I always get a little giggle in my heart when I start taking (arguably deserved) cyber-hate for smashing modern-day "Idols" online, I can think of few more deserving than Pope Francis. I get it, he wants very badly to re-create the Vatican's image from horridly corrupted child-fucking wealth-mongery to simple and humble child-fucking wealth-mongery. He's making public appearances left & right decrying poverty and violence, but all of this pomp and public fluffing doesn't change the publicly acknowledged & well documented fact that the Vatican under his administration has done damn near NOTHING to crack down on the Catholic Churches' long-standing pattern of abuse against children. And yet, who's the asshole for pointing this out? ME. But I'm fine with that, I really am. It says nothing about me or my character, if only that I am at least capable of backing up my claims with actual evidence instead of just telling people what they want to hear.
Leonardo DaVinci was a brilliant artist and inventor who was, arguably, centuries ahead of his time in many ways: He was also a prolific and ravenous pedophile. He even, at one point, had a warrant for his arrest after "assaulting" one of his male models.
While this does not invalidate any of DaVinci's discoveries or creations, it does shed a pretty fucked up light on who he was and where his priorities were. Helicopters or no, he still did (quite a few) very bad things. If personal achievements granted absolution of wrong-doing, people would be worshipping Mr DaVinci instead of an old man in a very expensive hat & robe. They're BOTH still very bad people at heart.
And it should go the other way around, too, if it were true that saying or doing a few things to public benefit absolves one of being an asshole: Adolf Hitler was a very strict vegetarian: ABSOLVED! Saddam Hussein was a wildlife conservationist (I've personally been to one of his old "habitats" complete with fish-ponds and water-bird nesting grounds) ABSOLVED! Nero was an avid patron and supporter of the arts: ABSOLVED!... they are/were still very bad people.
No big shiny hat nor rank on your uniform will EVER accurately reflect who you are as a person nor wether or not you have anything vaguely resembling character or virtue.
I've done some pretty bad shit in my day, sure: Drugs, violence, I was an asshole as a teenager. I used to be an outspoken and virulent homophobe in my youth, but I eventually got a hard dose of reality and swallowed my pride, I learned from my extremely embarrassing mistake and rose above it. But the ultimate difference between ME and somebody like FRANKIE is that if I caught one of my employees hurting a child I'd shut that shit down in a heart-beat and make sure that poor child got the help he needed.
Oh Tim Minchin, you ARE a delightful squid...
I really don't like having to rely on celebrity words to better substitute mine, most celebs are fucking idiots but TIM MINCHIN makes my brain-pussy wet and quivering. But Tim DOES pretty much summarize my issue against "Idols" in general, that people love them SO MUCH that they apparently do no wrong, even when they DO do horribly and cruelly wrong.
Besides, if people could REALLY think for themselves, would we still have Popes at all?
And the "discussion" is STILL deteriorating...
A polished turd with gold filigree and gemstones delicately inlaid into it is STILL VERY MUCH A DAMN TURD.
This is the thing about people who are put up onto pedestals, for good or ill: You can't blindly worship anyone, or ANYTHING, while conveniently ignoring the things about them that you so happen to not like or want to talk about. Public image aside, Frankie is no different and no better than the child abusers themselves as long as he insists on protecting them as hard as he does: If you purposely enable evil, you ARE evil.
These are the same people who will also cry out "Oh, well nobody is perfect!" Okay, fine, you're right about THAT, so then what's the point of having a damn Pope then? Furthermore, if you acknowledge that no-one is flawless, why does pointing to someone's wrong-doing upset you so? Just because you happen to like their particular brand of bullshit? Nope, sorry, but if "no one is perfect" then that means that NO ONE gets a free pass for being a shit person.
Leonardo DaVinci was a brilliant artist and inventor who was, arguably, centuries ahead of his time in many ways: He was also a prolific and ravenous pedophile. He even, at one point, had a warrant for his arrest after "assaulting" one of his male models.
While this does not invalidate any of DaVinci's discoveries or creations, it does shed a pretty fucked up light on who he was and where his priorities were. Helicopters or no, he still did (quite a few) very bad things. If personal achievements granted absolution of wrong-doing, people would be worshipping Mr DaVinci instead of an old man in a very expensive hat & robe. They're BOTH still very bad people at heart.
And it should go the other way around, too, if it were true that saying or doing a few things to public benefit absolves one of being an asshole: Adolf Hitler was a very strict vegetarian: ABSOLVED! Saddam Hussein was a wildlife conservationist (I've personally been to one of his old "habitats" complete with fish-ponds and water-bird nesting grounds) ABSOLVED! Nero was an avid patron and supporter of the arts: ABSOLVED!... they are/were still very bad people.
No big shiny hat nor rank on your uniform will EVER accurately reflect who you are as a person nor wether or not you have anything vaguely resembling character or virtue.
I've done some pretty bad shit in my day, sure: Drugs, violence, I was an asshole as a teenager. I used to be an outspoken and virulent homophobe in my youth, but I eventually got a hard dose of reality and swallowed my pride, I learned from my extremely embarrassing mistake and rose above it. But the ultimate difference between ME and somebody like FRANKIE is that if I caught one of my employees hurting a child I'd shut that shit down in a heart-beat and make sure that poor child got the help he needed.
Oh Tim Minchin, you ARE a delightful squid...
I really don't like having to rely on celebrity words to better substitute mine, most celebs are fucking idiots but TIM MINCHIN makes my brain-pussy wet and quivering. But Tim DOES pretty much summarize my issue against "Idols" in general, that people love them SO MUCH that they apparently do no wrong, even when they DO do horribly and cruelly wrong.
Besides, if people could REALLY think for themselves, would we still have Popes at all?
DaVinci was a child fucker?! Do you have evidence of this accusation? I have never heard of that before.
ReplyDeleteAs for Popes and religions... Well, they will always be with us as long as people have a need to be part of something larger than themselves, answers to questions that can't be answered yet, et al.
The lives of "the Greats" were touched upon in my college history class, it was briefly noted in our text-book (of which, sadly, I no longer have a copy) that he'd diddled the kiddies: More disturbing yet, that was considered socially acceptable at the time.
DeleteI'll dig for more historical evidence as I find it, but here's a snippet about his relationships with some of his students I yanked from Wikipedia (take it with a huge grain of salt)
"Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salai and Melzi. Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature. Court records of 1476, when he was aged twenty-four, show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and there is speculation that since one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the family exerted its influence to secure the dismissal."
There's also a famous art historian (and former nun) known as Sister Mary who had some very interesting commentary about the man and his life.