Wrongdoing Flourishes When Culpability Wanes

Wrongdoing flourishes when culpability wanes. Historically speaking, we have always had select categories or classes of people who engaged in sexually exploitive misbehavior, and that class was largely confined to those with power and their sycophants and bottom feeders, who are no more than opportunists who profits from the misfortunes of others. But in our classless, open society, a society without ruling class, do we not pride ourselves on having a mutual standard of demeanor for everyone.

Not exactly, based on fact. When it comes to sexual exploitation of women, we treat our small privileged class elite in the same way serfs treated yesteryears privileged class: with deference. In the United States, three things confer upper class prominence: renown personage, wealth and power. Entertainment, politics and the media are built on all three. And elite status in each of those industries bought not just a mass of opportunities for heartless conduct but also a hushed knowledge that the downside would be insignificant for engaging in that unkind and insensitive treatment. 

First, the opportunities. Just as certain peasants of old sought to curry favor with lords, too many Americans seek to curry favor with the powerful. That's the story of the Hollywood casting trailer. It's the story of the famed journalist and his nighttime corner booth at the local pub. It's the story of the politician and his late-night office meetings. Does anyone think women were dying to meet Harvey Weinstein or Dustin Hoffman or Charlie Rose or Glenn Thrush or Matt Lauer or Al Franken or William Clinton? Each story we hear tells the same tale: Women thought the only way they could get ahead was to indulge these men with acquiescence. They thought that they couldn't turn down biddings. And if they were exploited, they thought they had to remain reticent. In many cases, the victims remained silent. That's because the public offered no consequences to the elite. Perhaps too many of us blamed the victims and were unwilling to blame the those responsible. Perhaps the darkest side of humanity revels in the pain inflicted by others. 

So, what's changed now? It's tempting to say that we've awakened from our societal slumber — that we're unwilling to allow luminary and wealth and dominance to make allowances for abuse. But is that being too optimistic? So long as fame and money and power exist, there will be those who seek to exploit them and those who look the other way. Do not false idols always have their adherents? It is time to say, enough is enough.