THE LEPERS OF OBJECTIVISM

[Brant Gaede]

"If religion isn't psychosis, then please tell me what it is?"

It's defensive social.

--Brant

Edited December 1, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

No, really guys, I got it. I was being lazy and cutting Martin's, er, "Mark" thing. The point I was going after is the religion as psychosis thing, which I did see come out of Mark. Sloppy of me, and sorry, Martin!

Although, to clarify, are there religious pathologicals? Indeedy-o and for sure.

But the blanket version of that is just b.s.

Rich,

If religion isn't psychosis, then please tell me what it is?

So your parents were psychotic when they were Christian Scientists? And you likewise as a child? And everyone in human history who has ever believed in gods or a god is psychotic? And you, currently, in your belief (which looks like a religious belief to me) that Ayn Rand pronounced the gospel truth?

How many people on earth AREN'T "psychotic," by your standards?

Ellen

___

[Bidinotto]

Right you are, Ellen. By this "standard," people like Aquinas and most of the Founders, including Washington and Jefferson, were "psychotics."

More interesting to me is the issue of why some people seem to feel impelled to utterly dehumanize all those who hold mistaken beliefs. Must the words "You're mistaken..." always be followed by absurd, self-righteous posturing, e.g., "...which means you are also utterly immoral, irrational, and/or psychotic"?

[Barbara Branden]

Robert: "Must the words 'You're mistaken...' always be followed by absurd, self-righteous posturing, e.g., "...which means you are also utterly immoral, irrational, and/or psychotic"?"

Sure, Robert -- how else could I demonstrate my infinite superiority to the rest of disgusting mankind?

Barbara

[mweiss]

No, really guys, I got it. I was being lazy and cutting Martin's, er, "Mark" thing. The point I was going after is the religion as psychosis thing, which I did see come out of Mark. Sloppy of me, and sorry, Martin!

Although, to clarify, are there religious pathologicals? Indeedy-o and for sure.

But the blanket version of that is just b.s.

Rich,

If religion isn't psychosis, then please tell me what it is?

So your parents were psychotic when they were Christian Scientists? And you likewise as a child? And everyone in human history who has ever believed in gods or a god is psychotic? And you, currently, in your belief (which looks like a religious belief to me) that Ayn Rand pronounced the gospel truth?

How many people on earth AREN'T "psychotic," by your standards?

Ellen

___

Practicing Objectivism isn't like practicing religion, because in religion, we are told not to think or question the teachings. We are taught blind faith. Objectivism is not a religion because faith is not involved. We verify the principles for ourselves. That's the difference.

Yes, I believe that I was psychotic, or badly misled when I was in Christian Science. But I corrected that aspect of my thinking, and recovered from an otherwise psychotic state of consciousness. People can recover, but they have to be willing to think and learn to reason.

[Rich Engle]

Practicing Objectivism isn't like practicing religion, because in religion, we are told not to think or question the teachings. We are taught blind faith. Objectivism is not a religion because faith is not involved. We verify the principles for ourselves. That's the difference.

Yes, I believe that I was psychotic, or badly misled when I was in Christian Science. But I corrected that aspect of my thinking, and recovered from an otherwise psychotic state of consciousness. People can recover, but they have to be willing to think and learn to reason.

And for that, I am deeply sorry. I'm glad you found some peace and liberation through AR's work.

Please remember, though, when you say "religion," it is like saying "world." It is a meta-term.

Really, the hostility to all spiritual practice so often comes from a bad experience like you had.

But that is not my experience, and it's not my practice.

Been there, done that, though. Baptist and then Methodist, no choice. I rejected it it at age 12. No more church. I had to because of the weird, constant obsession with death it was giving me.

That was a long time ago. My parents were just trying to instill some morals. I just couldn't picture this "loving God" thing, because there was a TON OF CREEPY SHIT in the Bible. Yikes!!

All a long time ago. My view is very different now, and I can assure you I am not psychotic. I do not have "faith" in the sense you know it. I simply experience existence very differently than I once did.

Again, I don't care to convince anyone. I don't even have to convince myself.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is some evidence to tie all this together. According to Peikoff through his DIM hypothesis, if you vote for Bush you are immoral and don't understand Objectivism. According to Mark, if you are religious, you are psychotic. That would make Bush psychotic because he is religious--and of course one presumes he is really really really immoral because he is the one immoral people vote for.

But how about the voters? Are they psychotic and is the immoral theocracy really a threat? Here is an article that explains it:

The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they are to vote for Bush, study

ahem...

The source is Pravda...

At least some people agree with all this...

Michael

[Bidinotto]

Michael, your conclusion about Bush doesn't logically follow.

If Bush is psychotic, he cannot be immoral, because psychosis (insanity) implies that one has no responsibility for his thoughts and actions.

Likewise, if Bush is immoral, then he cannot be psychotic.

Personally, I find Bush to be neither immoral nor psychotic; but what can you expect of an immoral, if not psychotic, "tolerationist" like me?

[Bidinotto]

Barbara writes:

"Sure, Robert -- how else could I demonstrate my infinite superiority to the rest of disgusting mankind?"

So! You feel the same way I do, then?

Ah! A soul-mate!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

OK, OK, I stretched the immorality thing a bit. Pravda is more amoral and focused on mental illness and does not even broach morality except for value judgments. Heh. But you must admit that you can't be a good Objectivist and a good psychotic to the same degree, at the same time, for the same reason and in the same manner. That would be immoral anyway.

(Oops... Sorry about that... Force of habit. I haven't morally condemned anything for a while and it is itching real bad.)

Here is a quote from the Pravda article that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you, Robert Bidinotto, do not (and probably never will) fit within the parameters of the study Pravda loved that was made at Southern Connecticut State University--and the only explanation I can come up with is that you are hopelessly immoral and beyond redemption, and beyond psychotic, too, just for good measure.

I won't even mention the massive evasion of the truth of how floating principles determine the nature of concretes. That's so axiomatic it hurts unless you are a dishonest evader! You are definitely not DIM (witted or otherwise) at all.

During the course of the study, it emerged that "Bush supporters has [sic] significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry," and that greater levels of psychosis predicted Bush support.

"Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader," Lohse says. "If your world is very mixed up, there's something very comforting about someone telling you, 'This is how it's going to be'."

Hey!

That might not be you, but it sure sounds like some people I know (and they don't support Bush for some damn reason)...

But thank goodness Pravda is finally becoming Objectivist.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Michael, your conclusion about Bush doesn't logically follow.

If Bush is psychotic, he cannot be immoral, because psychosis (insanity) implies that one has no responsibility for his thoughts and actions.

Likewise, if Bush is immoral, then he cannot be psychotic.

Personally, I find Bush to be neither immoral nor psychotic; but what can you expect of an immoral, if not psychotic, "tolerationist" like me?

Is a psychotic psychotic a normal person?

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Brant lays down some majorly funny, Zen-master style Kung Fu, not unlike the koan format:

Is a psychotic psychotic a normal person?

I'm not sure how that would work, but probably not. It depends how you look at it; whether you think compounding is possible. I do. You can always get nuttier.

I don't think Bush is a psychotic or immoral. For the longest time I just thought he was just a dumbass, and I still give some credence to that.

But really, what he traditionally was was a vehicle. Rove was the puppeteer. Developmental material-- Play Doh.

I'm sure he has his own thoughts now. They probably hurt.

rde

Wondering why "That's My Bush" got jerked off TV so fast-- that was effing funny.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I asked Mark, in my post #502, "How many people on earth AREN'T 'psychotic,' by your standards?"

Bob Bidinotto replies, in post #503:

Right you are, Ellen. By this "standard," people like Aquinas and most of the Founders, including Washington and Jefferson, were "psychotics."

More interesting to me is the issue of why some people seem to feel impelled to utterly dehumanize all those who hold mistaken beliefs. Must the words "You're mistaken..." always be followed by absurd, self-righteous posturing, e.g., "...which means you are also utterly immoral, irrational, and/or psychotic"?

Robert, I find the issue of why "some people seem to feel impelled to utterly dehumanize" those with whom they disagree, especially those with whom they disagree on what might be called for convenience "basic" philosophic issues, very interesting. The impulsion is much wider than amongst Objectivists. But as regards Objectivists, there is strong textual authority for the condemning attitude, authority provided first in Atlas Shrugged. What's an important sub-plot of Atlas? Dagny's needing to be convinced of the evil of a significant percentage (exactly how large a percentage isn't specified) of humanity at large. "But they still love their lives," she says. "Do they?" she's challenged, and told that that's the first premise she should check. It's when she becomes convinced that "they" (however many exactly and whoever exactly "they" are) are evil, and are worshippers of death, that she joins the strike.

Furthermore, Rand says -- through the voice of Galt in Galt's Speech -- a longer version of basically what Mark has been claiming on this thread about the psychology of religionists. Vide the passage (which I think is properly described as a diatribe) about "the soul of the mystic" in the speech. Part of that passage is quoted starting on page 323 of the Lexicon (her use of the masculine here is obviously meant as generic):

"A mystic," Galt says, "is a man who surrendered his mind at its first encounter with the minds of others. Somewhere in the distant reaches of his childhood, when his own understanding of reality clashed with the assertions of others [...], he gave in to so craven a fear of independence that he renounced his rational faculty."

In my opinion, if "neo," or "revised," or whatever label you want to use, "Objectivists" want to counter this sort of blanket charge leveled against those with whom one disagrees, they'll get farther if they face head-on that the original Objectivist authority for sweeping condemnation of one's opponents is Rand herself. The condemnatory attitude isn't an aberration of Objectivism. It's taught by Objectivism's founder.

A sidelight: She does in various places contradict herself by being less negative. A particular contradiction which I find of special emotional...I don't know what word to use...appeal, maybe (I find this contradiction poignant because it's so personal to Rand), is her words of admiration for Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc is referenced as inspiring by Wynand in The Fountainhead, and Rand says strong words of praise for the Maid of Orleans in her piece on a woman president. And yet Joan of Arc was a REAL mystic, by the Church's definition (the Church generally frowns on what "it" considers "mystics"; they're dangerous to dogma). Did Rand ever see a contradiction between her feelings for Joan of Arc and what she'd said in Galt's Speech about the mystic's soul? I don't know.

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

Robert, I find the issue of why "some people seem to feel impelled to utterly dehumanize" those with whom they disagree, especially those with whom they disagree on what might be called for convenience "basic" philosophic issues, very interesting. The impulsion is much wider than amongst Objectivists. But as regards Objectivists, there is strong textual authority for the condemning attitude, authority provided first in Atlas Shrugged. What's an important sub-plot of Atlas? Dagny's needing to be convinced of the evil of a significant percentage (exactly how large a percentage isn't specified) of humanity at large. "But they still love their lives," she says. "Do they?" she's challenged, and told that that's the first premise she should check. It's when she becomes convinced that "they" (however many exactly and whoever exactly "they" are) are evil, and are worshippers of death, that she joins the strike.

Ellen___

I don't consider most of the "Americans" in "Atlas" to be Americans as much as Russians.

--Brant

[mweiss]

A sidelight: She does in various places contradict herself by being less negative. A particular contradiction which I find of special emotional...I don't know what word to use...appeal, maybe (I find this contradiction poignant because it's so personal to Rand), is her words of admiration for Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc is referenced as inspiring by Wynand in The Fountainhead, and Rand says strong words of praise for the Maid of Orleans in her piece on a woman president. And yet Joan of Arc was a REAL mystic, by the Church's definition (the Church generally frowns on what "it" considers "mystics"; they're dangerous to dogma). Did Rand ever see a contradiction between her feelings for Joan of Arc and what she'd said in Galt's Speech about the mystic's soul? I don't know.

Ellen

___

Ellen,

I think you're taking Miss Rand's statement about A SPECIFIC TRAIT of Joen of Arc, out of context here. Just because one disagrees with aspects of a person's philosophy does not mean that one condemns that person in a broad scope. Herein lies the proof of Miss Rand's ability to separate the things she condemns from the positive attributes about a person.

For instance, one might condemn a basketball player for using drugs and being abuse to women. But one can also see efficacy in that same basketball player for his skill on the court. Miss Rand's ability to avoid condemning the whole person of Joan of Arc is not a contradiction of her philosophical ideas, but an affirmation of her ability to selectively and rationally evaluate a person by their attributes and accomplishments.

[Rich Engle]

Rand had a very, very simplistic view of mysticism. It was black or white to her. I suppose she did not find it worth the bother to study the topic in detail. The topic is statistically dense.

Her term mysticism was overly-broad to the point of being useless. I don't fault her for this, but she was, without doubt, way up in the macro-level. It gets into her weakness in the area of psychology, which for the longest time she thought of as an undeveloped or pseudo-science.

If she did her homework, I never saw any sign of it. Error by ommission, maybe?

[Brant Gaede]

Rand had a very, very simplistic view of mysticism. It was black or white to her. I suppose she did not find it worth the bother to study the topic in detail. The topic is statistically dense.

Her term mysticism was overly-broad to the point of being useless. I don't fault her for this, but she was, without doubt, way up in the macro-level. It gets into her weakness in the area of psychology, which for the longest time she thought of as an undeveloped or pseudo-science.

If she did her homework, I never saw any sign of it. Error by ommission, maybe?

Maybe so, but you can't make any kind of mysticism rational. There is little or no science in psychology, which regarding psychotherapy, is extremely pragmatic at its best and completely dogmatic and off the wall at its worst.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Brant thinks headshrinkers are witch doctors, and sometimes I'm down with that, but most times, not so much:

Maybe so, but you can't make any kind of mysticism rational. There is little or no science in psychology, which regarding psychotherapy, is extremely pragmatic at its best and completely dogmatic and off the wall at its worst.

So if there's no "science" in something, but it creates positive results (making it pragmatic then, I guess), does that invalidate it entirely?

As far as mysticism never being rational... this is a big snake-nest in terms of word usage, anyway. Yikes!

Perhaps there is a consciousness that exists additional to the rational/traditional waking state. How do you explain the very empirical fact that there are people who can remain entirely conscious and alert, but at the same time show a delta brainwave state?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

I think you're taking Miss Rand's statement about A SPECIFIC TRAIT of Joen of Arc, out of context here. Just because one disagrees with aspects of a person's philosophy does not mean that one condemns that person in a broad scope. Herein lies the proof of Miss Rand's ability to separate the things she condemns from the positive attributes about a person.

For instance, one might condemn a basketball player for using drugs and being abuse to women. But one can also see efficacy in that same basketball player for his skill on the court. Miss Rand's ability to avoid condemning the whole person of Joan of Arc is not a contradiction of her philosophical ideas, but an affirmation of her ability to selectively and rationally evaluate a person by their attributes and accomplishments.

I remind you, Mark, of what Rand claims (via Galt speaking) about the psychology of "a mystic":

"A mystic," Galt says, "is a [woman] who surrendered [her] mind at its first encounter with the minds of others. Somewhere in the distant reaches of [her] childhood, when [her] own understanding of reality clashed with the assertions of others [...], [she] gave in to so craven a fear of independence that [she] renounced [her] rational faculty."

You see no contradiction between this description and describing someone as heroic? (If I recall correctly, she went so far as to describe Joan of Arc as the most heroic female figure in history in the woman president answer.)

There is one way Rand could be gotten off the hook here. That's by arguing that Joan of Arc was not "a mystic" but instead had rational grounds for believing that the voices she heard were those of direct emisaries from God. And actually...I think a strong case could be made that Joan of Arc was proceeding in a rational way to her conclusion about those voices. (As it happens, I've studied Joan of Arc's case in extensive detail.) But there would still remain the problem that she had a prior belief in God before she started, when she was eleven or twelve, to hear the voices -- and to see the figures of the saints whose voices she thought they were. How did she arrive at the prior belief in God without "giv[ing] in to so craven a fear of independence" as to "[renounce her] rational faculty"? Still doesn't look good for Joan of Arc's tremendous courage.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

[Rand's] term mysticism was overly-broad to the point of being useless.

I strongly agree. Here's what she writes in the essay "For the New Intellectual" about the "necessary tenets" of "every variant of [mystical] philosophy" (the wording in the original is "Witch Doctor philosophy"; since she's equating "Witch Doctor philosophy" with "mystical philosophy," '[mystical]" was substituted in the Lexicon, pg. 322):

"The damnation of this earth as a realm where nothing is possible to man but pain, disaster and defeat, a realm inferior to another, 'higher,' reality; the damnation of all values, enjoyment, achievement and success on earth as a proof of depravity; the damnation of man's mind as a source of pride, and the damnation of reason as a 'limited,' deceptive, unreliable, impotent faculty, incapable of perceiving the 'real' reality and the 'true' truth; the split of man in two, setting his consciousness (his soul) against his body, and his moral values against his own interest; the damnation of man's nature, body and self as evil; the commandment of self-sacrifice, renunciation, suffering, obedience, humility and faith, as the good; the damnation of life and the worship of death, with the promise of reward beyond the grave--these are the necessary tenets of the [mystic's] view of existence, as they have been in every variant of [mystical] philosophy throughout the course of mankind's history."

When you consider that she then proceeds to classify as "Witch Doctor," i.e., mystical, philosophy almost every philosophy ever propounded except her own, yes, I'd say she's made a claim which is so broad as to amount to being useless -- as well as being an egregious bit of motive-attribution. I repeat my basic point, that there is strong textual authority in Rand's own writing for the frequent Objectivist habit of sweepingly condemning the sanity and/or morality of those with whose opinions the Objectivist disagrees.

Ellen

___

[Judith]

There is one way Rand could be gotten off the hook here. That's by arguing that Joan of Arc was not "a mystic" but instead had rational grounds for believing that the voices she heard were those of direct emisaries from God. And actually...I think a strong case could be made that Joan of Arc was proceeding in a rational way to her conclusion about those voices. (As it happens, I've studied Joan of Arc's case in extensive detail.) But there would still remain the problem that she had a prior belief in God before she started, when she was eleven or twelve, to hear the voices -- and to see the figures of the saints whose voices she thought they were. How did she arrive at the prior belief in God without "giv[ing] in to so craven a fear of independence" as to "[renounce her] rational faculty"? Still doesn't look good for Joan of Arc's tremendous courage.

There is a strong case here, but I'm not sure Rand herself would have bought it.

I remember something from a freshman psych course to the effect that if we saw a man talking to a tree we would conclude that he was mentally disturbed. If the man was an American Indian 200 years ago, however, the conclusion might not hold up, given his cultural context. Similarly, given Joan of Arc's cultural context, the fact that she was hearing voices might have been interpreted by her not as a sign of mental illness, but as a sign that she was hearing the saints of God speaking to her, and although voices are not normal mental functioning, she interpreted this "oddity" of mental functioning in a manner consistent with her cultural context.

Now, would Rand have bought the argument? I'm a bit skeptical. I wonder how much Rand knew about the actual details of Joan of Arc's story. The way she romanticized Joan of Arc in Vesta Dunning's monologues (cut from The Fountainhead) lead me to believe she didn't know much about the true story.

Judith

[Ellen Stuttle]

Now, would Rand have bought the argument? I'm a bit skeptical. I wonder how much Rand knew about the actual details of Joan of Arc's story. The way she romanticized Joan of Arc in Vesta Dunning's monologues (cut from The Fountainhead) lead me to believe she didn't know much about the true story.

I, too, am skeptical as to whether she'd have bought the argument, and I share the doubt that Rand knew much about the true story. It's an extraordinary story, and I think that Joan of Arc indeed was one amazingly courageous -- and very independent-minded -- young lady. (She was burned at the stake before she was nineteen [edit:] and a half.)

I'll see if I can quickly find a passage that describes the forces arrayed against her in her trial...

(All this is tangential to the Lepers thread, but I do find it interesting about the contradictoriness between Rand's blanket statements concerning "the soul of the mystic" and her views on Joan of Arc.)

Ellen

___

Edited December 5, 2006 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

In post #522, I wrote, "I'll see if I can quickly find a passage that describes the forces arrayed against [Joan of Arc] in her trial...

Yes, here we are: pg. 274-5, the Image book Doubleday paperback of Vita Sackville-West's Saint Joan of Arc, copyright 1936, 1964 by V. Sackville-West:

[i've added some paragraph breaks for ease of reading.]

Jeanne stood not the slightest chance from the first. Those who ask whether she was given a fair trial may here find their answer. She was given a trial conducted with all the impressive apparatus of ceremony, learning, and scholasticism that the Holy Catholic Church, the Court of the Inquisition and the University of Paris between them could command, but in essence the whole trial was a preordained and tragic farce. The most remarkable thing about it, to my mind [V. S-W speaking], is that they troubled to give her a trial at all, let alone a trial in which one cardinal, six bishops, thirty-two doctors of theology, sixteen bachelors of theology, seven doctors of medicine, and one hundred and three other associates were involved, and that the Burgundians had not sewn her into a sack and thrown her into the Oise at Compiegne forthwith.

It is an astonishing tribute to her achievement, to the awe she had inspired, and to the position she had attained in the public mind, that it never occurred to them to apply such off-hand methods as were in current use for proletarian upstarts coming forward with the claim of unusual powers. At least they paid her the compliment of treating her seriously; at least they recognised her as an enemy that must be seriously, ceremoniously, and officially dealt with, not as a mere inconvenient adventuress who could privily be put out of the way and no questions asked. She had made too much noise in France for that.

She had made so much noise that the princes and prelates of Europe addressed letters to one another about her fate. She had worked herself, in fact, into the extremely anomalous situation of being a prisoner of the highest importance and yet a prisoner without authoritative defence. She had no one whatsoever to defend her.

Charles VII, her natural protector, had disappeared completely out of the picture. She was granted no advocate at the trial [in a footnote, V. S-W adds that "She was offered a counsel after the trial had lasted for over a month, but was told she must choose him from amongst the assessors present, and not unnaturally refused the offer."]: no single witness was called on her behalf: no single member of the party favourable to her was among the judges: no one dared to raise his voice to assist or direct her: everyone was overawed either by Cauchon [the head Inquisitor] or by the English, frequently by both; no formal indictment was read to her until the end; her judges did their utmost to confuse her by a bombardment of inconsecutive and apparently irrelevant questions, whose drift must have been exceedingly difficult for her to perceive; alone, unable to read or to check the documents they prepared for her signature, she had to confront the whole assembly of learned, trained, and unscrupulous or cowardly men.

Yet, tired and worn as she must have been - for she had spent some two months waiting in prison at Rouen, not to mention the six months she had spent as a captive before she ever arrived at Rouen - her wits failed her so little that she was even able to escape the traps they subtly laid for her. Questions which appeared impossible to answer without exposing herself to charges of almost sacrilegious presumption, she could evade with unexceptionable sagacity.

"Do you consider yourself to be in a state of grace?" they asked her.

"If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may He keep me in it."

[And thus the trial commenced. It lasted for about four and a half months, including her brief recantation nearing the end.

From the chronological table]:

Delivered to the

Inquisition and the

Church by the

English.................. 1431 Jan. 3th

Trial begun............ 1431 Jan. 9th

The recantation...... 1431 May 24th

Burnt at the stake... 1431 May 30th

[i was incorrect in the previous post in saying that she was burned before she turned 19; the trial began close to the date of her 19th birthday - near as her exact birthdate can be assessed, it was Jan. 6th, 1412.]

I've read much of the transcript. Her sagacity in getting around trick questions is impressive. One of my favorite for instances is when she was asked if she'd seen St. Michael naked. "And do you think that God cannot afford to clothe His saints?" she replied.

The transcribers keeping the record of the trial would sometimes become carried away and interject with the equivalent of "Bravo" in the margins at some of her answers.

Ellen

Edit: Added a line I'd left out in the chronology.

___

Edited December 5, 2006 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

I am not really acquainted with the story of Joan of Arc beyond that of a layman's comprehension (and the selective interest in her shown by a Rosicrucian fast-track offshoot called Pro-Vida in Brazil), but there is one thing I am sure of--and this jumped out at me as I was reading the excerpt you posted: I am very familiar with her name, but I don't ever recall the name of Cauchon (the head Inquisitor that was mentioned) as being of any importance whatsoever. I am sure this is the case with the general public, also.

The modern-day Objectivist moral denouncers would do well to reflect on this when they nurture the love of being the Inquisitor in their souls. In depicting such warped love, I have read several describe each other (and Rand) as moral avengers or avenging Angels, especially as regards the "enemies of Objectivism."

I am also pretty sure that Cauchon thought of himself that way, particularly with respect to the "enemies of the Church." But instead of being a romantic moral Angel with a sword of fire striking down Satan, he was the mediocre little nobody who managed to get some power and whose main accomplishment in life was to stage a farce and oversee a mob burn Joan of Arc to the stake.

It is with profound justice that his name is not remembered except in specialized history books and encyclopedia articles. Even so, his reputation is despicable to all.

May I never become a Cauchon in life! I leave that to the other petty little nobodies who admire his office and love the power he wielded. When I denounce, may it always be with the sense of performing a painfully unpleasant duty instead of a joyful achievement.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] But instead of being a romantic moral Angel with a sword of fire striking down Satan, [Cauchon] was the mediocre little nobody who managed to get some power and whose main accomplishment in life was to stage a farce and oversee a mob burn Joan of Arc to the stake.

It is with profound justice that his name is not remembered except in specialized history books and encyclopedia articles. Even so, his reputation is despicable to all.

May I never become a Cauchon in life! [....]

Well, Michael, with all appreciation of your sentiments, Cauchon was more complicated that you're crediting him with having been. It was largely because of his complexities that the trial went on as long as it did. He seems genuinely to have cared about trying to save Joan's soul, and also about ascertaining the truth as to the state of her soul.

Here's a passage which provides a fuller picture of what he was like (at least as Vita Sackville-West interprets him). This passage follows directly after the section I quoted in post #523:

pp. 275-77, Saint Joan of Arc, copyright 1936, 1964 by V. Sackville-West:

[Cauchon's full name was Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais.]

[Again, I've added some paragraph breaks.]

Having thus presented the prisoner's point of view, and having insisted on the fact that the verdict was a foregone conclusion, it is only fair to consider also the point of view of the judges. In the first instance it is necessary to realise and to remember that the case was being tried, not on political, but on religious grounds. Although the English pressed so close and so revengeful round the court, watching Cauchon like lynxes to detect any possible sign of clemency dawning in those clever episcopal eyes, they bore, technically and officially, no part in the charges brought against the prisoner.

She was being tried, not on a charge of high treason against the English King who, in their sight, was also King of France, but on a charge of heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, and sorcery, and to the mind of a mediaeval churchman there could be no more heinous or dangerous profession than that of a heretic and a witch. On neither count could she reasonably expect to escape the burning. Her answers would have had to be very satisfactory, her recantations very complete, to make it impossible for the tribunal decently to hand her over to the waiting executioner.

No doubt they would have preferred her to recant, when they could have condemned her to a minor penalty such as imprisonment for life or for a term of years, for the Church, on principle, was reluctant to shed human blood, but failing a recantation they were quite prepared to go to all lengths. It is true that they were determined to do so if necessary, but it is also true that a genuine fear and conviction were at the root of their determination.

This being so, it would be perfectly possible to make out a case proving that Cauchon personally had treated Jeanne with remarkably long-suffering leniency. He did, in fact, make repeated attempts to reconcile her to what he believed to be the only Church whose authority she ought, as a Catholic, to recognise. He could have condemned her long before he did. He knew quite well that any delay was resented by the English, and that he himself would be the first to suffer from any suspicion of clemency or partiality.

The English were thick in Rouen. He was in close and constant contact with such dominating figures as the magnificent Warwick, the impetuous Stafford, and the Cardinal-Bishop of Winchester - men who had ample and daily opportunity of telling him exactly what they thought of the progress of the trial.

Such comments cannot have been, and indeed were not, always agreeable. Yet he gave Jeanne chance after chance. He allowed over a month (April 18th to May 24th) in which to give her chances at intervals. On several occasions he addressed her in kindly terms, and never seems to have lost his temper with her even when she gave him plenty of provocation to do so. [V. S-W adds as a footnote: "It is, of course, possible that the incidents when he did lose his temper were omitted from the proces-verbal. According to some of the later evidence it seems not only possible but probable, e.g. [i omit the reference].]

I [V. S-W] find no difficulty in believing that Cauchon, with the better side of himself, genuinely desired to restore an apostate to the right way of thinking, and that he took every risk thus to persuade her, before committing her definitely to the stake. I find no difficulty in believing that Cauchon quite sincerely found himself faced with a problem in which his worldly and his religious convictions were at war.

The same tolerance might apply to many members of the tribunal. I find no difficulty in believing that the majority of these sons of the Church, including Cauchon himself, were genuinely persuaded that Jeanne, as all others of her sect, had most perilously menaced and insulted their Mother [i.e., the Church]. Men of the world and scholars though they might be, learning in the fifteenth century was no proof against the terror of superstition, nor could any consideration such as humane pity for youth, sex, or ignorance be allowed to obtain for a moment.

The human virtues in that rough age were but a trifling weight anyhow; and, when dread of the Powers of Darkness came into the balance, there could be little doubt on which side the scales would fall. One must accept, a priori, the principle that Jeanne had to be regarded either as saint or devil. There was no middle course. They elected to regard her as a devil. Ruthless suppression therefore became a stern and sacred duty.

Where the Bishop of Beauvais and his fellows erred was in the unfairness in their conduct of the trial, not in their conviction that heresy and sorcery must be stamped out, or that Jeanne, as a guilty wretch, if they could not turn her from her wickedness, must be destroyed.

It must never be forgotten, either - a vital point which I have left to the end - that the trial of Jeanne as a sorceress really involved an attack on the King who had employed her. [And keep in mind that Cauchon was French, so the politics add still another level of complexity.]

Ellen

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