The third explanation is groupthink. It is hard to admit you were wrong, and to change your mind, even in the face of new evidence, when the mob's view is going in a particular direction. Saying unpopular things that are true is not everyone's calling. Whether being a contrarian is career threatening, or merely socially awkward, there are powerful forces at work that deter courageous speaking out – on so many topics. The almost universal anti-Catholicism of our secular age makes those of us who do speak out on subjects like George Pell's innocence into modern day martyrs. Most people do not enjoy public attacks in the face of stating unpopular truths. It is easy to go along with the crowd, even when, as writers from Charles McKay to Douglas Murray have noted, there is a madness to crowds.
If one thinks of Paul Graham's four quadrants of conformism, from aggressively conformist, through passively conformist, to passively non-conformist and on to aggressively non-conformist, the easy path in the era of cancel culture is surely to keep schtum on hard subjects and go with the flow.
And groupthink can generally survive new, compelling evidence quite easily, alas. Most people are intellectually lazy when it comes to questioning their own, or society's majority views.
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The fourth explanation is hubris. It is the sheer inability of public and semi-public figures to admit they were wrong. Once you have decided you are wrong about something, you have two choices – either to admit you were wrong, or to double down and move mountains to prove that you were right, even when you know that you weren't. You simply have to keep believing it, despite your nagging doubts, or worse. You have simply invested too much in your belief to now let go. Pell did it! Some call this cognitive dissonance.
It is also an example of man's greatest sin, the sin of pride. Not everyone has the humility and plain common sense of J M Keynes, who famously stated:
When I'm wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?
The sin of pride has been on full global display, of course, in this most miserable of years, 2020. The whole reason that much of the world remains under Covid-inspired house arrest, with basic rights and freedoms decimated and economic prospects forlorn is simply the fact that decision-makers cannot publicly say "we were wrong". Saying "I have changed my mind" is one of the three basic tenets of science. The science that so many now claim they are following. (The other two are, as Alistair Haimes has pointed out, "prove it" and "I don't know"). Yet the words "I was wrong" are words that politicians and those who take strong public positions on issues seem quite unable to utter.
It is the same with the Pell-obsessed. Many, who should know better, simply cannot accept that he was innocent. Oops, there I go. He got off on a technicality. He cannot be said to have been innocent! Just found not guilty. And convicted by a jury. I guess the Pell haters will always have that.
Tony Abbott is STILL a homophobic misogynist. Now even to the Poms! Not for Abbott's critics the admission that there was never the remotest evidence in relation to either charge. There is no peace for Abbott, even in retirement. His enemies, just like those of Pell, are compelled never to let go of their ideologically driven hatreds. And certainly never to apologise.
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Then, of course, there are the Amy Barrett vilifiers who are programmed ever to shout spittle-flecked insults. Amy Barrett belongs to a cult. Obviously she didn't rape anyone so we cannot run that line. But she isn't just Catholic. She is weird Catholic. She believes it. Like me and many others, she believes that life begins at conception, and, shock, horror, she has actually said so. In writing. Let's get her!
Barrett acts out her faith, and much like George Pell and Tony Abbott understands that this has consequences. Like Abbott, she does not allow her beliefs to stop her doing her day job. Like Pell, she rides out the endless, vile abuse with a dignity, serenity and sense of forgiveness that others might do well to emulate. While all the while remaining firm in her convictions.
The haters just cannot stand that.
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