I think that Heidegger must become a figure like Wagner - a figure with whom we grapple with their personal views while acknowledging the importance of what they did in their field.

Music would not be what it is without Wagner, Philosophy would be lessened without Heidegger's thoughts. You need to be able to separate the person from their work.

I had a teacher in High school who was a misogynist piece of shit. He graded girls papers worse all the time, though no one could prove that was the reasoning. Damned if I didn't learn a love for history in his class, as well as how to write a decent essay and how to think independently.

He had these oldschool blackboards in his class - the Green ones. every day before the first test, he wrote "Mr. Morse's Blackboard is BLACK". On the test, the final question was "What colour is Mr. Morse's Blackboard?". If you wrote black you had to retake the test.

The situation with rape allegations against Jian Ghomeshi had a similar effect on me. As I began going to university, "Q" was an upstart little show that had a lot of buzz, and I was an early listener. I had a lot of emotional connection to that show. When the rape allegations came out (and calling them "allegations" is frankly more of a legal kindness to Ghomeshi than a statement of fact), I at first was stalwartly in the "LEAVE JIAN ALONE" camp. But then I asked myself why I thought that way. My love for the work that he had done on his show, and the formative experiences I gained from it had to be separated from Jian Ghomeshi, the man, the rapist.

Wagner and Heidegger are the same sort of people,the same sorts of situation. Heavily involved in Nazism, their life beliefs must be separated from their work unless it is an emulsion too strong to be separated.