Donald Trump's Style

No, not his style of dress but his style of argumentation.

As many people know, Trump is fond of using Twitter ("tweeting"). It is said that late at night, alone in the residence areas of the White House, he tweets away to his heart's content. If any other US president has used Twitter at all, none has used it so much.

He has no tolerance for criticism of himself (someone recently said he has the sensitivity of a teen-age girl), and so he lashes out at anyone who attacks him. A favorite tactic is to apply negative adjectives to anyone who has criticized him. The New York Times recently published an op-ed piece written by an anonymous White House insider who claimed that Trump's staff tries to thwart some of his ill-advised decisions and actions. In Trump's attack on the  NYT he called the paper "failing." A politician who criticized him he called "weak." These are two examples out of perhaps hundreds.

These tactics of Trump's became very obvious to those who watched him during his political campaign for the Presidency. But to attack someone's argument by attaching negative adjectives to him was known even to the ancients as a fallacious type of argument. The  Romans called it argumentum ad hominen--that is, rather then rebutting or refuting a man's argument, you attack the man himself.

It saddens and amazes me that nothing Trump does or says seems to reduce the support he receives from his followers and supporters: not his actions, which have served to help corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of the common man and may  have brought us close to nuclear war with North Korea at least once; not his encouraging of white supremacists and other racists; not his surrounding himself with crooks and criminals in his government; and certainly not his lies, which at least a few times he has had to "walk back" (as the current jargon would have it). As I think I have said elsewhere, too many people are not critical of what they hear and read. They are ready to believe anything Trump says and don't seem to care when it's been shown that he lied.

Copyright © 2018

Reason for the Catholic Church's Priest Sex Abuse Problem

Stories--you could say scandals--involving sexual abuse of young persons by Roman Catholic priests have been in the news lately, and this is not the first time by any means. It's been a repeated story and by now a long-standing vexation for the Church.

Now, I want to say as soon as I can and as strongly and emphatically as I can that pedophilia (sexual attraction to children) and homosexuality are two different phenomena and not connected. In fact, studies have shown that most men who have a sexual attraction to very young persons are heterosexual. However, I discuss both of these sexual inclinations here because I believe the Church is seen as a refuge for both of these categories of people.

Quite a few years ago, as a result of a position I then held, I was sent, anonymously, an article--also anonymous but supposedly written by an insider--with estimates of the percentages of homosexuals in the priesthood, in monasteries and convents, and in seminaries. The numbers were estimates, and even so I don't have them at my fingertips. Suffice to say they were surprisingly, amazingly high.

I have what I believe is a very reasonable explanation for these data.

What I believe happens is this: A (probably young) man or woman perceives in him/herself urges or attractions--for the same sex, for minors, or for both--which he has been taught (sometimes very emphatically) are wrong, shameful, sinful. He  sees the Church as a solution, believing that once he has taken his celibacy vows, his efforts and desire to remain true to those vows will help him to suppress those unacceptable desires.

Unfortunately, and very sadly, it typically does not work.

Copyright © 2018.