Doubt
For some reason, tonight I chose to put on the Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams movie from 2008 called Doubt. It is an interesting movie about a Catholic priest in a working class neighborhood that is the subject of scrutiny about his relationship with a young black student, as instigated by an older very cynical mother superior and a young more sympathetic teacher/nun. The story is about the attitudes of people toward one another. It isn’t really about the religious orders, but about humanity as a whole and the way we treat one another. It is a very well-written play that focuses on the dialogue between people caught in a social web where the boundaries of naïveté versus the real world are tested. It is a story of compassion and the lack thereof. It is about how we each choose to conduct our lives and whether we give people the benefit of the doubt or assume the worst of them. It is about human vulnerability. The priest involved is vulnerable by virtue of his position. The boy involved is vulnerable because he is a black youth with sexual orientation ambiguity. The boy’s mother is vulnerable because she is married to a harsh man who abuses her vulnerable son. The young nun is vulnerable because she is caught between wanting to be compassionate and being cajoled to be more pragmatic. And last, but not least, the older num is vulnerable due to her very cynicism. She doesn’t realize it, but all of the other characters in the play have a path to redemption and they can escape their vulnerability, and yet she cannot. Her vulnerability is the darkness of her soul, her lack of humanity. The priest in this story is thought by some to be the predator, but a kind one to be sure. But in actuality, the older nun is the real predator and in the final scene we see that she indeed recognizes this about herself and knows that where all the others in the story can reach redemption, she may be beyond it.
I love that movie because it reconfirms a core belief that I hold. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, about assuming the best of them and not doubting their intentions. It may not seem like a big deal, but I feel it is a very fundamental aspect of being a good person. Many business people feel that such naïveté has no place in the pragmatic world and I strongly disagree. I believe that it is the fundamental tenet of goodness. The song that I always think about is the 1960’s ballad One Tin Soldier. It tells the storybook tale of a kingdom of people from a valley that decide that they want what the people of the kingdom of the mountain possess. The poignant refrain is “Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend, Do it in the name of heaven, You can justify it in the end”. The story told in the song has the valley people battling it out to conquer the mountain people to get their treasure. When they prevail they find that the treasure is a stone that simply says “Peace on Earth.” And of course, that is the realization that we all eventually face, just as the older nun faces her own realization that in the spirit of righteousness, she has sacrificed her humanity. So too, the valley people and their greed and righteousness have cost them the only thing worth having in life, which is peace.
It is so easy for any of us to doubt one another and to presume that we are being cheated. We can get to a place a self-righteousness very easily only to find that we have no path back from that place. The cost of being wrong about trusting others is that we have a minor bruise to show for the mistake. Perhaps we are made to feel foolish, but that at least holds the benefit of gaining for us some humility. Perhaps we get disappointed, but the trick in that is to let it pass and be pleased that we have taken the high road. The low road never has much to commend it and rarely leads to anywhere good. But the older and “wiser” we get,the more likely we are to succumb to the temptations of cynicism. So we must all spend a moment in reflection every so often to remind ourselves that the goodness of our souls and our feelings for others is all we have left in the end. I know that when I die I want to be able to say to myself that I have treated people well and spread more trust in the world than doubt.
It seems to me that few of us are very good at being truly trusting as our natural state. The innocence of youth is so very appealing because it embodies that blind trust and that innocence inevitably gets stripped away gradually by the world and by the passage of life, if we let it. The erosion of trust leaves doubt and doubt leads to bitterness and unhappiness. The more we can all realize that pattern, the more we are likely to be able to find a path that gives us a worldly degree of comfort in out success and yet restores as much of our native trust as possible.
Some people find the best path through religion. I feel that this Doubt play reveals the truth that religion might bring this issue to the surface more quickly or more assuredly, but it does little to resolve the choices we must all make to either be trusting or be doubtful. The best movies rarely show the cynic prevailing and achieving happiness. Quite the opposite. It is the man or woman who can shed their doubts and cast themselves on the mercy of the universe that find the path to happiness.
I find myself wondering about Donald Trump and what is going on in the depths of his soul in the middle of the night while he is staring at the ceiling. First of all, does he sleep easily? I have a hard time accepting that humans can actually be devoid of conscience and therefore able to sleep peacefully despite their doubts. Bravado causes people to claim that that is so, but I suspect otherwise. I think that people like Donald Trump know that they have taken a wrong path and have trained themselves to bluster through the doubt and actually show a lack of doubt to the outside world. It is the exoskeleton for the very most vulnerable of people. Donald Trump needs that hard shell and bravado because he is so very vulnerable underneath. That makes him like all bullies. And the toughest part of this picture is that just as we feel bad for the older nun in the play, we need for the sake of our souls to feel pity for Donald Trump, especially in his hour of need.
I can’t say that I think this is the pinnacle of his troubles just yet. I think that will likely come closer to the end of this year once the Fulton County indictments are likely to land and the January 6th insurrection and conspiracy indictments might also land. The erosion of his support is already a daily subject of discussion and he, like all vulnerable souls will reach a point where he gets abandoned to his own self-doubt and the lack of redemption available to him. Whatever happiness he has in life is behind him now and now only the path downward through Purgatory awaits him. That is worthy of our sympathy if we are to be adequately humane. The doubt at this point has less to do with whether the end is near for him, but rather the ability of how many of us can show that compassion which we must.