Yes, he inspired many people. But what I think we all seem to be forgetting is that Moore was an extremely homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic man who held and promoted many highly offensive, bordering on disgusting viewpoints. (And not ones that can be excused by simply saying 'he was old and eccentric'.)
The New Statesman ran a great piece on this today.
I don't agree with Sir Patrick Moore's political views but I wonder why journalists publish articles like this after the guy is dead? The article states that
"The dead of course are impervious to offense". True but the dead are also unable to defend their reputation against journalistic attacks
The article states
"Moore inspired millions of budding young astronomers to pick up a telescope; but if you were a woman, or a homosexual, or an immigrant, or the descendant of immigrants, then you were not particularly welcome in Sir Patrick Moores vision of British science."
This passage seems to be wrong, as he was friends with many female astronomers and encouraged women like Heather Couper to take up astronomy. I also understand that he made friends with British ethnic minority astronomers and would invite them into his home such as Marek Kukula. Both have appeared on The Sky At Night. Even the BNP was referenced in the original version of the article even though there was no evidence.
It would just be nice if this journalist did a bit of research before writing an article, especially since he "writes about...evidence based politics" according to the description on the New Statesman website. Not much evidence in this piece...
A friend remarked recently that if the false allegations against a certain Lord were published after the Lord was dead, we would all think that said Lord was a evil sick man.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I agree with the political views that Sir Patrick Moore expressed in his lifetime.
About Sir Patrick's hatred of Germans - many of his generation still share the dislike, if not hatred, of Germany and it's people.
For instance, during the days of German re-unification, Thatcher remarked,
"We beat the Germans twice, and now they're back." She said to Gorbachev,
"We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the whole international situation and could endanger our security." She wanted the Soviet Army to stay in the East to prevent unification. The French were also suspicious and Mitterand told Thatcher that a united Germany could
"make more ground than even Hitler had" and predicted that "bad" Germans would be back. Most of Europe harboured the same fears.
I've met a couple of WW2 veterans who fought in Burma. They still have a deep hatred of Japan, even though the war ended all those years ago.
