That wasn’t near disgust, that was plain and simple disgust!
The question of conscience had been fiercely debated on a train – perhaps it was on the leg from Belgrade to Istanbul as we wound through the mountains – at least I’d like to think it was because that landscape was as perfect a place to debate conscience as one is likely to find.
One question was: is conscience present in us all or is it something that is it the result of education? Or training? What awakens the conscience was what I wanted to explore. As far as I could gather mmj was of the opinion that the conscience was present in us all, inbuilt, although it was highly likely that he was playing devil’s advocate . . . our conversations have to span the millennia, literature and religion, psychology and medicine. So at times I put on my psycho(therapy) hat and ask, what about what we call the psychopath: those in whom no conscience can be gleaned.
Returning from “danger” along that straight road, what we thought of as the spine of that part of the city (Istanbul), returning to that ancient edifice the Aya Sofia – built by the Emperor Justinian with help from the angels – and now a rather eviscerated museum – mmj took the side (so to speak) of the psychopath, the powerful who are in some way above any of the consequences that come back on the more humble amongst us.
I rather took the view that there are always consequences: whether they come immediately or many years later (even on wriggly politicians) and I told a story about my shame; taking shame upon me although it would seem ‘objectively’ I had nothing to be ashamed about.
Shame might be called self-disgust.
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