Apologies
to Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, Speech in Parlimanet
1887, “We are all socialists now.”
Let’s
get one thing straight: I abhor abusers.
I’ve known women abused by fathers, uncles, neighbors, and others. I’ve known all too many students abused by
teachers, and I was brought up Roman Catholic so I have a clear picture of
those ills as well. Abuse or harassment,
honestly defined, is a major offense, often against the law and always against
morality. (Full disclosure: as a preteen
I was abused by two older male cousins. I
finally told my mother, who told their mother, and the abuse stopped. I don’t recall any jail time, and indeed in
later life each became a police officer.)
That
being said, I am disturbed at the turn the harassment and abuse conversation has taken, as it has
broadened into a self-righteous condemnation of anyone who does not meet the
speaker’s self-proclaimed rules, a condemnation that threatens far more than
the power abusers whose depredations have set this revolution in motion.
Let
me give a few examples. I listened to a
highly respected liberal Boston talk show, in which the term “zero tolerance”
was used repeatedly. Up to now, “zero
tolerance” has tended to be a weapon of the powerful against their
victims. “Zero tolerance” gave us three
strikes laws, brutal penalties for crack cocaine, and the largest prison population
in the world. It also gave us epidemic school expulsions and suspensions, often
aimed at students of color, and even extending to the pre-school grades. It allows politicians to use the “soft on
crime” label for just about anyone, and the disgusting “lock her up” chants (for a
woman who was never proven to have done anything, despite the best efforts of
Republican forces from Ken Starr to the present moment). Now it’s a new weapon to be used
indiscriminately to ruin the careers of anyone who ever crossed an imaginary
line that was just drawn this year.
To
take a few cases of what may not be tolerated: “kissing someone without their
permission.” Kissing them on what part
of the face? Under what conditions? Is anyone but me old enough to remember Sammy
Davis Jr. kissing Archie Bunker on “All in the Family”? Surprise kisses are the
stuff of song, screen, and youthful memories.
Yes, some surprise kisses are just acts of domination, but certainly not
all. And while the “permission” movement
has a massive amount of validity on its side when it comes to overt sexual
acts, kissing is not just about sex. Who
steps back and says “May I kiss you?” as a Victorian would ask for a
dance? I have been kissed by innumerable
women, sometimes on the lips, including by the elderly, lesbians, and parents of
students at the schools I headed, as well as by complete strangers from other
cultures on first meeting. Moreover, I
have been clasped to the often impressive bosoms of women without my
permission. Should I file
complaints? Or does the writ only run in
one direction?
Take
another current phrase “I felt uncomfortable.”
This is often used as a show-stopper, along with
“inappropriate.” So anyone who declares
something to be inappropriate or expresses their discomfort can stop the
discussion immediately. A very useful
tool, which unfortunately can be used by anyone – e.g. “It’s inappropriate to
discuss gun control at this time out of sensitivity to the victims’ families.”
This is of course part of the whole “trigger warning” movement, which leads to
such anomalies as discussions of campus rape where the word “rape” cannot be
used.
The
over-reaction has also extended to parts of the body heretofore not
included. Remember how parents trying to
teach their children that no one should be allowed to touch them in certain
places use “the underwear rule” or “the bathing suit rule.” Now the bathing suit rule seems to extend the full length of
a Victorian swimming costume. The
shoulder, the back, the knee, all are off limits, at least between adult men and women, and for all I know between gay men and other men.
And of course if the knee is included, everything below the knee must
also be included, since many people pat someone on the knee soothingly, but few do so
on the ankle. I believe that leaves the
arm, as long as one isn’t getting above the bicep – or maybe the elbow.
Let
me end with another example from the aforementioned radio show. The topic later shifted from the specific issue to
the general need to condemn evil. One
speaker, a protestant minister whose main passion, according to her blog site,
is combating homophobia, declared her abhorrence for the Pope’s failure to use
the term “Rohynga” while in Myanmar.
According to this speaker, who, by the way, was opposed by one or two of
the others on the show, you have to go where evil is being done and condemn it
there. You can’t condemn it from a
different forum, in the media, but on the spot.
This example of self-created moral law, to which everyone must conform,
or be damned to the speaker’s own private hell, captures where the “me too”
movement seems to be taking us.
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