This news bulletin was waiting for me in my inbox today - if I was better able to keep up with my email, I'd be more up-to-the-minute informed of the latest man to be unmasked, and then fired, as an abuser of women: Garrison Keillor. I wouldnta thunk it of him.
Keillor follows Matt Lauer, who follows Jim Rose, who follows Al Franken, Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, and so on back through Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, several guys from Fox News, and probably others I'm not remembering. Well, to be accurate, while they all have been unmasked, it seems to be only the guys who aren't in politics who actually get fired.
As I don't have many original thoughts, I'm sure I'm not the first to see the similarities between this parade of shame and the one that has beset the Catholic Church and its clergy to alternately greater or lesser extents for the last 25 years. While I am sure the comparison isn't apt on every point, there are some interesting parallels: in both sets of cases, the perpetrators are men; and in both cases, they constitute, not just sex-related abuse, but also abuse of power and privilege.
They also are similar in that they both consist, not of crimes committed very recently, but rather of crimes committed in the past that only now are coming to light. The crimes themselves already happened; there is no undoing them, no choice that a possible perpetrator can make now to refrain from doing what is forbidden. The deed already is done, and all the perpetrator can do now is sweat and pray that his victims won't see fit to unearth his malfeasance.
But there is an important lesson here - and I'm speaking to you now, fellas. Keep your belt buckled, your robe cinched tight, your hands to yourself. Something has changed in society. Victims aren't going to cooperate in keeping creepiness hidden anymore.
The victims are now speaking up, but what about the institutions that employ perpetrators? What has put the church so deeply in the mire is not only the abuse, but the subsequent cover-ups. And so it's interesting, and almost certainly admirable, that the news organizations at least are terminating their employees so quickly - we hope with a sufficient basis of established fact. But with the exception of Fox News and perhaps Weinstein's production company, for the most part the organizations that have employed these guys have escaped scrutiny and criticism. We may wonder what MPR, CBS, PBS, NBC and so on knew about the track records of its high-profile stars. But so far, there haven't been many allegations of employers looking the other way. As the victim lawsuits start to fly, that may change. And maybe that's the final parallel with the Catholic Church's experience: if the institution doesn't self-police, plaintiff's attorneys and the courts will do it. And that's much, much worse.
Yes, there are similarities. I wish the church was as accountable as the organizations now firing offenders.
ReplyDeleteIt's not all historical in the church .... just months ago a priest diplomat from the Vatican who was living in Washington was about to be prosecuted for child pornography, but the pope used 'diplomatic immunity' to bring him back to the Vatican instead ... Amid Pornography Case, Vatican Recalls Priest From Washington Embassy
A great first post!
ReplyDeleteWell the employers did look the other way; the Church, schools, boy scouts, Penn State. Not only the bosses of the corporations but also many of the little people. In one of the parishes in our diocese the people knew about the priest to the extent that they told each other that it was ok to send girls to the school but not boys because Father liked little boys! Good guys in the organization who would not consider doing these things know, and other women know. Everyone is protecting the organization, themselves, and therefore the higher ups.
The problem starts at the top. Once people get to a certain level in society they begin to think that they are immune to the laws that other people must observe. "When you are a star...." And in many cases they are because their lawyers and connections get them off from prosecution.
Our inability to hold the highest people accountable is the root of the problem. We just don't want to admit that billionaires still act like kings before the days of the nation state and its appropriation of bureaucratic power over everyone. How deeply will King Trump destroy our democracy before we recognize that.
Unfortunately the end result of all this will likely be the notion that all men are the problem when in fact it is some men who are the problem. The focus will be upon increased policing of behaviors, codes of conduct, etc. when in fact the root of the problem is in the power structure that allows men at the top to get away with these things, and thereby gives incentives to men lower down in the pecking order.
Good to see you in this space, Jim.
ReplyDeleteThe guillotine falls instantly on show biz and media folk because money is at stake. Substituting Christopher Plummer for Kevin Spacey in a movie that was in the can shows how touchy $$ make things.
The guillotine is much slower for politicians for a lot of reasons, most prominent of which is that they don't have bosses who can fire them on the spot. They were hired by voters, and the ways voters can fire people are limited and slow. There is a lot of noise about how John Conyers should Do the Right Thing by quitting. But why should he quit ahead of President Trump, who is credibly accused by more women, and on the eve of the election (probably) of Roy Moore? Don't we all expect to hear about a lot more politicians? Maybe Susan Collins and Nancy Pelosi can turn out the lights in their respective chambers.
Tom and Jack, thanks for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteTom, regarding your point about $$, the filthy lucre can cut both ways. The desire to avoid liability and negative publicity, and also to keep the gravy trains running on time, can induce an institution to seek to cover up bad behavior by its members, especially when the members are high-profile rainmaker types.
(I heard an item on the radio today reporting that Matt Lauer had a secret button under the desk in his office, or some such, that locked the office door, presumably with his intended prey inside. That's practically a Bond Villain-esque touch. As a practical matter, I don't know how such an office feature gets installed without someone from the company being aware of it - someone had to approve the expense, find the contractor to do the work, and so on.)
I would agree with you that financial considerations have led to these guys' firings, but I'd add that it was the publicity that really was the proximate cause - it was the publicity that moved the organizations from "cover-our-*sses" mode into "make this guy go away" mode. It turns out that the much-reviled peddlers of fake news, the media, have an important social contribution to make.
It sounds as if several lyin' mainstream news outlets are pursuing these stories now. And since they generally need more than one accuser to run with the story, these are all going to be more-than-one-accuser events. Which makes them hard to deny. So that is the proximate cause. If they could stonewall, they would.
ReplyDeleteBut eventually someone is going to be fooled by James O'Keefe or by the sheer probability-plus-sensation of it. Which will end the enthusiasm. (I guess it's easier to cover sex that the department-by-department dumbing down of the federal government.)
I agree, Who signed off on Matt's snooze button for use when he worked so hard he couldn't stagger to the door to close it?