his works as an evil means to a wicked end.
And, no, inspiring Hitler doesn’t make that person was evil, Hitler was just looking for a twisted justification for his deeds like he twisted Nietzsche’s works as well.
“Ford wrote on May 22, 1920: ‘If fans wish to know the trouble with American baseball they have it in three words—too much Jew.'”
“In Germany, Ford’s anti-Semitic articles from ‘The Dearborn Independent’ were issued in four volumes, cumulatively titled “The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem”, published by Theodor Fritsch, founder of several anti-Semitic parties and a member of the Reichstag”.
quotes from the Wikipedia article “Henry Ford”.
That said, Ford was more of an ‘arm-chair’ anti-Semite, than a real rabble-rouser. After the War, when confronted with the realities of the Holocaust, he was utterly horrified. Possibly as a result, he soon after suffered his final stroke.