#you run into the reality that people act irrationally every single day and sanity doesn’t have anything to do with it

[marnz]

I find historians’ obsession with trying to figure out what medical malady King Henry VIII had that made him act like that really strange to be honest with you. This is the guy that broke from the Catholic Church and declared himself head of a brand new church, all so he could invent divorce. He rewrote history to insist he had never actually truly been married to Catherine of Aragon. He killed people and faced no consequences. As King he was surrounded by a bunch of yes men who didn’t just ‘let’ him kill his wives and ppl who displeased him, they actively manufactured ways for him to do so. Is it really so strange that he continued to act in this way? Must we resort to medical explanations for this behavior?

I do wonder if this is an attempt to rationalize and explain despicable behavior, but the truth is we can rationalize and explain anything. That is our gift as human beings! As Frank Bidart said, man is a moral animal / You can get human beings to do anything — IF you convince them it is moral / You can convince human beings anything is moral. Anyone who does a despicable act likely, but not always, does it because they find it correct, even necessary. I find the idea that Henry did all of this to get a son and maintain his grip on power and ensure a peaceful succession much more understandable and likely than people theorizing he had x disease that made him so nuts he started killing his wives indiscriminately.