THE NEW PURITANISM AND ITS VICTIMS.
By Paul Merkley.
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The crude hedonism that overtook our popular culture in the 1960s is now turning-back upon itself and issuing in a new Puritanism, promoted by a new generation of accusers and punishers. Just a few weeks after the Harvey Weinstein allegations broke out, we are in the midst of a naming-and shaming rage that has already reached the dimensions of the witch-hysteria that scarred the reputation of Puritanism about four centuries ago.
The Hollywood Witch Hunt.
A peculiar feature of this present saga is the role played by Hollywood “celebrities” as declaimers of the Puritan code. At their instigation, packs of investigators are at work seeking for “victims” who will denounce other rich and famous movies stars and producers of movies for touching them DECADES ago – under circumstances impossible to verify.
There is a striking resemblance between this process and the process that unfolded during Puritan times in England and then again in Puritan New England In that era, the most effective accusation by which to destroy a reputations was consorting with a witch – hence the term, “witch hunt”. (A good source for this is Arthur Miller’s extremely successful play, The Crucible, based on written records from the Salem witchcraft trials.)
Sexual Touching.
The media celebrities who lead the denunciation squads set the terms of the game. For the moment, sexual touching or propositioning engages the exclusive attention of the new puritans. Movie stars famous for leud and nude behaviour acted out before cameras for money and for fame now show up at award ceremonies and weep before the cameras as they join in the chorous of accusation against another movie star, a male one, for having touched some ambitious and amoral startlet in a provocative way DECADES AGO.
Overlooked Vices.
Nobody asks why the sin of sexually suggestive touching stands all alone, by itself, at the top of the sin list. Is this really a sin with greater consequence than, let’s say, marital infidelity? Just imagine a call going out at the Academy Award ceremony for denunciating by name all violators of their marital vows!
Here I take an even more reckless leap to the matter of abortion. Nowadays, abortion, the murder of unborn children, is celebrated. Last week, speakers bull-horning the screaming squads of Trump-haters who take over the streets in several major cities all made a ritual point of declaiming “the right to abortion.” Not only is the right of a parent to secure the murder of his or her own child in the womb of the mother secured under law, but the actual murder is performed in hospitals and is paid for out of the public purse. There is no possibility of shaming a public person today by accusing him or her of being responsible for an abortion.
In this light: why is provocative touching the cardinal sin of the day — in a class so far above all other categories of malfeasance, that to be accused of it, even in the absence of proof, ends careers?
How Famous Movie Stars Become Non-Persons.
Then there is the saga of the movie, All The Money In The World. To avert the moral outrage that the leaders of popular culture imagine would follow if the movies should be sent out into the world as it was created with Kevin Spacey in the major role, the producers re-worked the movie on short notice with Spacey somehow white-ed-out and the face and person of Christopher Plummer somehow worked in. The Golden Globes Award ceremony provided opportunity for celebrating this dirty work. Predictably, Plummer won the Best Actor Award for his unprecedented role in making Spacey a non-person.
Think of think of that for a moment: the man is white-ed-out of an entire movie (except for shots of his back-side) – and everybody applauds! This is the same dirty business that Stalin used in the 1930s to white-out Trotsky from the line-up on the Kremlin wall. Everyone born in Russia thereafter until well after Stalin died lived without hearing the name of the Lev Trotsky – the man who more than any other – certainly more than Joseph Stalin — had made possible the Bolshevik victory of 1917.
We Have Been Here Before.
There is a generational rhythm to this story of a hedonism-yielding-to-puritanism. Roman society, contemporaneous with the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth, was shaken out of habits of thoughtless hedonism, by Caesar Augustus, who publicly demanded that young men become married early and raise large families and remain chaste until they did. The very security of Rome and its Empire, Augustus told an audience of evidently embarrassed young bachelors, depended upon the restoration of respect for this “ancient” morality. The actual result was mixed; but the inclination to speak out for traditional values was apparently strong and held for several generations.
Closer to the present: England’s history is clearly marked by a recurring pattern of public order giving way to hedonism and then reverting to public moderation. Public contempt for the lowlifes who ruled under James I and Charles I prepared the way for the great age of Puritanism — which in turn gave way a generation later to another age distinguished for hedonism and contempt for public order. The 19th century began with the Regency, the reigns of two low-life sybarites; this gave way – so swiftly that it took away the breath of contemporary social commentators — to Victorianism. Contemporaries noted with astonishment the transformation of public attitudes on such matters as public drunkenness.
Who could have foreseen this moment, as recently as a year ago? Single individuals appear professing to be victims of “inappropriate behavior” at the hands of famous persons. In the age of witch-hunt there is no presumption of innocence and there is little to be gained by confronting the accuser in a court.
The Case of Patrick Brown.
Such is the case of Patrick Brown, the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature. He has been dumped without ceremony or a word of thanks by the Party Leadership in response to an anonymous accusation regarding an unwanted sexual advance that allegedly took place many years ago. Brown denies the accusation and vows to expose the accuser by going to court. The possibility that he is being framed or that there might be something opportunistic about this manoeuvre is never entertained by the Party caucus and the Party’s bagmen.
To me, the most appalling feature in this matter is the opportunism that eclipses all traditional standards of fairness. The presumption of innocence disappears the moment a women puts her story into the public realm. The leader must resign immediately. The very thought that a woman would say anything untrue about a contact with a man runs counter to the current presumption that benefit of doubt must be given to women in a world that is largely run by men. (See, “Ontario Tory Leader Patrick Brown resigning amid allegation s about conduct,” CP, January 24, 2018.)
My search-engine has provided me only one item that challenges this lockstep lynching of Patrick Brown. This is Rosie DiManno: She writes: “Patrick Brown is a man ruined, on the word two anonymous complainants, whose allegations have been accepted as facts.” (”Patrick Brown: Downfall an affront to fairness,” Toronto Star, January 25, 2018.)
Totalitarian Politics.
All of the several parties who strive to persuade voters that they are uniquely gifted in giving expression to popular will are now taking on the attributes of the totalitarian organizations that handed over European politics to enforcers like Mussolini and Hitler.
About fifteen years ago, as I recall, Pierre Poilievre MP was forced to make a speech of self-denunciation in the House of Commons for the crime of suggesting that aboriginal people needed more commitment to the work-ethic. The moment brought to my mind those Chinese politicians who were paraded before the people with dunce camps. Poilievre’s crawling performance set things straight with the Leadership, but tarnished forever his credentials as a mensch.
The Patrick Brown case has to be understood in the light of an increasing shift towards totalitarianism in all the political parties. The matter of the dismissal of Senator Beyak from the Parliamentary Conservative Caucus is also to be seen in this light. Her unforgivable crime consists in her decision to allow space on her own Senate website for a letter from a constituent who ask, mildly, whether there is not something that should be expected of First Nations people more or less in line with what is expected of all of the rest of us.
We are rapidly moving away from the notion that political parties in a democracy listen to the opinion of the people and serve as vehicles of their will. The thinking now is that political parties serve as enforcers of correct political thinking.
There is a famous David Low cartoon of Hitler standing before the assembled ranks of the last Parliament (Reichstag) of Germany and saying, “I believe that I can say without fear of contradiction…”
Is that what we are headed for?
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The Bayview Review 