[HN Gopher] The Traveler and His Baggage
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The Traveler and His Baggage
Author : ca98am79
Score : 57 points
Date : 2021-06-08 14:07 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.damninteresting.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.damninteresting.com)
| bambax wrote:
| I just published a novel about the real story of a Catholic
| priest during WWII in Paris, who used to inflitrate Resistance
| networks, get as many names as possible, and then sell them to
| the Germans.
|
| He was caught after the war and was executed (by firing squad).
| He apparently never ceased to believe in God, petitioned the
| prison chief so that they would let him say mass (they said no),
| and received communion every day up to the morning of his
| execution. But he never expressed any kind of regret for what he
| had done.
|
| The novel is a first-person narrative to try to get into his
| head.
|
| Petiot was a doctor who killed people instead of healing them. My
| character was a priest who betrayed those who trusted him --
| extreme cases of cognitive dissonance.
|
| Yet I think we all suffer from it (to a much lesser extent,
| hopefully). We spend an enormous amount of time and effort
| rationalizing our own life and character. One of the strengths of
| the human psyche is to create an image of the self that we can
| accept. It doesn't need to be very close to reality.
|
| Maybe one needs a precise amount of rationalization, or some kind
| of equilibrium, to operate. Too little, you fall into depression.
| Too much, you're a monster.
| mzs wrote:
| What is the book and priest name?
| louwrentius wrote:
| This is an amazing hour long story, highly recommended.
|
| Frankly, the entire back catalog of Damn Interesting is
| fantastic.
|
| I think it's one of the best podcasts out there that only few
| people know about.
| ghaff wrote:
| I know about it and agree that it's quite good. But, given the
| format, I generally prefer to just read in this case. I don't
| have nearly as much "listen-only time" as podcasts I'm
| interested in listening to and I prefer to mostly use it on
| podcasts better consumed through audio.
| FredPret wrote:
| I've been reading this blog since its early days. It really lives
| up to the URL.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| A warning to anyone reading this: it's a gruesome story.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yeah it is. If what he claimed was even partially true, that
| some were collaborators, but obviously it was also people
| hoping for escape, it's almost excusable (I guess deGaul did).
| But in such cold blood. It's still repugnant, not to mention
| innocent people and children.
|
| It's one thing if you're shooting bullets or launching lances
| or whatever at each other. There is no underhandedness. It's
| plain and simple war. This is dark -even- if you give him some
| benefit of doubt, which I don't, but if one did, even then, he
| was a very gruesome man.
|
| I think he earned that guillotine.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying, but just because he
| killed innocents fleeing occupied Paris _and_ collaborators
| that does not at all make it "almost excusable".
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm saying it was wartime and the gov officially forgave
| people who killed collaborators and so on. So that part is
| almost excusable though I still think it's just cold
| blooded and not excusable.
|
| The rest of it is gruesome. Innocent civilians seeking
| refuge and victimizing them is just repugnant.
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(page generated 2021-06-09 23:01 UTC)