Dark Thoughts on Humanity's Dark Heart.

The human capacity for misery
is only exceeded by the human capacity for cruelty.

For every sufferer there is not only a tormentor but many more for whom schadenfreude is only the most visible of delights in another's griefs and tragedies. We can bask in the glow of another's humiliation, warm ourselves at the reddened flesh of someone else's beating, smirk in silence as fortune punctures a rival's happiness. All without lifting a finger. It's the most economical and human of behaviours, gratifying without effort, sustaining without calories.

It's not noted in many other species, and even then it's a rudimentary affair. One chimpanzee crowing over another's downfall isn't unusual. But a Greek chorus of toadies mocking the loser isn't often observed, just sycophantic grooming of the victor, delineating the new pecking order.

No, it's most definitely human to take advantage of another's pain, to take pleasure from misery in a spiritual alchemy of the most base nature, refining a golden inner glow from the dross of another's damage. Injured innocence only adds to the harvest, The more collateral the damage the greater the range of exquisite pleasures we can enjoy. Every dent in another's confidence, every shudder of shame, every indignity piled on drooping shoulders can be savoured over time, returned to in repose, savoured afresh. Our cruelty knows no bounds, even when it's merely incidental to our own lives, yet crucial to another's.

There is no end to what people can do, given the opportunity. 

There is no end to what people will do, given the opportunity. 

And we all of us delight in our own selfish desires and needs.

Is this too morbid a view of humanity? Or merely the product of another sleepless night? Of melancholia and misanthropy fed by sleep deprivation and old griefs held close in the small hours?

Perhaps.

Yet the truth of it is borne out every day.

Some days I despair of humanity
Some days I'm not that optimistic.

Satire is cynicism with a positive attitude. Not the glassy-eyed mirth born of despair and incipient madness. Nor yet the bitter irony of witnessing our own destruction. It's a delight in the subtle patterns of decay, the glistening aurora of oil upon the turbid swirl, the rosy flush of algal bloom. It's knowing that we are the monsters of our own nightmares, and yet still knowing that the forces of darkness, of entropy and chaos will always play second fiddle to the greatest and most creative force in the universe - life.

Where there's life there's hope, and with hope the sun rises better than it sets, blinking on a new day of possibility and promise, redolent with gleam and charm and beauty.

-

Sins of the Cardinal, Redux.

 

"A Defiant Cardinal George Pell has blamed a smear campaign against the Catholic Churchfor public pressure that led to a royal commission into child sex abuse."

• Sex abuse support group lists 99 cases of church failure
• Former priest in court on child sex charges
• Commission to hear of hundreds abused in state care
• Victims given a voice to heal at last
• Leaders join forces on inquiry
• Childhood betrayed can never be compensated 
• Retired bishop says Cardinal George Pell is an "embarrassment"

Four years ago I published only my third blog-post taking to task a certain Dr George Pell, Cardinal, Prince of the Catholic Church and Archbishop of Sydney. At the time I was furious with Dr Pell for denying that he had covered up abuse by a Sydney priest, Father Terence Goodall, as new claims emerged about what he knew of that priest's long history of sexual assaults. In particular, he apologised for a letter he had personally written to a victim saying there had been no history of complaints against the priest, when he had written a letter to another victim the day before admitting prior assaults by that same priest. 

"There was no cover up" He said, just an "innocent error".

Now, four years of obfuscations and cover-ups and lies later, the bucket of betrayal, abuse and sordid complicity is so full there is to be a Royal Commission to investigate. Anyone who knows me knows this a painful and unhappy subject for me. I had a happy childhood. But I've worked with and known far too many people who did not and I can no longer bring myself to pay much attention to what will be a long, painful and probably dissatisfying project. So, in a spirit of nostalgia for Dr Pell's earlier lies, obfuscations and frauds, I re-post this poem (lightly edited) first posted in July 2008:

The Sins of the Cardinal

I do not like you Doctor Pell.
I think you’d rather reign in hell,
Than ever choose to bend the knee,
Before the world and humbled be.

Your neck is stiff, your breast puffed up,
With pride and pomp. Such righteous guff,
You spout with casuistic glee,
Unlike the man from Galilee.

Your church has princes far too proud,
Who trumpet its good graces loud,
Yet smothers those who's tears it caused,
And wriggles loose with slippery fraud,
From ever dealing simple truth,
To those it preyed on ‘neath its roof.

Honest mistakes are made by those
Whose interests everybody knows
And sees put truth and lessons hard
‘Fore money, pride, and self-regard.

Do you believe, dear Doctor Pell,
Your mealy-mouth can make all well?
That subtle prince with cunning word
Can pull the wool o’er dimwit herd?
That Cardinal sin of haughty pride
From the Lord your God can hide?

Can cleric’s guilt absolve-ed be
By you, when vile complicity
Lies in plain sight of everyone
Who's ever heard your double-tongue?

So bend the knee and kiss the ring
Of Benedict, your earthly king,
And smile at bright unwary youth.
But do not claim to speak the truth.
The hand that writes moves on it’s true
But we remember what you do.

Luke chapter twelve, verse one to three.
Brands you as the Pharisee,
Our eyes through all your lies can see,
You Prince of Vile Hypocrisy.