Learning to act right (28)… Cracking nuts - talking to single-issue fanatics

Torrey Orton

Nov. 23, 2013

 “There is a right way of living” he said on the phone from Rome, “and it is our task to try to find it and follow it.”

Cardinal George Pell quoted in TheAGE’s GoodWeekend, June 16, 2012; pg. 10

It should be clear that Pell’s assertion is not remotely true. The Catholic Church’s history can be read as a repeated confrontation with the fact that there are many ways to be human and, so, to live. Pell’s untruth supplies the intellectual and organisational energy for the absolutisms of the Helpers of God’s Little Children’s (HoGPI) personal confidence in their abusing other’s life choices under the pretence of offering “help” they know they cannot materially or socially provide. Of course, similar simplicities underpin the fanatical ends of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and evangelical protestant Christianity.

The Protestants a few centuries ago arose out of various revulsions at the socio-spiritual voracity of the Church, only then to spawn their own rigidities (sects like the Exclusive Brethren and the cyclical upshots of evangelisms) with which they have struggled ever since. They rest in the near background of our present focus on the Catholic Church at the Fertility Control Clinic. Much about to be said here will apply to them, as to the rabid branches of Judaism (ultra-orthodox) and Islam (Wahhabi / Salafi) and Buddhism. All three monotheisms are fired by periodic ecstatic revisitings of the original texts in search of uncorrupted meanings, pure meanings, the ‘real’ meanings – always a backwards look which fuels backwards steps. The catalysts for the cleansing fires are perceptions of moral decline, often the fruits of socio-economic and scientific / technological growth.

Within these struggles lies the critical one over the question of rendering unto Caesar – that is, the acknowledgment that the religious is neither the only nor the dominant domain of human being and that pretending to be the only domain necessarily leads to astounding corruptions of the religious, and perversions of everything else. The separation of church and state took a lot of killing to achieve, first arriving at a clear closure through Roger Williams in what became Rhode Island in 1636 and that only by self-exile from the rigours of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.

A shareable assumption, perhaps

Let’s continue with a potentially shareable assumption: the world as we knew it in the 1950’s has fallen apart across a broad spectrum of life domains and has been doing so for a long time before that. The pace of decomposition of basic relationships seems to be increasing, marked by data on reduction of friendships over time and increases of sole occupancy dwellings, especially by women. Marriages are a very un-investable 50/50 commitment these days. The evidence on life satisfaction as a function of increased wealth should be a caution to the hyper-accumulating One Percent club, but it won’t be.  And so on… It’s not hard to think we are in a period of catastrophic decline, surrounded by Decline of Rome type perversion and indulgence.

Some would say the fall started when the Church lost the fight to keep the sun circling the earth 500 years ago; others would say since the discovery of relatively safe sex media starting with reliable condoms and running on into the pills (before and after, in turn), and abortion as a backup for inevitable mistakes/failures of these media; others, again, would say since the acquisition of wealth has become the dominant objective of all leading world economies, and its principal measure, money, the major denominator of virtue (virtue having become just another tradeable commodity); and, others would say since human control of life was put within arm’s reach through the advances of sciences, amongst which the biological is the most prominent.

The Enlightenment scientific project (now a program daily reiterated by announcements of the latest “evidence-based” discoveries) promises to save us from the conditions of being human: from being fallen in the Judaeo-Christian sense, from being frail in the biological sense, from being limited in the ontological sense, and so on. That project is a canonical claim with as much purchase on reality as the biblical but masquerading as possible, not necessary – no faith required, just wondering interest.

Cracking nuts, really?!?

Yes, it is my professional judgment that the HoGPIs are nuts, cracked, crazed and must be addressed as such since an assumption of sanity (e.g. that they not provoke patients in any way!) justifies behaviour which repulses patients, and enrages us, by its inhumanity (to put it moderately). HoGPIs think somewhat the same of the patients (and Friends, too, of course) because we are working against what they see as the natural order of things. The main evidence for the latter thought is that they always present themselves as conflicted by their unrequited love of patients and unrecognised hate for patient’s choices. Their public face and materials (the hoardings worn by men and women to meet the council requirements for no promotional materials on the pathways) are more provocative of patient anger / sadness than they are solicitous of patient concern / interest. Why else keep secret video records of who comes to the FCC without knowing what they are coming for.

HoGPIs may not be cracked throughout their lives, but in Fertility Clinic matters they behave convincingly as if they are nuts. So, how can we talk to them? There are many difficulties having a real conversation in the setting of HoGPIs’ protest. One of us remains admirably committed to the possibility of “real conversation”. I’m a few steps behind him, currently mostly acting as if there is no possible conversation with them these days.

Challenges: major issues which I’d like to turn into development opportunities.

First, ask them their names. Most refuse, saying “I don’t have to tell you.” The refusal can be engaged as an avoidance of personal responsibility for the roles they are playing in “helping”. By staying nameless they do not have to face taking personal responsibility for their beliefs or their expressions of belief to patients. This is a sub-adult behaviour, of course, typical of those with an uncertain grasp of their belief systems. By remaining nameless they can treat us as “murderers” with no humanity. Ask which church they belong to of the two ex-Premier of NSW Christina Keneally a few months ago discussing the challenges of talking to her children about church paedophilia and distinguishing between the “Institutional church” (the putative guilty ones) and some of the church (the real one???).

Help pressed on patients who decline it is harassment.

1)     HoGPIs making the offer of “help” to patients is a legal process, until it becomes harassment. Harassment starts in Melbourne Council ordinances at the moment a potential offer of information or discussion is refused by a member of the public. This refusal may be explicit – ‘no thanks’, etc.- or implicit – a refusing non-verbal of normal sorts like turning away, shaking the head, etc. Nothing may be offered by hand or mouth after that point.

It is also unlawful to pursue patients, or anyone else, from down the street to their notional destination at the Clinic. Daily HoGPIs pursue three ‘innocent’ parties: local inhabitants, local workers and patients with other than termination concerns, often from 50 metres up or down the street from the Clinic gates.

Conflicting rights: the right to offer and the right to refuse; the latter is not acknowledged or accepted in practice by HoGPIs except when Council authorities are present and even then…

“Murder is happening behind these walls”

2) Responding to single issue perspectives packaged as the most important thing right now – e.g. “murder is happening behind these walls” which we (Friends of the FCC) are facilitating in their view, and therefore we are murderers’ too.

Responding to the “murder” charge is necessary because this perception fires HoGPI righteousness!! It is not the legal view of life beginning in Victoria. It is not the scientific view of life beginning in the educated world. It is not the view of all Christians, Jews or Moslems anywhere.

A second response is to deny it is a stand-alone issue…rather, it is part of the whole package of the Church’s birthlivingdeath doctrine, which at any time in history variably validates and supports differing standards for birthing, living and dying; varying principles of decision…specifically the regressive Papal package of no abortion, no contraception, no gay sex or rights, no euthanasia which is the currently received message of the Church on all such matters and undiscussably so, or as Pell would say, “universally”…. though there’s a slight lightening of the atmospherics of the doctrine under the new Pope Francis – less judging but no less condemning.

They are failing miserably…

3) They are failing miserably in their efforts to even get a hearing from patients – 70% will not even accept a handout and most of those who do are Chinese or Indians for whom rejecting a public offer is impolite. Most of those which are accepted are not read, and in some cases couldn’t be because some patients are not native speakers of English.

No real numbers exist on “help” HoGPIs have provided to any patients and they acknowledge they couldn’t provide any large amount of help if they were successful engaging patients. So, they are constantly frustrated. One HoGPI said “It’s about love, not money” when confronted with the impossibility of their “helping” any significant number.

The historical shortcomings of prohibitions

4) Ask them if they know the pre-abortion and pre-contraception history of coat hanger abortion parlours and farming out of children to agencies - Catholic or otherwise – which themselves harboured systemic child abuse practices????

What did the recent Bert Wainer (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/dangerousremedy/video/ ) story tell us?? That no abortion, like no alcohol (have a look at the criminalities spawned by Prohibition in the US 90 years ago for an example of unintended and unimagined consequences of universal virtue imposed for others’ good) and no drugs (the criminalities across the world spawned by the War on Drugs) are practically unsustainable regimes, slowly collapsing under their own weight now and at previous attempts to impose virtue by force… Another case in point: the notorious failure of abstinence-only sex-education in the US!!!

Can you stop people from messing up relationships, committing rape, fumbling pre- and post-marital sexual encounters, having contraception breakdowns (20% condom failure rate?)?? The figures on relationship instability are consistent for 50+ years – around 40-50% formally fail (end in divorce). These figures are insignificantly different for major religious groupings in industrial cultures, except for the cult-like fundamentalist fringe groups across the monotheisms.

Ask HoGPIs what drove people to seek abortions under pre-legalisation conditions, even at great danger to themselves?? This set of forces is most instructive because it tells us something about what will push people into action with high risk potential – a way of predicting likely rates of abortion seeking in spite of a ban.

They are wrong about stress and trauma

5) HoGPIs have incorrect psychology about patient stress, historical traumas, the meaning of tears, leading to embedding untested attributions of patient present states like they are feeling guilt, regret, etc.!!!

 

The last weakness is the most important of all. Attributions cannot be reliably tested under threat like that patients experience out front of the Clinic. The social context there elicits the personal guilt/shame about sexual matters which abounds in our culture. Guilt/shame are known to affect reporting of abuses massively and are recognised widely as a distorting feature of the domain…one which is aggravated by religious upbringings for many people.

The HoGPIs’ abortion regret argument: there is no rigorous support for abortion being especially conducive to “mental health” problems. And, of course, regret and guilt are normally occurring feelings in life situations of many kinds. They are not intrinsically pathological or forecasts of depression.

Tears often have more than one emotional foundation: minimum possible feelings expressed in the simple act of crying are sadness, fear and anger together. Shame/guilt comes second. Stress is cumulative. Acute stress is common throughout life but not dangerous to well-being unless converted into chronic reoccurrences, as in family violence, etc.

If you claim to lead virtue you have to be squeaky virtuous

6) Recognising that different life matters have different moral valences – e.g. those who propose to rule (others) on “the right way to live” are making moral claims much greater than those in everyday life roles and institutions; the closest to the church would be legal and financial ones, w/ medical in the second row; those making great claims about anything and wanting to insist on being followed have to be purer than the rest of us; we can do impurity OK already.

Can you prevent a proportion of the population from being systemically excluded from normal society in ways leading to sub-minimal upbringings over multiple generations? E.g. – the repeatedly poor over generations. And there is “soul murder” – the destruction of quality of life by parents and other responsible adults.

The Church has a noble and long commitment to alleviating poverty, etc…why don’t you put energy into that since those conditions produce the most negative results for children...and doing so is part of your notional spiritual vocations!!

Can you guarantee no child will be assaulted by any religious from any given date forward??

Could you provide for anything like 10% of patients presenting for abortions if they chose your offer??

Sexual abuse and silence

7) Do you know that X % of sexual abuses, and many other intra-familial or communal ones, are never reported formally? Do you know why?

Where does your taking choice away from people stop??  At the church’s “double jeopardy” principle for handling end of life pain mitigation: that medicating to reduce suffering may consciously be used where the process will also produce eventual death (the de facto ‘put ‘em out of their misery’ treatment that has long been allowed in medicine)?

Sexism and power

 

8) Who are you the Church to decide for women and men? Sexism is explicit in the Church’s role structure and ideology.

Liberal democracies judge that everyone has a right to their claims, but not to ones which endanger the dominance of liberal democratic values – i.e. freedom of thought and its assistant, speech. At the gates of the FCC these two values clash quietly for the four groups of participants: patients and families, Friends of the FCC, security guards and HoGPIs. And so, we have the central challenge for Friends and HoGPIs – the challenge of enforcement of regulations which establish and manage the borders of free speech and offence. No one in enforcement wants to be involved with this highly irregular terrain. The last place the police and Council officers want to hear from is the FCC footpath.

Start at home…

9) Why don’t they go after their co-religionists who do not practice the Church’s doctrine on life/ death matters?? Actually the Church has sent an envoy recently to “evangelise” the wayward masses who self-identify as members but are non-practicing…Do they fear the disapproval of their co-religionists? Wouldn’t it make a greater impression if they were known to be putting the resurrection of Catholic morality first in their efforts?? Shouldn’t it be easier to do…or maybe that’s why it’s not a promising venture for the martyr oriented fundamentalists of the FCC front yard.

Matters of faith / belief

10) But in the end, this is a matter of faith, which cannot be adjudicated by facts and we see the issue of life beginning (and ending!) differently, and you have a right to your faith but no right to attempt compelling our faith / belief…though I’m happy to entertain discussion about the rightness of the faiths – e.g. some faith issues have been clearly ruled matters of fact, like varieties of sexualities!!!...just as the role of women as equals in everyday life has been similarly clarified as fact and accepted as such even in the Church except for where further work needs to be done to close the gaps in historical practices  - eg male only priesthood, bishoprics, etc.

A note on faith: there have been three iterations of the Word, of revelation, each of which founds a religion – Judaism, Christianity and Islam - all of which are in the name of the same god. This leads to a wonder at what the god was doing each time, since the revelations overlap in content…did the god realise it had forgotten certain points and needed to have another go? This would make the god a developing or maturing being, not a finished and perfect one.. and therefore having no universal, immutable claims…a fact which is replicated in  the  Church’s Papal infallibility having been repeatedly shown to be fallible, or need adjusting for changing times, etc., by the Church itself, to say nothing of Galileo and company.