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Let’s not get carried away, folks …

By James Moylan

We have reached a tipping point in western world culture. Or at least that is what everyone keeps saying. Perhaps it was the Trump ‘gropey feely p***y’ tape and the fact of his subsequent election? Perhaps it is simply the culmination of many years of gross hypocrisy suddenly catching up on a few perverted sickos? But, however, it seems that the Age of Sexual Politics has Blossomed

Have you been keeping count?

Actor Ben Affleck, former head of Amazon Studios Roy Price, producer Bob Weinstein, celebrity chef John Besh, Director James Toback, prominent tech figure Robert Scoble, animator, producer, and director Chris Savino, magician David Blaine, director Roman Polanski, musician R. Kelly, musician Ethan Kath, former President George H.W. Bush, former NBC News political analyst Mark Halperin, director and producer Rick Najera, actor Kevin Spacey, actor Jeremy Piven, director Brett Ratner, actor Dustin Hoffman, actor Steven Seagal – [deep breath] – actor George Takei, showrunner Mark Schwahn, actor Jeffrey Tambor, Minnesota Senator Al Franken, former judge and current Alabama Senate candidate, Roy Moore, former Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, Jeff Hoover, former senior vice president in charge of news at NPR, Michael Oreskes, New York Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush, television host Charlie Rose, the current President of the USA, amongst many many, many, others, including the Great Burke of the Backyard, have all been accused of various degrees of sexual impropriety.

Who would have guessed? Well, everybody, I s’pose. We all know there are an awful lot of utter scrotes running the place. And we have always all known this collectively and individually. But we also knew that these guys had clout and influence and were and are important MEN. But now, suddenly, people are talking and listening to the talking. However, I am yet to be convinced we have really reached a point where our culture has suddenly changed. I am of a far more cynical breed. I think that what is happening is we are seeing genuine wrongdoing being selectively used by some people for personal and political reasons. I think that suddenly we have arrived at the point where Sexual Politics has simply merged with real politics. But will it change anything important? I don’t think so.

The list above are just those who have been thrown to the baying pack by the capitalist elite, on behalf of the politics of the capitalist elite. It changes nothing about our society. Nor does it address the inequity or inequality evident in our systems of relationship. Now the rich elite and political forces within have a new sort of weapon against each other. It is not available to virtually every woman in society, nor is there any appreciation that this will change.

Those who benefit the most from all of the impositions of sexual, symbolic and actual violence in our society are cossetted away in mansions and remain secure in their anonymity. The owners of capital, and so the owners our press and television outlets, are safe to arbitrate and be responsible for all sorts of ongoing violence simply because they are not publicly as well as ethically perverse.

Yes, I am horrified that the sexual abuse that has become public has occurred. But I am not surprised. If anything, I am just surprised that it has been so blatantly discussed. Hooray! Yet it is distressing that this will be used to further smother all the daily non-sexual perversions that we are obliged to appreciate as normal.

We live in a dying ecology, with the largest reef system in the world slowly decaying and degrading before our eyes, while we watch as our politicians and ‘captains of industry’ move to open up the largest coal mine ever envisioned despite the majority opinion of the populace.

We live in a land where our Prime Minister has extensive assets filed away in offshore bank accounts … yet we simply nod.

We live in a land where we blame the poor for their own neediness and ignore the locked garbage bins behind the supermarkets in every suburb of every town in the land.

Yes I am shocked at the recent spate of sexual abuse stories; but they simply highlight our facility for hypocrisy and make me cry for the everyday perversions that are imposed upon us by fat arseholes in big cars with big bank accounts and overblown influence!

However, I have to cut this rant short. Maintaining the required degree of defiant pessimism in the face of such apparently good news is hard work. It is always good to see some really hideous individuals get done over in the press. It does us all a power of good. But let’s not mistake a spark for a conflagration.

There are many perversions in our society that are just as big and known to all of us as is the fact of sexual indiscretion and violence. It is just that these other perversions of capital and greed are often protected by barbed wire and guns as well as public courtesy and tradition. These sorts of perversion are a little harder to discuss and much harder to address and subvert; let alone hold the perpetrators accountable.

Yet it is these arbitrary perversions that we can all see that will actually kill our species if we continue to allow them to reign unfettered. We have to come together and say ‘enough’. With billions of us on the globe we can only each have ‘enough’ – or we all die. Globe and all.

We live in a perverted society where perversions, both big and small, are appreciated as the facts of society. So let’s not get carried away because we have assisted some already smug people in becoming even more smug by casting down some indisputably ugly scrotes. It is only a significant development if it presages a fundamental change in our appreciation of the import of money and aggregations of the stuff. But, unfortunately, I can’t see that happening. Relatively, all the other perversions are just small beer.

 

2 comments

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  1. Terry2

    Rather than reports to media I would prefer to see these complaints being directed to law authorities and if harassment either within or beyond the workplace has insufficient legal sanctions then we need to look at our laws.

    In many of these cases that are hitting the media I am hearing terms like annoying and troubling behaviour, bullying, misogyny and occasionally assault and in some cases rape.

    I heard this morning that Harvey Weinstein may be charged with tax evasion connected with some of the pay-offs he has allegedly made using corporate funds.

    Certainly we cannot in any way condone the behaviour of some men in powerful positions and perhaps this barrage of publicity will place a focus on the behaviour of some of these men but surely we have to draw a line between what is unlawful and what is just annoying ?

  2. diannaart

    I never made a complaint against my ex-husband to the police – all I had was my word against his (he never left a mark, you see) I just got the hell out.

    In my working life I have made complaints to bosses or HR about different people in different situations in my working life with the result, I moved on.

    Will women (and other victims – predators abuse other men as well) be listened to because a few cases of notoriety have the MSM salivating? I agree with James Moylan, it is something in our entire culture. It is about believing that bigger, stronger, louder is better than thoughtful and compassionate.

    Just saying we are simply behaving like all other primates is no excuse. Nor is it true for human beings. Most humans actually get along with each other, it is just a minority – a very influential minority, who cause the majority of the world’s problems. And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of these bullies. We discuss this every day at AIMN, such as where Bolt claims his “freedom of speech” is denied from the pulpit of his TV show, radio or news columns. Or the no-voters to equal marriage – wanting the ability to discriminate against a minority set into law.

    Women bear the brunt, because we are a large and easy convenient target. But men suffer too, because this hierarchical system keeps out most men as well and also keeps us all divided.

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