Jean Vanier Disinterred to Be Crucified

Jean Vanier

There are of late charges of sexual impropriety against Jean Vanier.

The accusations against him were accepted as true by L’Arche, his foundation, “on the balance of probabilities.” This, to begin with, is not sufficient. One has the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. This is especially true for the dead, who cannot defend themselves against such charges.

I think we are morally obliged to discount these reports, so far as they concern the reputation of Jean Vanier, or else be guilty of the sin of calumny.

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert strip, hosts a YouTube channel on which he comments on current events. He recently mentioned that, to his knowledge, anyone famous will have had multiple false charges of sexual impropriety lodged against them. It is automatic: claim that Elvis Presley raped you, and you get to share some of the fame and glamour of Elvis Presley. In the general population, someone is always sure to make the claim.

There is also a certain class of women who are drawn to celibate priests or married ministers, on the premise that, if they can get them to ignore their vows, this is a conquest, proving their desirability. Failing that, claiming to have done so is almost as good.

We have every reason to expect that there will be charges of sexual impropriety against Vanier without their being true. Six, over a long lifetime, would be a reasonable level of static. And we also have reason to believe that, if he was ever inclined to engage in sex, he would have no need to use compulsion or exploit his position to do so. His real experience was more probably having to resist attempts at seduction.

If he did not always resist, okay, he was guilty of fornication. Join the club. Even saints are not perfect, and have never been presumed to be.

The accusation that he was in some cases exploiting an “unequal power relationship” is also unreasonable. Given his international stature, any relationship available to him could be seen as an “unequal power relationship.” So does this mean he is obliged to have none? Nobody of his generation would have thought of such issues in any case: bosses marrying their secretaries used to be a typical romantic tale. Or patients marrying their nurses. To make this retroactively immoral is a violation of natural justice.

Again, the report is that “For some of the women, these relationships were experienced as coercive and non-consensual in nature.” One accuser is quoted saying “Was I consenting? I think at the beginning yes, but as time went on, the more I believe that I was not consenting.”

This is apparently a matter of opinion on their part. “Were experienced as.”

It is therefore plausible that Vanier’s honest understanding throughout was that they were consensual.

He might even have been feeling these women were coercing him. “Were experienced as.”

 Unless there is more than this, to pay any attention to such things is plain calumny.

Biden is the Narcissist

Joe Biden characteristically hugging a stranger.

While everyone has naively been declaring Donald Trump a narcissist—from what we can see, he is anything but—everyone has been ignoring signs of genuine narcissism in another prominent US politician.

Joe Biden.

Biden is what a real narcissist looks like—full of superficial charm. The opposite of Trump.

Someone made an interesting editorial point about the current #Metoo furor over his habitual unwanted touching: that, unlike so many other cases that have recently come to light, his intent does not seem to be definitely sexual. It seems more as though he cannot conceive anyone would not cherish the opportunity of being very close to Joe Biden.

That suggests a profound self-esteem—narcissism, in its most literal meaning. And, at the same time, it suggests an inability to see others as independent beings with their own free will. Whatever he wants, they should want. “Violating boundaries,” in the pop psychology cliche.

Biden has also been rumoured to often swim nude in the full view of his secret service detail, including female officers. But this too seems less certainly a sexual thrill than a narcissist desiring to attract attention—“Look at me! Look at me!” Combined with a fundamental inability to conceive of his naked body as anything other than wonderful to anyone. An inability to feel shame. This is quite comparable to the Narcissus of the original legend.

Biden is also a congenital liar. In this, note, he is unlike Trump. Trump tells tall tales, not calculated to deceive. Biden lies, and expects to be believed. Most famously, his first presidential campaign, in 1988, hit the rocks when it was found that he had plagiarized parts of a speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. This was not subtle or inadvertent—he even pilfered biographical details, true for Kinnock but not for him. A bit of journalistic digging at the time revealed that plagiarism had been a pattern in his past, including in his academic work.

Biden’s public career is littered with casual lies. This is typical of the narcissist: truth to him has no intrinsic value. The trait was perhaps best analysed and illustrated by Shakespeare’s Polonius character in Hamlet. Factuality does not matter; all that matters is the effect of the claim on the current audience.

Examples abound. Biden habitually claims a hardscrabble working class upbringing. But he was upper class. He went to Syracuse University, after all. That’s an expensive private school. He has boasted of being at the top of his class. Yet, even though Syracuse at the undergrad level is not academically rigorous, his marks turn out to have been mediocre. And so on. On policy issues, he will pretty much say anything.

Syracuse University: some great grad departments, but a place rich kids go when they can't get into Ivy League

Most troubling of Biden’s lies is one about his first wife, who was killed in a traffic accident in 1972. Ever since, in public, he has claimed that she was killed by a drunk driver. But there was an inquest at the time, and the other driver was exonerated of fault. With certainty, had there been alcohol involved, it would have been detected. Here, Biden is casually destroying someone else’s life to get himself a little more attention and a little more sympathy. It is all about Biden, and others have no intrinsic rights. This is classic narcissistic behaviour.

It is alarming that we seem so unable to spot a narcissist right in front of our noses, and yet so easily scapegoat innocents with the false charge.

Vastly more public awareness is needed.

And don’t vote for Biden.

Free Woody Allen

Fake mug shot of Woody Allen from "Take the Money and Run."

I hate to talk about the private lives of celebrities. It is almost automatically the sin of calumny. Celebrities have the same right to privacy we all do; it is supposed to be a human right.

But I must speak out on Woody Allen, because a grave injustice is being done.

He is innocent.

Yet many people are protesting The Atlantic for even allowing his wife, Soon-Yi, to give her side of the story.

I am not a Woody Allen fan. I think his influence has been baleful. He is a disciple of Freud, and Freud has been a wrecking ball in our culture. But the man is innocent.

Allen is accused of assaulting his step-daughter Dylan, when she was seven. That's it.

This charge was looked into twice, by two independent authorities, in New York and Connecticut, and neither found any credible evidence to support the charge. Never even made it to court.

Moreover, Allen and Mia Farrow were in the middle of an acrimonious breakup when the incident was alleged to have happened. Faking a charge of child molestation is simply standard practice among unethical women in any divorce proceedings these days, to milk the husband for as much as possible in the settlement. If you are caught lying, there is no penalty; so there is no downside to doing it. Arguably, it is malpractice if your divorce lawyer does not advise it.

Dylan still insists it happened. But memories from age seven are intrinsically unreliable and subject to suggestion. Her testimony might be sincere, but it is worth nothing as evidence.

There are apparently no other allegations against Allen. This is significant, because according to the experts, pedopiles are compulsive. They never do it just once, with one victim.

Indeed, there are apparently no allegations of sexual misconduct against Allen from any adult leading ladies either, although he was obviouly in a position directly comparable to that of Harvey Weinstein. He apparently did not exploit it.

Unfortunately, it all reflects shockingly badly on Mia Farrow; as does Soon-Yi's testimony about her, which is corroborated by her sibling Moses Farrow. Perhaps, then, it is best to stop here.