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Comment by _a_a_a_ | Hacker News Reader

"Paula Anne Vennells (born 21 February 1959) is a British former businesswoman who was the chief executive officer of Post Office Limited from 2012 to 2019. She is also an Anglican priest" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells

I don't understand how somebody who can be a priest, appointed by God to do the right thing, was unable to behave morally. I just don't understand how she could live with herself, a priest that deliberately and knowingly hurt people to support a system which she knew was wrong. If she'd had any sense she would have realised this was going to come out anyway. I don't understand her selfishness and stupidity and cruelty.

(I'm not having a go at christianity but a particular christian, before the arguments start; please don't)

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The problem here is you assume people who subscribe to a faith or pursue it more piously are or should at least be more moral in some way.

Well yes, she had a book, with written instructions from her own deity telling her not to be a tosser, and she still didn't follow it even as a priest. I truly don't understand.

So did Catholic priests, and that didn't stop them from diddling kids nor the Church from helping cover it up.

The same book has written instructions telling her she can't be a priest (Paul says this multiple times.) I'm not defending that, but if she can rationalize one instruction away, surely she can any other.

I do not understand what you do not understand. People are capable of lying, to others and themselves. As of yet, there is no external influence with a proven mechanism of action that can fully prevent that.

>I truly don't understand.

Moral licensing, the idea that if you perceive yourself to be morally superior in one situation you will naturally make immoral choices further down the line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing

If you need a book to tell you this is wrong, that may be part of the problem.

And to extend on this, it implies that people should behave better than the average. In a way it strengthens the view of higher morality.

One could argue that someone actually adhering to (at least most) of the morals and teachings of any major religion (which is already a rare thing) would almost never become CEO of anything.

There's no evidence priests (or ethicists, ideologues...) adhere to what they preach more often or strictly than their following (and perhaps evidence to the contrary).

Aren't Anglican priests famous for being atheists or is that just a joke?

One or two have come out as such, IIRC, with comments about how they didn’t think belief was necessary to get the job done!

Also one of the previous Archbishops of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said when pressed in the past that he doesn’t know there’s a god, but he hopes very much.

It’s certainly a long way from strident fundamentalism.

You seem to be surprised by hipocrisy? People will go to great lengths to justify to themselves why they're "the good guys". Having a strong dogmatic adherence to religion at worst intensifies this problem by increasing the cognitive dissonance through essentialism: "I am a good person so this thing I did can't have been that bad". This is why you'll hear people being found out to have done something for years insist "but this isn't who I am" when that's literally who they are (i.e. a person who is consistently doing those things).

On the other side of the coin you have the idea that whatever you did in the past is forgiven as long as you feel really bad about having done it. Again religious predispositions can make this worse because now you don't have to repent before those affected but just before your deity (and unless you're Catholic this can even be in private rather than having to confess to another person), i.e. it doesn't matter what those you harmed think because only your deity can forgive you if it really was an evil act (and if it wasn't, those you harmed are being unreasonable if they hold a grudge).

So either she decided it was moral (no matter how plausible that is) or she decided God had forgiven her or that it would be outweighed by other things she did (like being a priest).

Arrest them all, God will know his own

"I don't understand how somebody who can be a priest, appointed by God to do the right thing, was unable to behave morally."

I know several people who think everything they do is moral because they have strong faith. The mental gymnastics they go through to justify selfish actions is pretty impressive.

Worse is that she was almost promoted to bishop for her role in business.

Hypocrisy abounds

Religion aside, it's the lack of common sense that astounds me. In her position she must have met a lot of the postmasters and recognized the type of people they are i.e. inoffensive, usually quite conscientious, dependable "pillar of the community" types.

To then hear that thousands upon thousands of them are committing theft, how does this not create a voice in her head that says "hmm somethings not quite right here, I wonder if the system is to blame?". If there was even a remote chance of that then the risk of sending 1000's of innocent people to prison would she not do her best as a vicar to find that out?

Instead, she sacked the forensic accountants who raised the alarm bells and doubled down on cover ups and strong-arm tactics to stamp out the problem

I wonder if she is just a sociopath? that's the only conclusion to me that remains

"I wonder if the system is to blame" often leads to:

"That would be very embarrasing for us".

Closely followed by:

"I hope no one important believes the system is to blame? Let's keep it that way. No problems please, at least not on my watch."

> I wonder if she is just a sociopath

I would phrase it as "she did what was expected from a CEO in that environment". That is, (try to) protect the profits and interests of shareholders with very little regard for the workers.

Well the link between CEOs and sociopathy has long been proven so I guess we're talking about the same thing

https://bigthink.com/leadership/corporate-psychopath-ceo/

"12% of corporate senior leadership displays a range of psychopathic traits"

It's not that strong of a link. Let's not get carried away.

Many people cooperated on the wilful institutional obstinance that led to the coverup, and they're unlikely to all be sociopaths. "This person is a sociapath" is rarely a good answer to "how could this have happened?!" Maybe that person is a sociopath, but to actually make this sort of thing happen you need many more people than that one person.

I mean, for starters Vennells wasn't even CEO when all of this business started and she inherited the mess from her predecessor. It wasn't only during her tenure that this was going on. Lots of people have been involved at all sorts of levels.

I wasn't laying the blame solely on the CEO, I was responding to a comment about her being a vicar and what might be the cause of that incongruity

But I also wouldn't give her the wiggle room to state that she inherited it. The forensic accountants were called in under her watch and after they sounded the alarm, she was the one to sack them. She also lied about remote access to the system, a fact which would have quashed every conviction. I can't think of anyone more responsible than her

> I wasn't laying the blame solely on the CEO, I was responding to a comment about her being a vicar and what might be the cause of that incongruity

exactly it, thanks.

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