My mother was an opera singer. Music was part of how she lived.
There was one composer she would not listen to: Richard Wagner.
Her refusal was about the man. Wagner’s antisemitism is well documented, and his work was later embraced by the Nazi regime. For many in the Jewish community, his music became inseparable from what it had come to represent.
So she avoided it.
I grew up differently.
There was never a time in my life when my mother wasn’t singing. Music was always present in our home. She was at the height of her career when she was pregnant with me. and I believe my love of music began there.
My attachment has always been to the music itself. The person who created it has never been part of that experience.
Years later, as my mother got older and my life became busier, I made a point of spending more time with her. I got no resistance when I suggested we go see a performance of Tristan und Isolde.
She was moved by it. Deeply.
What changed was not Wagner. What changed was her ability, in that moment, to experience the music without collapsing it entirely into the man.
That distinction matters.
We do this all the time, often without noticing. We take something a person has done and turn it into who they are. The behaviour becomes the identity.
A person commits a crime, and they become a criminal. A person lies, and they become a liar. A person fails, and they become a failure.
Once that shift happens, understanding stops. If the behaviour defines the person, then there is nothing more to know. The explanation feels complete.
But it isn’t.
When behaviour and identity are fused, curiosity disappears. Empathy narrows. Responses become rigid. We react to what we think the person is, rather than trying to understand what led them to act the way they did.
Separating the person from the behaviour does not excuse harm. It does not remove responsibility. It creates the conditions for understanding.
And understanding is what allows change.
