Hardly a day goes by without a victim of past inappropriate
Weinsteinian activity coming forward exposing famous figures to the full wrath
of our moral justice. There’s a sense of mass pride in our repugnance for these
people as they fall under the righteous sword of public opinion. And quite
rightly so. There can be no defence or excuse for their actions and it’s a
fitting tribute to our current climate of newfound emancipation. Back then
victims could only suffer in silence but now they are able to voice the harm
caused. So far so appropriate. But there’s another side to this coin. Perpetrators
and accusers aside back then there was a personal robustness in society. If it
happened you dealt with it the best you could as just another of life’s shitty
circumstances, and in the words of the cup we, “Drank tea and carried on.” Over
the intervening years could it possibly be that robustness has dissolved into
an angst-ridden fragility, a sort of personality disordered McCarthyism?
Nowadays we all drink from the same inconsequential well of social media. We go
viral over whatever goes viral as quickly as Kevin Spacey lost his career. One
feels fear bound to agree because any defence would be vilified. I’ve just read
that Janet Jackson’s career crashed after a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during last
year’s Super Bowl, a ludicrous disjunction of events caused by social
whispering. Yes abuse of power is wrong but when society as a whole begins to
act like a herd of spooked cattle the damage will be far greater. We will lose
the ability to think autonomously and be guided by a communal irrationality; the
death throws of decadence. We will make bad decisions and leave good actions
undone. Be careful, not for what you wish for, but what you think is a good
thing.
