The Perils of Feet of Clay Syndrome

The ongoing scandal concerning Bill Cosby causes a lot of turmoil for me. I grew up listening to and loving his stand-up routines. He is a fellow Philadelphian sprung from a shared neighborhood (Germantown), an important intangible for those of us native to a wonderful but often maligned city. His role on I-Spy was ground-breaking. His rise to stardom happened at a time when America was starting to come to terms with the lasting effects of racial inequality engendered by the dehumanizing practices of slavery and its offspring, segregation. Once established as a star, he continued to work to break down barriers. His humor and public persona taught many of us that our humanity is shared and that skin color, like eye color, hair color, and place of origin, is incidental: It makes a poor criterion by which to judge a person's character or worth. These were and remain valuable contributions.

How, then, do I deal with the serious and truly terrible accusations that are now resurfacing? They certainly have the ring of truth and, as is becoming clear, rumors of acts like these have been circulating in the comics' community for years. How could someone be simultaneously capable of such good and such evil? The answer lies in the fact that he, like all of us, is human.

St. Paul reminds us of the struggle we face daily. "For I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil I do not want. " (Rom. 7:19) In varying degrees we all fall short of the mark. Sometimes the evil we do is by acts we perform. At others it is by refraining from acting when we should. We then compound the evil by seeking reasons to justify and make excuses for ourselves.

But aren't Mr. Cosby's acts so heinous that we should make him a pariah? The truth is that heinousness is a measure of degree, not of kind. Under the right conditions and under the guise of self-delusion we are all capable of committing or justifying the commission of horrible actions as human history has shown time and again. Even more insidious is the fact that oftentimes small, seemingly insignificant acts that to all appearances barely deserve the label "evil" have devastating effects. This is why the petitions "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" taught by Jesus are so important. (The New American Bible translates them as "do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one". Mt 6:13).

It is my hope that Mr. Cosby, whose talents and contributions I continue to revere, comes to terms with himself and seeks reconciliation so that we can all embark on the healing process.

In the beginning (Or Off to a pretentious start)

"Let us begin, for up to now we have done nothing." St. Francis of Assisi

It's with some misgivings that I launch this blog. Our world is plagued by too much noise, by too many people speaking and too few listening. I, of all people, am not exempt from this but I feel the need to join my voice to those who seek to bring reasoned and respectful conversation to a medium that is long on sound bites and name calling.

As the title states, this will be an occasional blog. This is for two reasons. The first is to honor the commitment to reasoned and respectful conversation. My paternal grandfather had a saying- "Be sure your brain is engaged before putting your mouth in gear." Posts that are required to meet a deadline could lead to sloppy thinking and rushed and therefore "off the cuff" writing. I want to avoid this temptation at all costs.
The second reason is that I have other obligations that need to take priority and I am decidedly not a workaholic.

In writing I intend as much as possible to avoid pigeonholing people or ideas. Labels like "Conservative", "Liberal", "Capitalist", "Socialist" and the like more often than not act as red flags to inhibit thought and stifle discourse. The truth is that we can only avoid or mitigate disaster if we remember that those who see things differently from us are also human beings and that while objective truth exists none of us are privy to more than a glimpse of it.

 To close this post I'd like to adopt this prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas as a dedication:

"Inspire the beginning, guide the progress, complete the ending."