Tax Lawyer's Blog

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”

- Voltaire -

There is far too much certainty in the world.

People of faith are as certain of their own salvation as they are of everyone else’s damnation and atheists are certain that anyone of faith is a moronic dupe incapable of reason.

Right-wing ideologues  are certain that unfettered capitalism and the use of military force are the only answers to the world’s problems and left-wing ideologues are certain that their right-wing counterparts are evil incarnate.

And, of course, there are tax policy wonks who are metaphysically certain that their economic theories are the only sensible ones.

This is why I think we should use military force to make everyone see the movie Doubt.

The story takes place at a Catholic school in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act and one year after the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is a progressive Priest who takes a special interest in the Catholic school’s first (and only) black student, eleven year old Donald Miller (Joseph Foster).

Flynn wears his fingernails long, has a sweet tooth, uses a ballpoint pen and thinks it would be okay for children to sing secular Christmas songs like Frosty the Snowman. To Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the rigid, disciplinarian principal of the school, these are all signs of Flynn’s decadence and she can barely hide her disdain for them and him.

Sister James (Amy Adams), a timid young teacher, sees Flynn put a boy’s undershirt in his locker and dutifully tells Sister Alyosius.

This sets off an avalanche of logical leaps, bold assumptions and potentially slanderous accusations by Sister Aloysius, who consistently throughout the movie assumes the worst about everyone and everything, including the weather.

Listen to this exchange she has with Father Flynn:  

FLYNN: I’ve not touched a child.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: You have.

FLYNN: You haven’t the slightest proof of anything.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: But I have my certainty . . . . 

Too many of us are like Sister Aloysius, believing the worst about those who do not share our worldview. We demonize one another before there is any proof of deviltry. Then, when the object of our assumptions does something that fits into our paradigm, our notions are confirmed and we accuse them without proof.

And when you start with the assumption that someone has bad intentions, even the most benign acts – a private meeting with a child, hugging a child to comfort him in a time of distress, having a child pull his hand out from under your touch – can be interpreted as proof of immorality.

And it isn’t just puritans and religious zealots who are capable of such absurd certainties. 

Regardless of what you think about the Presidency of George W. Bush, it is this Sister Aloysius-level certainty that has caused left-wingers to accuse him of everything from secretly plotting the 9/11 attacks to conducting foreign policy solely for the enrichment of his already rich friends.

And many on the right presume that liberals, because they want to change (improve) America, somehow hate it. This presumption causes them to make conclusions without proof as they do when they categorize Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin as evidence of treason.

We never find out whether or not Father Flynn, in fact, molested Donald Miller. That’s because his guilt or innocence is irrelevant.

What is important is the assumptions we make about others, the effect those assumptions have on our willingness to see those others as evil or immoral, and how that can lead inexorably to our accusing them of wrongdoing without adequate proof.

See this movie now!

The fewer Sister-Aloysius’ we have in the world the better for all of us.

Of that there can be no doubt.

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