Trots, Popes, KGB Men

[poliphilo]

I was thinking of writing a piece about Alastair Darling- and what a sweet soul he seems to be with his lovely black eyebrows and lovely white hair and his propensity to giggle when he doesn't know the camera is on him, but then I read this piece by Andreas Whittam Smith in The Independent which reminds us that Darling's parliamentary expenses included a claim for an Ikea shopping bag and that he flipped his home no fewer than four times in four years. Also that he used to be a Trot. I had dealings with Trots at university- Trots of Darling's vintage; they had  funny haircuts, wore wire-rimmed glasses in homage to the great man, and were lying, manipulative bastards.

You get into a closed society like Westminster politics, says Whittam Smith, and you develop a contempt for the people outside. The hierarchy of the Catholic church is also a closed society- which tells us all we need to know about the Pope and his disrespect for abused children. The kids were "them", the abusers were "us". You have to be a very strong and free-thinking person to be on the inside of a closed society and not be overwhelmed by its chumminess.

I like The independent. It's a brave, high-minded paper. It's columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is someone I always read. And now it has been sold- at a give-away price- to Alexander Lebedev- the former KGB man. If we had been told- thirty years ago- that a British national newspaper would one day be owned by a former KGB man we'd have thought our informant was prophesying a Russian victory in the Cold War. History is weird. The weirdest things happen.The least predictable.  And we're so calloused by living in the time stream that we hardly notice just how weird they are.

Comments

[calizen.livejournal.com]

I too am amazed watching what is going on in the world. Our country seems split down the middle with pro-Obamas and anti-Obamas, with the latter proclaiming that the worst thing you could be is a "liberal." (Which in America is like right of center in Europe). It is for sure a strange time we live in.

I was friends with an ex-priest who became a psychologist and worked screening priest candidates in the 1980s. It was common but furtive knowledge in he Church then that there were "problem priests", and the Church handled it by shuttling the "problem" from one church to another. The rule of celibacy often meant that those who would choose the priesthood had serious problems with sexual maturity. It was, as my friend said, a bomb waiting to go off.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm proud to identify as a liberal. The definition of the word in my dictionary begins, "broad-minded; not bound by authority or traditional orthodoxy; looking to the general or broad sense rather than the literal; candid; free etc..."
What's not to like?

As you say, the culture of the church is to blame for the abuse scandals. Sooner or later- with declining respect for authority both secular and religious (ie growing liberalism)- it was all bound to come out.

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for a very timely quote that's helping me shuffle off some lingering emotional ick-

"You have to be a very strong and free-thinking person to be on the inside of a closed society and not be overwhelmed by its chumminess. "

I'd also add "or be a former member finding yourself on the outside of one, and not feel a lesser being for being so, despite the visible chumminess." It's comforting to be counted among "us", and becoming one of "them" is never fun.

And I agree- we hardly notice how weird our times are until later. I fully expect years from now to look back and think gods, was it really _that_ bad/weird/fucked up? Yes, yes it was. And we lived through that. Golly.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's right. And that's why there were so few good Nazis- or Russian dissidents. Repressive societies hardly need to police themselves as heavily as they do. The power of Groupthink is enough.

I left the Church 25 years ago- but the emotional pull is still strong. I nearly went back last year- not because I'd become a believer again- I hadn't- but because I missed the warmth and the fellowship.