The truth about evil men

Cardinal George Pell and Bill Cosby make unlikely bookends, the glare of world interest focused on something queasy about them we’d really rather not think about.

Old men’s underpants are well down my trillion-long list of items of interest, their contents even more so. Not for nothing was the term ‘‘dirty old man’’ invented, with its tragic resonances. But these were – in Cosby’s case, in Pell’s not proven – men in their supposed prime of life when they offended against vulnerable people. This, it would seem, was from positions of both authority and trust.

There are kneejerk reasons for not wanting to believe that a priest, let alone the cutely wise, harmless-funny black family man of old TV programmes, betrayed themselves and my illusions so badly. But time has taught me not to be too naive.

We learn at a price. Almost every much older man I worked for when I was young tried it on in some searingly revolting moment.

In Cosby’s case, knowing he was unattractive made him think of a method of forcing himself on women by administering drugs to them. I can’t explain why any woman would take drugs from a random man, however famous, but who expects creepiness from someone they look up to? Who wants to challenge a mentor? Women are great at pretending things are OK when they’re screamingly not. We do it at our peril.

As for priests, if Pell did what he’s accused of, he broke faith with the church he’d supposedly dedicated a celibate life to, and knew what he was doing was profoundly wrong. But the impulse became – again, if the accusations are true – an imperative, overruling saner judgment.

These are merely the latest in a long series of #Me Too accusations against famous men, rapists in plain sight.

In the more real world, it is amazing to me how many fathers, uncles, stepfathers, grandfathers, ‘‘friends’’, brothers, employers, social workers, therapists, doctors, teachers, pastors, professors and priests commit crimes against trust and basic decency, which their actions mock.

They appear in court with depressing regularity all over the country, from all social classes. Every one of them calls their accusers liars, and a depressing number of wives stand by them.

The men who do this believe they are entitled, and rationalise that they do no harm. A liar’s elaborate logic, in which he can never be wrong, tells each of them that he does many good things in the world, which cancel out the little bit of evil they enjoy.

As for the person preyed upon, they are something less than a real human being.

I can see that a priest or pastor might tell himself, with self-serving illogic, that he saves souls and leads a flock in virtuous living, so is entitled to fondle boys or girls on the other side of his moral balance sheet.

I can see that a stepfather could pride himself on outwardly acting the role of fond father to abandoned children, telling himself that creeping into their bedrooms at night was forgivable because of that.

And if in future the children became drug addicts, criminals, suicides, it would be because of flaws in their character, not the evil in his. But we know the truth. Such men ruin lives.

You can’t rely on self-promoting experts either. How about the doctors’ and cyclists’ lobby group telling us Wellingtonians are dying and getting sick because of a lack of cycling infrastructure?

I’ll stick my neck out here and suggest that life, death, the whole caboodle, is a trickier puzzle than any two-wheeler could possibly solve.