What does it mean to be sympathetic to someone? Can you sympathise and condemn at the same time, or is a refusal to condemn inherent in sympathy? I saw a play yesterday whose protagonist I loved (or 'sympathised with') but who did something - I was going to write unforgivable, but is anything unforgivable? He did something I condemn. Perhaps the solution is to, as Christians say, love the sinner, hate the sin.
I think the same rule should apply in history-writing; by which I mean I hope to apply the same rule to my work. But how does non-fiction and historical writing work when it comes to things like sympathy and condemnation? It seems not to work in the same way as novels (or plays), generally. Often the affectation of appearing impartial, and relaying the facts, makes real sympathy impossible. But ironically it makes condemnation easier. In history, past actors are made of their acts: the sin becomes the sinner and vice versa. Is this because in history the range of attributable causes is so narrow, in comparison to fiction? How can we solve this problem?
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