The Dish

Xavier Marquez unpacks the political psychology referred to as the “good Tsar” bias, when leaders escape blame for the disasters and mistakes that happen under their rule – anyone or anything but the ruler is held accountable:

The “good Tsar” bias does not incline people to say that the world is just, or to rationalize injustice as somehow deserved, only to deny that those leaders who are closely tied to the symbols of the nation (the Tsar, the Führer, the King, etc.) bear responsibility for bad outcomes in everyday life; that responsibility, instead, is assigned to subordinates. In this respect, the bias appears to be more closely related to what Dan Kahan and others have called “identity-protective cognition“: the closer a leader is tied to the symbols of the nation or group with whom they identify, and the closer people’s identification with the nation or group is, the more difficult it should be for them to accept that the leader is responsible for bad outcomes, since such acceptance threatens one’s identity, and the more likely it will be for them to displace that responsibility onto subordinates as a protective measure. And leaders, like Hitler, who are the focus of high-intensity rituals associated with big national occasions — plebiscitary elections, victories in war, even set-piece speeches on the occasion of good economic news — are precisely the sorts of leaders who become associated with important community symbols; indeed, in important ways, they come to symbolize the community, as long as the rituals are successful.

Dreher applies the theory to various aspects of contemporary American life:

We saw it in Catholic circles post-Boston, with the desperate attempts by some conservative Catholics to wall of John Paul II from the catastrophe. If you were reading certain Catholic blogs at the time, the rationalizations for John Paul’s inaction were legion. The Holy Father was kept in the dark by disloyal subordinates. The Holy Father was too sick to act. The Holy Father has a secret plan to deal with the scandal. Et cetera.

There is no theological reason for this strategy. Papal authority, even papal infallibility, does not depend on the capability of a pope to govern prudently. Dante, in the Commedia, exemplifies the perfectly Catholic position: loyalty to the Church and to its teachings, including the papacy, but unleashing hell on the corrupt popes. The “Good Pope bias” here was not really a theological defense — a theological defense was not strictly necessary — but a psychological one.

It doesn’t have to be focused on a person. You’ve probably heard the line, “conservatism cannot fail; it can only be failed” describing, from a liberal perspective, the way movement conservatives rationalize the failures of conservative government. For these people, corruption, bad judgment, or ineptitude on the part of elected conservative leaders doesn’t disprove conservative ideas or principles; it only means they weren’t really tried. The failed presidency of George W. Bush had nothing to do with the wrongness of conservative ideas, you see; it was because Bush wasn’t sufficiently or genuinely conservative. In this case, the Good Tsar is not a person, but an ideology.

Responding to criticism that Pope Francis hasn’t acted swiftly or decisively enough on the issue of sex abuse by Catholic priests, Garry Wills offers a theory why –  Francis realizes that “without addressing structural issues in the Vatican, meaningful action to restore trust in the priesthood and church authority cannot get far.” One issue is celibacy:

Yes, celibacy does not directly and of itself lead to sexual predation. There are many unmarried men and women who are not predators. But Catholic celibacy is not simply an unmarried state. It is a mandatory and exclusive requirement for holding all significant offices in the Church. This sets up a sexual caste system that limits vision, empathy, and honesty. It enables church rulers to be blithely at odds with the vast majority of their own people. According to a 2011 Guttmacher Institute study, 98 percent of American Catholic women of child-bearing age have had sex—and, of that 98 percent, 99 percent have used or will use some form of contraception. Yet celibate priests tell us they know what sex is really about (by their expertise in “natural law”), and in their view it absolutely precludes birth control. There is an induced infantilism in such cloistered minds, an ignorance that poses as innocence. This prevents honesty at so many levels that any trust on sexual matters begins in a crippled state, handicapping all treatment of sexual predation in the Church.

Another problem that stands in the way of true reform is clericalism:

The previous three problems [celibacy, homophobia, and patriarchy] converge on the clerical mindset that afflicts all bureaucracies, but especially sacred ones. Advancement of one’s career involves deference to those above, adherence to corporate loyalties, and a determination not to hurt the institution (demonstrated by signal loyalty). Questioning “church teaching” is subversion. This leads to support of one’s own in all ways possible—as far as one can go, for instance, in denying sin among one’s colleagues. This is the area in which Pope Francis has made some initial moves, challenging the power of the Curia (Rome’s bureaucracy).

But challenge is not change, and so long as these structural issues persist, it will be impossible to restore trust in the Vatican’s authority. No pope can change all these things all by himself, even one as winning as Francis is proving. If it is to be done at all, it must be by a joint effort of the whole People of God. Perhaps that is what Francis is waiting for. I suspect he would welcome it.

Recent Dish on the topic here.

Trent Dalton visited the island of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, to talk with Steve Quinto, an American businessman who believes the world is “in the second phase of certain self-destruction.” But Steve and his wife, Ruth, aren’t worried – they’ve been building their dream retreat:

Steve’s utopia … [is] an 800ha living ark that he has spent the past eight of his 79 years creating, investing his life’s fortune in the shipment of 300 tonnes of materials from around the world to the very edge of human existence. Paradise. Salvation. A new world for when the old one dies. He calls it Edenhope.

Dalton goes on to describe his tour of Edenhope, which, Steve estimates, can comfortably accomodate 23 people:

The turning track straightens to a clearing and there it is:

the dream, Edenhope, a new world among the trees, a network of wooden bridges and paths and staircases weaving through manicured garden beds and rolling orchards with fruit trees in the hundreds and a kitchen hut and 10 octagonal bungalows made of high-end red hardwood timbers. The wondrous dreamscape includes wild blue flowers and bird of paradise plants and trees so big their root ­systems form houses of their own. There’s a communal library; a warehouse filled with ­endless tools and hardware; a surgery stocked with enough medicines to last two decades.

It’s a staggering work of human endeavour. Steve brought an earthmover and a front-end loader here from Canada. He rallied workers, paid and paid for their services for eight years; organised thousands of nine-hour sailing journeys back and forth between civilisation and sanctuary, hauling floors and sacks of concrete and machinery and miscellaneous goods in preparation for the apocalypse. He walks to a patch of dirt in the centre of his village. “It started here,” he says. “It was nothing but Ruth and I in two hammocks tied to trees.”

Steve closes his eyes and breathes his home in deep through his thin chest. “This is the birth of a new species,” he says. “This is the birth of beauty. This is the birth of dreams.”

(Photo of Vanuatu by Graham Crumb)