I started this piece with my impression that the obvious confessions from Trump as to taking highly classified documents noted by many was and is in actuality a partial confession to a more serious crime in this act for which undeniable strong evidence appears to be present. In this writing I veered off course a time or two. I addressed the idea of confessions in American history, quotes on confessions, I look at research on recent studies of confession within the Catholic Church, looked at a study on partial confessions which appears to be highly relevant, looked a little at partial confessions within abusive relationships, showing an interesting look at Donald Trump and his apparent propensity to be an abuser, veered widely off course on several quotes and a posting of information on confessional poetry, which highly piqued my interest. I looked at mental illness in relation to false confessions, as this occurs within the justice system as well.
As almost an afterthought I wish to introduce the idea of criminals taking souvenirs into the discussion on why Trump may have taken what he did, and why he tried so hard not to return them. I find myself understanding Trump at this time in relation to criminal behavior. It, along with mental disorders, seems to make the most sense in attempting to understand him. The use of partial confession on his part may actually be his best option at this point politically. Perhaps you’ll agree. I apologize now for my disjointed journey. I wrote a verse trying to bring it all together, or at least lay out the attempted reasons for this post.
“Why does no man confess his vices? Because he is yet in them; it is for a waking man to tell his dream.”
— Seneca.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
I wished to find instances of confessions of wrongdoing within American history. My first question was about a confession by Benedict Arnold. A little research indicates that this man may have not thought he needed to confess. His spouse made her financial obligations covered prior to her passing, but there seems no direct apology or confession on her part as well. I thought that his story after returning to England might be interesting to read at this time. It seems to still have relevance in America in 2023. Below are some excerpts from American Heritage Com, which tells the non-story of Arnold's confession of wrongdoing.
“I am perhaps the only American who cannot give you letters for his own country … all the relations I had there are now broken … I must never return to the States.”
— Benedict Arnold (c. 1794)
In the early years of their exile the Arnolds were free of financial worry. Arnold’s “rewards” for treason were substantial. During the long negotiations with the British prior to his attempt to betray West Point, he had demanded £20,000 if he succeeded, £10,000 if he did not. Sir Henry Clinton agreed to the £20,000 for success, but would go no higher than £6,000 for failure. On October 18, 1780, only a few weeks after the collapse of the conspiracy, Arnold was paid this amount plus £315 for “expenses.” These sums were but the beginning. Although in 1780 Benedict, Jr., the eldest of the traitor’s sons by his earlier marriage, was only twelve, he was given a commission in the British Army carrying half pay for life; and in 1781 his younger brothers were commissioned on the same terms. Arnold himself, during his active service in the British Army, received a provincial brigadier’s pay, £650 a year. When the treaty of peace was signed in 1783, this fell to £225, the half pay of a cavalry colonel. The traitor also profited handsomely from his marauding expedition to Virginia, which seized American shipping on the James. Arnold’s share of the prize money appears to have been in excess of £2,000.
Biographers have found partial answers in many scattered sources—in the London press, for example, which occasionally mentioned the Arnolds; or in the voluminous correspondence Peggy Arnold carried on with her family and friends in America. The picture that emerges is bittersweet. It is marked on the General’s part by a scramble for money and position, on his wife’s by much inner turmoil. Historically Peggy stands in Arnold’s shadow, but if their English autumn says anything to us at all, it says she was the stronger. Arnold had the power to act, to defy the stresses of business and the dangers of the battlefield; but Peggy had the power to endure. He could not cope with failure and disgrace. She could—and did.
Peggy was an ardent Tory, and she was ambitious. She realized that if the General aided the British substantially, he would be well rewarded. A grateful king might even give him a title. Then some day, after years of gracious living in England, she could return to Philadelphia to be deferred to by her friends as “Lady Arnold.”
It was the collapse of these dreams that sent her into apparent hysterics on September 25, 1780, when word reached West Point that the treason conspiracy had been discovered, and her frantic husband made his last-minute escape, leaving Peggy and her six-month-old son to the kind mercies of George Washington and his aides. Washington gave her a choice. She could join her husband in British-held New York or her family in Philadelphia. She chose Philadelphia, but the local authorities refused to let her stay. By November she and her baby were in New York, living with Arnold in a fine house he had leased next door to British headquarters at Broadway and Wall Street.
No blaring trumpets had welcomed the fleeing traitor to Great Britain’s American stronghold. Not that he had cause to complain. Sir Henry Clinton and his generals punctiliously bestowed on him all the consideration due a competent military man who in their opinion, of course, was merely a rebel who had seen the light and had returned to his proper allegiance. Treason had deprived Arnold of his American rank of major general; but Sir Henry assigned to him the highest British military rating ever given an American colonial, that of colonel of a regiment, with the rank of brigadier general of provincials and the authority to raise a Loyalist legion.
In the Commons, Edmund Burke expressed the hope that the government would not put the traitor “at the head of a part of a British army” lest “the sentiments of true honor, which every British officer [holds] dearer than life, should be afflicted.”
Below the upper echelons at headquarters, however, Arnold’s presence was resented. A local newspaper noted that the “General … is a very unpopular character in the British army, nor can all the patronage he meets with from the commander-in-chief procure him respectability.” To a man, the English subalterns refused to join his unit, the American Legion Refugees. He was compelled to officer it from the Loyal American Corps, commanded by the elderly New York Tory Colonel Beverly Robinson. His efforts to fill the ranks were time-consuming and only partly successful. Even after his Legion had achieved respectable proportions, Sir Henry Clinton showed great reluctance in making use of it. The cautious English commander was aware that beyond the ramparts of New York the traitor would be the object of fierce enemy action. Even within the city Arnold was unsafe: an elaborate scheme by the Americans to kidnap him from the garden of his home one evening came within a hairbreadth of succeeding.
Near Benedict Arnold’s death at age 60 in 1801 in Galleywood, Great Britain, about 30 miles northeast of London.
Legend has it that as death approached he called for his old American uniform and said he wished he had never removed it. Historians generally discredit this as inconsistent with his conviction that nothing he chose to do could be wrong. Quite possibly his only regrets were that he had failed to deliver West Point to the British, and that his lifelong struggle for fame and fortune had brought him only infamy and debts.
In the dark months following Arnold’s death she [Peggy] wrote her father that she was counting “my blessings”—four sons and a daughter who had never given her “a moment’s uneasiness,” whose goodness was “a never-failing source of delight.”
Peggy Arnold neared her death in 1804 at age 44 In London.
“To you I have rendered an essential service; I have rescued your Father’s memory from disrespect, by paying all his just debts; and his Children will now never have the mortification of being reproached with his speculations having injured anybody beyond his own family. … I have not even a tea-spoon, a towel, or a bottle of wine that I have not paid for.”
All of them, as well as her stepsons in America, lived respectable and successful if not distinguished lives, unhindered by their father’s reputation.
I looked for a confession from a gunfighter from the old west. Without a lot of looking I found one full confession of sorts by a very notorious hired killer in the old west named Jim Miller. His story seems apropos as well in some regards. I found it interesting. I think it has a bearing on the discussion at hand, perhaps it does?
James “Jim” Brown Miller was one of the worst of the many violent men of the Old West. Miller was a law officer, Texas Ranger, outlaw, and professional killer who was said to have killed 12 people during gunfights and more in outlaw activities and assassinations. He was often impeccably dressed with good manners, he didn’t smoke or drink, and often attended church, earning him the nickname “Deacon Miller.” But, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and was seemingly one of those “bad seeds” from an early age.
[in Ada, Oklahoma*] Several citizens, including saloon owners Jesse West and Joe Allen, were practicing what was known as “Indian Skinning.” This practice involved taking advantage of Native Americans, who had been granted 160 acres each in exchange for their reservation land. Though Oklahoma law required that any such land being sold to whites had to have the approval of the county court judge, several opportunists took advantage of the situation, often getting the Indians drunk and buying their 160 acres for as low as $50.
*On November 16, 1907, Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 780 admitting Oklahoma as the forty-sixth state.
Appalled at what was going on, Gus Bobbitt began to publicize the events and pushed for changes to elected offices in the town and county. As a result, those who were handsomely profiting hired the notorious Jim Miller to solve the problem. On February 27, 1909, Bobbitt was shot as he drove his wagon home from Ada. He lived for about an hour, but, before he died, he instructed his wife on how to dispose of his property, which included $1,000 as a reward for the man who had killed him.
Within no time, a posse was after Bobbitt’s killer, as well as numerous others, hoping to land the reward. Having long escaped “Scot Free,” as he had so many times before, Miller was so confident that his escape was sloppy this time. The posse soon found his horse at the home of a man named Williamson, who was said to have been yet, another one of Miller’s many relatives. Miller borrowed a mare from Williamson, admitting that he had killed a man and threatened to kill Williamson if he talked.
In April, Miller, along with Jesse West, Joe Allen, and Berry B. Burrell, were arrested for the killing of Gus Bobbitt. By April 6, 1909, all of the conspirators had been jailed in Ada, Oklahoma. Though it was well-known that Miller and the others had killed Bobbitt in a murder-for-hire scheme, the evidence was not solid. Awareness of the lack of evidence and Miller’s history of never having suffered the consequences of his actions caused a lynch mob of about 50 men to storm the jail on April 19. The mob quickly overpowered the jailers and dragged the four men outside. In an abandoned livery stable behind the jail, the prisoners were bound with baling wire and ropes tossed over the rafters. Miller’s cohorts were hanged first, after which the vigilantes asked him to admit to his crimes. Miller then allegedly responded: “Let the record show that I’ve killed 51 men.” Before he died, he also asked for his black broadcloth coat to be draped around his shoulders. He then said, “Let her rip!”
After his death, one respected citizen said of Miller: “He was just a killer–the worst man I ever knew.”
I found much interesting information from the following study from 2014 on the use of partial confession by those faced with their own wrongdoing. This study was widely written about shortly after its publication and is definitely worth knowing about in this particular time of Trump and criminal indictments.
An important exception comes from the work of Sternglanz (2009), who examined admitting to a lesser offence as means to exonerate serious wrongdoing. Sternglanz surveyed the potential strategies people use to exonerate themselves when others accuse them of acting inappropriately or immorally. Such strategies include (a) ignoring the accusation, (b) claiming complete innocence, (c) suggesting the accuser holds ulterior motive, or (d) admitting to a lesser offence. Sternglanz found that people accused of committing a serious offence (e.g., cheating on an exam) were perceived as less guilty when they admitted to a relevant lesser offence (e.g., noticing another person cheating on an exam and failing to report it) compared with when they denied the accusation (with or without offering an explanation or making a counter accusation).1 Apparently, when being accused of conducting serious wrongdoing, admitting to a lesser offence can be a useful strategy to appear less guilty in others’ eyes.
Partial Confessions
We define the difference between full and partial confession as the extent to which a person assumes responsibility for all or part of the transgressions he or she has committed. For example, if a person stole $100, admitting to stealing $100 would constitute a full confession. Claiming to have stolen only $50, on the other hand, would constitute a partial confession. Critical to our view, we consider confessions on a spectrum ranging from not confessing at all to fully confessing, with a range of partial confessions stretching between these two ends.
Partial confessions may be a form of a neutralization or minimization technique, designed to reduce or avoid the severe social consequences of full confessions. When confronted with evidence about their unethical behavior, people tend to use a variety of neutralization techniques to justify and rationalize their deviant or unethical behavior to others. These strategies include denial of responsibility (attributing the behavior to accident), denial of injury (downplaying the harm caused), or denial of the victim (blaming the victim; Robinson & Kraatz, 1998). Admitting to only part, rather than all, of one’s transgression may additionally be a strategy people use to minimize the social costs of the transgressions they commit, especially when these transgressions are severe. As a strategy to appear better to others, partial confessions may help offenders to “get off the hook.” For example, drivers accused of speeding may tell the officer, “I was only driving 10 mph above the limit”; a dieter may say, “I ate only one piece of chocolate”; a sexist manager may say, “I told only one dirty joke”; a cheating partner may say, “It happened only once”; and a dishonest employee may say, “I added only one extra hour to my timesheet.” Such partial confessions may help offenders to benefit from their bad behaviors, without getting the full punishment for doing so.
Research in behavioral ethics provides indirect evidence for this possibility and has revealed that people suffer a psychological cost when behaving unethically and therefore restrict the extent of their unethical acts. People restrict the amount of their dishonesty in a manner that allows them to maintain an honest self-concept while benefiting from acting unethically. As a result, people lie to the extent they feel their behavior could be justified. This line of research suggests that psychological considerations (such as maintaining feeling good about one’s behavior) influence people’s decision of whether, and to what extent, they behave unethically. Here, we propose that such self-concept maintenance considerations might affect not only the amount of ethical transgressions but also the willingness to admit to committing them.
Compared with not confessing, people anticipated that partial, as well as full, confessions to be perceived as more credible to others. They did not anticipate, however, that confessing would make them feel different than not confessing. These findings shed initial light on why people may choose to confess only partially. It seems that people who choose to confess do so in an attempt to appear more credible compared to not confessing.
Clearly, when people come clean to the full extent of their wrongdoings, they have to face the potentially more severe consequences associated with such confession. It seems that what drives people to opt for partial confessions is their relative gain in credibility compared with not confessing and relative gain in not having to face the consequences of admitting to a major wrongdoing compared with fully confessing. Partial confessions seem like an optimal option when weighing the costs and benefits of admitting to one’s transgression. People who cheat and then confess only partially end up feeling worse than those who confess to the full extent or those who do not confess at all. Put differently, although partial confessions seem to reduce emotional aggravation, partial confessions may actually increase people’s negative feelings because of the lack of ability to feel that one has “fully came clean.”
Results of Study 4 indicated that participants judged a partial confession to be more credible than not confessing at all. Full confessions were ranked as even more credible than either not confessing and confessing only partially, which is perhaps not surprising. Confessions would appear more credible in others’ eyes, a fact we interpret as a key reason they may opt for this type of confession.
The results of Study 5 provide several insights. First, partial confessions are prevalent in many real-life situations and circumstances. Interestingly, the proportions of partial versus full confessions in Study 5 closely resembled the proportions we found in both laboratory studies (Study 1 and Study 3): about 40% of the confessions in the control group (asked to recall any type of confession) could be classified as partial, whereas about 60% were full confessions. This consistent finding suggests that people engage in partial confessions in a fairly large portion of the cases when admitting to their wrongdoings.
Second, and in line with the findings obtained in Study 3, people who reported their partial confessions regretted their confession more than people reporting full confessions. We could not tell if people regretted their categorical decision to confess (or not) versus their decision to confess only partially (rather than fully). This notwithstanding, the results of Study 5 are consistent with the experimental findings observed in Study 3, suggesting full confessors are more content and feel less negatively about their confessions, relative to people engaging in partial confessions. Potentially, those who recounted full confessions were more ready to move on with their lives after coming clean.
Of those who did confess, the ones who cheated most were also the ones most likely to give partial confessions. That is people who over-reported by just a few guesses tended to give a full confession, while those who over-reported a lot tended to give a partial confession.
Thus, people may also confess only to the degree they can explain to themselves and to others. In this sense, a partial confession might be easier to justify than a full confession, especially when the severity of the transgression is high. Whereas fully confessing forces people to face the fact that they intentionally and purposely inflated their reports to gain more money, a partial confession can help people to feel that they only made a “small mistake” when overreporting their outcomes.
Partial confessions play a role in abusive relationships. I found this in my research, and immediately thought of a possible relationship with this to the behavior of Donald Trump. I wish to introduce this concept first from the website The Mend Project, and then look at Trump in the role of the abuser.
As a first responder (marriage mentor, pastor, advisor, therapist, family or friend), you may be touched by the partial confession and see it as a courageous act of humility, which gives you hope for their relationship. The partial confession may compel you to encourage their partner to forgive them, reconcile, and continue on the path of “happily ever after”.
But in an abusive relationship, a partial confession (or ongoing regular partial confessions) is a tactic used to sustain ongoing abuse and control over their partner. The covert behavior of “partial confessions” occurs when a series of covert emotionally abusive behaviors are taking place and the abuser chooses only one point to apologize for. The act of apologizing for one small thing throws the victim or first responder off-balance, losing sight of the larger points and therefore causes them to view the abuser as authentic. Often, the victim is desperate to find any point of authentic connection with their partner that will give them hope and validation for remaining in the relationship. And so a partial confession can satisfy the victim’s desire, causing them to ignore the abuser’s refusal to take responsibility for more chronic or serious behaviors. It can deceive the victim into believing their abuser desires to change and is willing to do significant work during the long haul to recovery. More than anything, the victim wants to believe their partner loves them and is sorry for hurting them. A partial confession is one way the abuser gives the victim false hope, preventing their partner from setting firm boundaries, separating, or leaving the relationship, without having to change themself.
And for Trump as an abuser is a very clear write up specifically as it applies to him from a few years ago from Pace Connection Blog.
Although the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences [ACE] Study still isn’t widely known, even though it’s been around for 20 years, it and the other parts of ACEs science are providing a profound shift in our understanding about why we humans behave the way we do. ACEs science also shows that to change behavior that is unhealthy, criminal or unwanted requires a very counterintuitive approach.
The ACE Study found that the higher someone’s ACE score—the more types of childhood adversity a person experienced—the higher their risk of adverse social, economic, health and civic consequences. The study found that most people (64%) have at least one ACE; 12% of the population has an ACE score of 4 or higher.
By applying this rough, but insightful, way to assess the risk of childhood adversity, and based on the information in Mary Trump’s book, Donald Trump’s ACE score is a 6.
We know that the phrase “hurt people hurt people” emerged from the understanding that most people who’ve committed violent crimes have high ACE scores.
However, hurt people hurt people on many levels, including enacting policies and laws that are just as harmful as interpersonal violence, and often more harmful because they affect hundreds or thousands or millions of people.
People with high ACE scores go in one of two general directions: They see the world as a place of suffering that needs healing, encourage people to work together to solve problems, and believe that the world works better without conflict than with it. Generally speaking, their positive childhood experiences have mitigated the adversity they experienced.
Or they see the world as a dark and dangerous place where carnage is rampant, problems are everywhere and are best solved by identifying and defeating enemies, building walls, and cutting off communication from people identified as “other.” And if enemies do not present themselves, they who see the world as a dangerous place will create enemies and make them larger than they really are, so that their “defeat” empowers them to find more enemies to conquer. Generally speaking, people in this group haven’t had enough protective factors in their lives, and thus favor punitive approaches to changing behavior, such as harsh prison sentences or zero-tolerance schools, even with ample evidence that they don’t work.
“Donald continues to exist in the dark space between the fear of indifference and the fear of failure that led to his brother’s [Fred’s] destruction. It took forty-two years for the destruction to be completed, but the foundations were laid early and played out before Donald’s eyes as he was experiencing his own trauma. The combination of those two things—what he witnessed and what he experienced—both isolated him and terrified him. The role that fear played in his childhood and the role it plays now can’t be overstated. And the fact that fear continues to be an overriding emotion for him speaks to the hell that must have existed inside the House [the Trump family home] six decades ago.
The quotes below I came across while researching this piece. They are directly and indirectly related to the question of a past president’s behavior, and of those inclined to support such behavior in a leader.
“You can't legislate into existence an act of forgiveness and a true confession; those are mysteries of the human heart, and they occur between one individual and another individual, not a panel of judges sitting asking questions, trying to test your truth.”
— Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard OIS HonFRSL (born 11 June 1932) is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apartheid and for the 2005 Oscar-winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood.
“The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principle of private morality.”
— George Washington - An excerpt from the first president, George Washington’s inaugural address, given to both houses of Congress on April 30th 1789.
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.
"How few there are who have the courage to own their own faults, or resolution enough to mend them!"
-- Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the first Postmaster General.
“Neither shall you allege the example of the many as an excuse for doing wrong.”
— Exodus 23.2
Exodus 23.2 (King James Version)
“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest* judgment.”
*to gain with difficulty by or as if by force, violence, or determined labor
“It’s not what we don’t know that hurts, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”
— Will Rogers
William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma), and is known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son".
“The only thing more painful than learning from experience is not learning from experience.”
— Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress
Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982) was an American poet and writer, who was associated with the modernist school of poetry. MacLeish studied English at Yale University and law at Harvard University. He enlisted in and saw action during the First World War and lived in Paris in the 1920s.
“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
— Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983.
The words of Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning unsuccessfully for president in a progressive political party of the day for which I found as showing much wisdom.
My Confession of Faith, by Theodore Roosevelt, August 06, 1912
Whatever I did as President I was able to do only because I had the backing of the people. When on any point I did not have that backing, when on any point I differed from the people, it mattered not whether I was right or whether I was wrong, my power vanished. I tried my best to lead the people, to advise them, to tell them what I thought was right; if necessary I never hesitated to tell them what I thought they ought to hear, even though I thought it would be unpleasant for them to hear it; but I recognized that my task was to try to lead them and not to drive them, to take them into my confidence, to try to show them that I was right, and then loyally and in good faith to accept their decision. I will do anything for the people except what my conscience tells me is wrong, and that I can do for no man and no set of men; I hold that a man cannot serve the people well unless he serves his conscience; but I hold also that where his conscience bids him refuse to do what the people desire, he should not try to continue in office against their will. Our Government system should be so shaped that the public servant, when he cannot conscientiously carry out the wishes of the people, shall at their desire leave his office and not misrepresent them in office; and I hold that the public servant can by so doing, better than in any other way, serve both them and his conscience.
A short diversion into confession, penance in the Catholic Church. Although the bearing to this may have little to do with my main objective of addressing partial confessions in relation to stolen government documents, it seemed imperative to address confession here in order to understand the subject more completely.
“Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.”
— Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas OP ( 'Thomas of Aquino'; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, an influential philosopher and theologian, and a jurist in the tradition of scholasticism from the county of Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily, Italy
From the point of view of these churches, the promotion of confession is theologically based, in that for them the function of confession is not realised in a pastoral conversation. In Hungary, research has shown that one reason for the decreasing confessional practice is that the concept of sin is not clear anymore. This is also true when it comes to discussing sin, guilt and moral questions in general. Before the age of enlightenment, Churches had a strong role in defining moral rules and Christians were more confident in what was against the will of God and what belonged to the scope of confession. It is very clear from the letters that today the situation has changed. Even those practising confession regularly are sometimes not sure what they have to confess. Thus, it is understandable that many confessants would like to change the present confessional practice.
The changes in the confessional situation have to be looked at in light of the emergence of confession. One reason for the uneasiness about confession in many churches worldwide is the difference between the world views of medieval and modern times, and between the concepts of man and of sin in the two eras. The concept of man used in confession is based on the reality at the time of its emergence, i.e. the Middle Ages. Then, the Church defined clearly what was right and wrong. Living according to the rules of the Church meant being redeemed. Non-adherence to the rules was a way to damnation. For the sinner, confession was a way to integrate again into the salvation offered by the Church. People in the 21st century do not define right and wrong in this context anymore. Their problems seem to be more complex and the ways to find help are also more varied.
The role of private confession is still unique in the Roman Catholic Church. It seems that it is hard to replace it with other confessional practices even if there had been an opportunity to do that historically. Due to its position as a sacrament, private confession is theologically prioritized over other forms of confession. It can be an opportunity to take care of one’s spiritual life but it can also operate independently of it. The sacramental characteristic can also lead to a use of confession unconnected to spiritual life, in a mechanical manner. It is apparent from the source material that an ex opere operato usage of the sacrament has a negative effect on the depth of confession, leaving the confessant in a passive role.
As is customary in this disjointed writing I wish to briefly touch upon the case of false confessions, and in particular false confessions in regards to those who suffer from mental illness. I thought this might be good to address in this topic, in the special cases of how those with disorders may interact within the justice system.
Finally, people with mental illness are also disproportionately likely to make false confessions, especially in response to police pressure. The mentally ill possess a range of psychiatric symptoms that make them more likely to agree with, suggest, or confabulate false and misleading information and provide it to detectives during interrogations. These symptoms include faulty reality monitoring, distorted perceptions and beliefs, an inability to distinguish fact from fantasy, proneness to feelings of guilt, heightened anxiety, mood disturbances, and a lack of self control. In addition, the mentally ill may suffer from deficits in executive functioning, attention, and memory; become easily confused; and lack social skills such as assertiveness. These traits also increase the risk of falsely confessing. While the mentally ill are likely to make voluntary false confessions, they may also be easily coerced into making compliant ones. As Claudio Salas points out: “Mental illness makes people suggestible and susceptible to the slightest form of pressure; coercion can take place much more easily, and in situations that a ‘normal’ person might not find coercive.” As a result, “the mentally ill are especially vulnerable either to giving false confessions or to misunderstanding the context of their confessions, thus making statements against their own best interests that an average criminal suspect would not make.”
It is important to emphasize, however, that police elicit most false confessions from mentally normal individuals. For example, Drizin and Leo,5 in a study of 125 proven false confessions, showed that more than 70 percent were given by mentally normal individuals (i.e., neither developmentally disabled or mentally ill).
I’m diverting from my original theme of confessions and partial confessions when I remembered that criminals collect souvenirs during their crimes. In some instances the souvenir itself is the item stolen to the collector. I wanted to touch on this briefly in relation to an ousted president keeping highly classified documents from his time in office. It seems that this common behavior found in criminal cases may have a bearing. And this has been suggested by others, but I only wished to see what I could find on this possibility. Most of the attention is in souvenirs from serial killers, but according to what I can find, this behavior is not confined to these criminals only.
Many types of criminals will keep "trophies" or "Souvenirs" as a memento of their crime.
In most cases these same items will be used against them later as evidence and direct links to their involvement in the crimes. In many instances directly helping the court to get the conviction of guilty.
But why do criminals do this? It seems like a strange thing to do especially in cases where the person has made extra efforts in other areas not to get caught, such as clearing evidence from the crime scene that may link them to it, or disposing of other evidence such as the weapon used or clothing worn during the crime itself.
Well the answer to this has many reasons behind it, and the types of trophies kept will vary from criminal to criminal.
The motivations for trophy keeping of crime scenes are not far removed from your everyday person who likes to collect things.
Some people will collect things with the end goal of making money, antique collectors for instance often buy items at low prices knowing their true worth then they will sell them on to other collectors looking for specific items who will pay higher prices.
Gratification is another in the regard they can gain pleasure from the collection. Pride can also factor in, this can be seen when a person puts effort in displaying their collection by mounting it or framing it for example.
It could be a form of comfort as something they use to improve their mood or reminisce of a time/event that was important to them.
More often than not collecting and trophy keeping is a selfish act, it's something a person does for themselves and for their own personal wants or what they might perceive as a need.
Their successful crimes are achievements, in the eyes of a criminal they are worth remembering and what better way to remember than to keep a piece of it for yourself that you can look back on and relive the moment.
The items are valuable to the criminal in some way, as discussed above it could be to relive the moment, it could be for pride to display, it could be for gratification or even comfort.
On the motivation for collecting, from Dr. Mark Griffiths blog.
So what are the motivations for collecting? In a 1991 issue of the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, Dr. Ruth Formanek suggested five common motivations for collecting. These were: (i) extension of the self (e.g., acquiring knowledge, or in controlling one’s collection); (ii) social (finding, relating to, and sharing with, like-minded others); (iii) preserving history and creating a sense of continuity; (iv) financial investment; and (v), an addiction or compulsion. Formanek claimed that the commonality to all motivations to collect was a passion for the particular things collected.
https://poemanalysis.com/robert-lowell/for-the-union-dead/
Finally, here is information on “confessional poetry,” and an actual political poem from Robert Lowell, on who was given the distinction of originating the term. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, who I have become to be acquainted with and appreciated through this effort of mine. Confession, penance, making amends, etc., are all important to healthy human behavior. But the person must be willing to do such things, which is obviously not always the case, as we are all witnessing daily within the news.
The phrase “confessional poetry” burst into common usage in September of 1959, when the critic M.L. Rosenthal coined it in his review of Robert Lowell’s Life Studies in the Nation. The book, which contained poems that unsparingly detailed Lowell’s experiences of marital strife, generational struggle, and mental illness, marked a dramatic turn in his career. The personal had always been fodder for poetry, but Lowell, Rosenthal claimed, “removes the mask” that previous poets had worn when writing about their own lives. The poems in Life Studies felt like a “series of personal confidences, rather shameful, that one is honor-bound not to reveal.” According to scholar Deborah Nelson, Lowell’s “innovation was to make himself … available, not as the abstract and universal poet but as a particular person in a particular place and time.”
In an era of Cold War “containment” culture and intense legal debates over privacy, confessional poets carved out new zones for private life and experience. Confessional poets wrote in direct, colloquial speech rhythms and used images that reflected intense psychological experiences, often culled from childhood or battles with mental illness or breakdown. Confessional poetry wasn’t just a style of presentation but also a lens through which audiences understood poems and poets. “[W]hat had changed,” in these decades, according to Christopher Grobe, “more than art, was the audience’s desire. They wanted to know … their poets and politicians, their actors and news anchors, too.” In this way, confessional poetry helped inaugurate a range of social and artistic practices aimed at uncovering, exposing, confessing, and sharing new, more intimate versions of disparate selves.
“What we love we are.”
&
“how fine our distinctions when we cannot choose”
― Robert Lowell
41st posting, June 28, 2023