Damnatio memoriae
One of those common rules of etiquette is not to speak ill of the dead. I'm not sure how serious it is. More or less serious than the prohibition of discussion of religion or politics in polite company? It may depend on who the dead person is. I've observed that a lot of politeness rules surrounding political figures tend to be a little fungible if the figure is someone you despise.
This hasn't always been a rule this way, though.
Damnatio memoriae is a relatively modern term for an ancient practice of destroying the physical records of a person's existence. It's not so much that you can't speak ill of the dead but that some people, by this measure, deserve to have all memory of their existence purged from existence.
I don't think I agree with either sentiment. Maybe a funeral is the wrong place to discuss all the terrible things that the deceased did in their lives. It could be hurtful to speak ill of the dead around their closest relatives.
But what if you're one of the ones who were harmed by those deeds?
The dead are dead. Does it serve the living to silence those who have been harmed by the dead?
Erasing terrible people from history would be a problem. There's nothing to be gained from removing their names from history.
While I might not tell the relatives of James Dobson to his face what an evil man he was, I have no reason to hold my tongue here.
James Dobson told parents that they should physically abuse children as young as 15 months old. That's 1 year and three months old.
I can only guess how many infants were abused by parents who never would have dreamed of abusing their children, all for the stern advice of James Dobson. This isn't giving a pass to the parents who abused their children only because of James Dobson's advice. If you abused your child for any reason, you're guilty of a heinous crime. There are, however, at least some people who never would have done such a thing were it not for the advice of Dobson and others.
There are still more who used Dobson's commands as a shield against consequences for the abuse they levied on the children in their family. There are children who were abused not because their parents heard the advice of James Dobson but because they heard James's teachings parroted by someone else. The knock-on effects of his hateful actions will echo through history.
Damned be his memory. Not forgotten. Damned.
This isn't all he did. He also opposed queer rights. He opposed bodily autonomy. He preached a hateful vision of god and pulled people away from a more tender understanding of their relationship with their god and replaced it with a hate filled idol crafted by men like James Dobson.
The child abuse is more than enough, though.
Damned be his memory.