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.
