The Artful Catholic

The Politicization of Perversion

11/12/2017

You can call it the Weinstein Effect if you like, but what's going on, in reality, is a natural conclusion of years of morally offensive practices.

OK, let me clarify myself here. As the sordid details of Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuses have been brought to the attention of the general public, it also became clear that this wasn't exactly breaking news within the Hollywood community, nor those details about Kevin Spacey or other Hollywood luminaries. Now, we're hearing all sorts of lurid tales of politicians, businessmen, judges, professors, etc., all of whom are now left either to apologize and hope no one sues, or to remain in public denial of these alleged offenses.

This exposure is a good thing, as far as I can see, because these are people in the public eye and have a large influence over culture and policy--thus, it is our business to know what sort of perverted shenanigans they get up to, especially if that behavior borders on criminal. Whether the offender is Bill Clinton or the late Ted Kennedy or Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackson or whoever else, shedding light on evil is a good thing.

Now comes the problem, when politics enters into the fray. Take the situation in Alabama right now, where Judge Roy Moore is accused of some pretty horrendous sexual abuses from several years ago. He's been roundly criticized and ostracized, and rightly so if he in fact guilty. But let's take a look at his opponent, Doug Jones. Jones is an overt and extreme abortion supporter, right up to birth. On MSNBC recently, he declared that AFTER birth, he's a "right-to-lifer," but before birth, apparently that same baby is a woman's body.

Go figure. If that's not magical thinking, I don't know what is.

Regardless, the point is that because of this overly politicized culture in which we live, voters are given little choice in terms of which candidate for public office would be worthy of ones precious vote. The people of Alabama face a terrible choice: an alleged pervert versus a pro-abortion extremist. What does one do, short of a write-in campaign? And if that campaign fails, then the pubic is stuck with a garbage human being now holding office and being paid with our tax dollars.

We live in a culture of either/or, a Zero Sum society where if you have the slightest approval of, say, President Trump, then you're a racist, sexist homophobe, but if you oppose him, you're a pathetic SJW cuck worthy only of ridicule. The minute we start politicizing things to the degree we have, then sexual predators such as Harvey Weinstein get away with horrible behavior. And if the pervert in question has a great tax plan? Then we prop up the pervert in order to save a few bucks in our wallet.

Where does it end?

Personally, I think we're in need of a major cultural shift--not to the far right or left, but toward honesty, both political and intellectual. We have to stop propping up immoral behavior and rewarding failure. That happens through good policy that encourages education, marriage, and financial independence, to decrease our dependence on government. That's why it's so easy to turn a blind eye on immorality, because those immoral people are our bread and butter. We've gotten too used to holding our noses in the voting booth, so bad behavior is never checked.

The larger and more powerful the government is, the less say people actually have, and that includes in our voting. We all get a vote, but when that involves turning a blind eye on either side, then that's a compromised system, and either way, it keeps government in power because the rest of us are forced to act out of weakness. A child can't help who his/her parents are, and sometimes, a kid gets stuck with parents who are criminals or rapists or gangsters or dealers. But in the larger society, we have a choice in who we want our "parents" or leaders to be. Thus, the more dependent we are on government for everything from housing to education to the kind of toothpaste you can use, the more autonomy we give up, and that's what leads to this behavior of turning a blind eye to public figures' evil actions. It's a sign of our weakness as a society, and the only solution is to break that dependency.

While I'm always iffy about President Trump, for his consistent inconsistency, among other things, I do agree with the idea of "draining the swamp," though my version might look a little bit different to his. I look at these Congressional Republicans who are supposed to be making government smaller, and all I can do is cringe with every compromise and failure, particularly as they have a majority...for now. But these weak Republicans are the product of a morally weak society, and like everyone else, they seem terrified of cutting the governmental umbilical cord.

My call to action is for a popular revival of virtue, for the culture to encourage and praise real goodness, to praise girls and guys for waiting until marriage, to celebrate modest dress, and so on. That doesn't mean shaming people, but rather to put a cultural emphasis on the good and the wholesome again, to give young people a model of behavior they can admire and model. This all may sound very hokesy, but maybe we need a little bit of that, if only to prevent a further downfall of our society. It means we can raise the standard of behavior we expect from our public figures, whether on the screen or in elected office or in the stadium.

In short, if we are to expect good behavior from our cultural figures, then we need to behave better ourselves. To be fair, we can't trash public figures for the same exact behavior we're doing. We need to climb up from the empty rhetoric of virtue signaling and start to live that behavior we're calling for in our public figures. So if you're going to call out President Trump for his multiple marriage, you'd better check your own behavior first.

Our Lord Jesus Christ pointed out to the hypocritical Pharisees, "How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.'" (Luke 6: 42)

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