FEEDING THE APPETITE FOR SCHADENFREUDE

It might be too early to write about the depths of Mark Sanford’s damnation, but it is not too soon to write about his pain, however well deserved. Paving the road to his purgatory and perdition has yet to be defined, not so much by the prospect of illegally misappropriated funds as by salacious bikini tans. Learn well, though, that the self-righteous hooting of his lynch-mob breeds its own kind of love affair. It is the affair fed by schadenfreude, the public’s insatiable appetite for the delight in another’s undoing.

Perhaps in this open and unrelenting society, comedy will always be inevitable. Winding up as one-liners in a Conan monologue or a Letterman Top Ten list has become part of the ritual of public exculpation, a flogging before the jeering throng.

Call me a sourpuss, but let me give the tawdry misdeed a different perspective: This situation is a tragedy, plain and simple, not an SNL sketch. A once-respected leader capitulated to misbegotten lust. Who knows the demons at work in his soul? Who knows the conflicts that were prey to his narcissism? All we do know is that he is already suffering all the grief he deserved and then some. He is likely to have forfeited his job, his marriage, his esteem, his authority, his ability to walk down the street without facing murmured scorn or derision.

Once, though, that society has meted out its explicit and implicit punishments, who will be there to give a modicum of solace and encouragement to a hurting, isolated, failed man who gave in to impulses that bespeak tortured unwholeness, not criminality? Who will comfort him, show him some understanding, and restore his sense of self-worth?

It will not be a psychotherapist at hundreds a session. It will, and must, be a person of exceptional compassion, tolerance, and insight. Perhaps it will be someone who has himself been humbled by scandal or impropriety, who knows the internal conflicts and lurking demons. Perhaps it will be a “wounded healer,” one who has himself gained a great ability in comprehend others' troubles thanks to the awareness of his own pain.

Having mercy on a person who has suffered undeservedly is, sadly, a rare quality in our contentious, calloused society. Granting mercy, or even understanding, to one who had done wrong and deserved punishment is even more exceptional. Yet, anyone who has been there knows that everyone needs someone by his side, someone who may loathe the sin yet acknowledge the humanity of the sinner. Those of us who have sinned, especially to the public’s derision, know only too well the paradigm of the pain, the emptiness, and if God grants us, the healing.

“Everyone needs someone,” you say? Even Hitler and child murderers and cold-blooded killers? To that, I have no rational answer, but I do have an existential one that I learned from Elie Weisel. I was privileged to have coffee with Weisel at the time that Ivan (“The Terrible”) Demjanjuk was on trial. Knowing his staunch opposition to capital punishment, I asked Weisel if his opposition extended to Demjanjuk, et al. “No,” he said. “That’s different.” He did not elaborate, and there was a note of finality to his voice. It said, “This should not require further explanation.”

I guess that there is a point of malignant depravity that moves beyond any claim to compassion or even human validation. And I guess that we must rely on some higher instinct with which God has blessed us to know where to draw the line. This, however, I do know: What Sanford did was not mass murder. Likewise 99.9 percent of the sins that feed schadenfreude-hungry audiences a steady diet of scandal, titillating innuendo, lush gossip, comedic scripts and unjustified intimations of our own moral superiority.

OK, OK, so we got a good yuk out of self-righteous public personage getting caught with his pants down. Next week another deserving candidate will be welcomed to the pop chart. But, who among us will see tragedy in another’s downfall? Who among us will be there to wipe their tears and ease their burden?

If the public has a right to the comedic dimension of human downfall and moral frailty, then let them know well enough also to see tragedy as tragedy. For, imputing only comedy to a person’s undoing is the greatest tragedy of all.