McArdle backs up Hilzoy and TNC:
[T]here's another reason I do not think that we should reject books because their authors have terrible opinions, which is that virtually all authors have some terrible opinions. In the case of Naipaul, his, um, intermittent contempt for females shows up pretty clearly if you're looking for it. Perhaps every writer's worst opinions influence what they write, but that doesn't mean you'll always know about them; H.L. Mencken was smart enough to keep his Nazi sympathies mostly to himself. You might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire of even more odious opinions that the author is clever enough to conceal. Or maybe you don't recognize them, because you share them. Whatever the case, you cannot improve your library by purging all the authors with terrible ideas; you can only empty it.
Dr. Science lodges a complaint:
There are things that hilzoy learned from Naipaul that she maybe couldn't have learned from any other writer at that time in her life — but that doesn't mean *I* need to learn them in the same way, or at this time. And there's always more to read than any single lifetime can cover. Hilzoy says Naipaul is "a gorgeous, gorgeous writer" — but "gorgeousness" is always going to be a matter of taste and mood, not going to work for everyone at every time. Sometimes you want High Baroque, sometimes you want Zen Monastery.
Hilzoy clarifies.
The Dish 