Two weeks ago, I had never even heard the name of Harvey Weinstein. Since then, his partly-shaven face has appeared on almost every TV newscast or entertainment program, every day.
The Weinstein scandal has even changed the rules of what broadcasters can and can’t say on air. “Masturbation” and “erection” were once taboo words. But one can’t talk about Weinstein’s indiscretions without using them.
The Fox network listed 41 women who accused Weinstein of everything from vaginal rape to forcing them to watch while he masturbated, from fondling and groping them to forcing them to give him a massage.
The key word in that last sentence is “forcing.”
The scandal is not about sex, that obsession of conservative Christians. (They’d let President Trump launch nuclear war with impunity, but he would be gone in days if he were caught with his pants down.)
Nor is it just about oppression of women, although they are often the victims. One on-line-petition website, noting the sheer volume of social media responses to the Weinstein revelations, commented that “almost no woman has been free of this issue in her lifetime.”
What constitutes consent?
Some media coverage has portrayed the Weinstein scandal as a feminist issue. And certainly most, perhaps all, of the victims have been young beautiful women. But I think that may be oversimplifying the issue. Unless someone can show me that a woman, given comparable power, would never harass or abuse the people in her power.
Ultimately, the issue is about power.
Periodically, I work on developing a creed for myself, a statement of affirmations that can guide my life and my relationships. One of the lines asserts, “All human interactions must be consensual.”
Admittedly, informed consent is not always possible. Infants cannot give informed consent for heart surgery, for example, because they cannot yet understand the process. Psychopaths are an opposite extreme; being incapable of empathy, they’re also incapable of recognizing lack of consent.
But Weinstein – and/or his lawyers – have asserted that these encounters were consensual. That is, the women involved didn’t say “No.” They didn’t call the cops.
Is consent a realistic expectation, when dealing with the most powerful man in Hollywood?
With only a few exceptions, the women Weinstein abused aspired to acting careers. Weinstein could make or break them. A word from him could get them that first role. A word from him could also send them back to serving drinks in a bar while getting groped by less influential patrons.
Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. If the fly doesn’t fly away, does that constitute consent?
Power in various fields
In any case, Weinstein is not the only guilty party. His victims were escorted to his hotel rooms by a cadre of sycophants – who then excused themselves and left the fly alone with the spider.
Lord Acton made the memorable equation: “All power corrupts…” Like all sweeping generalizations (including this one) it’s not 100 per cent true – there are, there have been, and there will always be people who do not let power corrupt. But it’s true enough.
Henry Kissinger made similar observation: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Kissinger connected power with politics. There are also many other venues where power can corrupt.
Power over helpless and vulnerable children corrupted some – not all – teachers and administrators in the Indian Residential Schools.
Power corrupted televangelists like Jim Bakker. And more locally, Surrey pastor Samuel Emerson, recently charged with 25 criminal code offences involving at least five victims.
Power corrupted popes, and presidents, and rulers like the Russian tsars – and then corrupted the leaders of the revolution that ousted them. It even corrupts those entrusted with protecting the public – some members of police forces, for example. Or the late Senator Joe McCarthy.
Evening the imbalance
I believe that the only way to have a genuinely consensual relationship is for the possessor of power to relinquish it. To level any power imbalance.
That’s what I see as the core of the Christian faith. According to traditional theology, Jesus was either the literal son of God, or God embodied in human flesh. Any supernatural powers possessed by an Almighty God, therefore, Jesus also had. But the gospel story says he didn’t use them. Not to feed the world. Not to abolish evil. Not even to save his own life.
Harvey Weinstein makes me glad, now, that I have never had much power. Occasionally, I must admit, I have lusted for power. It did not make me a better person.
Power corrupts. Even the well-intentioned.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
I made a mistake in sending out last week’s Sharp Edges column. I sent it to the Soft Edges list, rather than the Sharp Edges list. So a few people got the column who would not normally have received it. As a result, I got requests for the “Religion 101” column, connected to Jagmeet Singh’s election to the leadership of the Canadian NDParty and his Sikh religion.
I should say two things.
First, you can always write to me directly if you miss or lose a column. I will gladly send it to you.
Second, if you encounter email difficulties, you can always find my columns posted at the http://quixotic.ca website. There’s also an archive there that goes back several years.
Okay, now for this week’s mail. A few of you took issue with my claim that only humans kill for pleasure.
Mary-Margaret Boone commented, “I truly believe that a weasel is the exception… We had a weasel kill over half of our meat chickens. It was more like a massacre -- bodies ripped open and left behind. I don't know anything about a weasel's natural behaviour but this really looked like killing for killing's sake.”
Steve Roney had a similar reaction: “Have you never had a pet dog or cat? Both will kill for fun -- or from instinct, if you prefer -- things they have no intention of eating. Cats will kill birds and mice and just leave them. I have watched my dog kill a groundhog, and nothing could dissuade her. In my neighbourhood, there is an ongoing problem of local dogs killing chickens. Every chicken farmer knows the concern.”
Katy Cox too: “While I agree that humans need to quit killing for ‘sport’ I disagree that they are the only species to do so. My cat kills birds and mice and perhaps snakes. She is not hungry. She will play with the bird and mouse carcasses.”
Greg Greco added to my criticism of trophy hunting: “Trophy hunting takes the biggest and best genes out of the herd; it's totally counter-productive to nature. It's sad that we have an industry (Guide Outfitting) that caters to folks locally and abroad with enough money to hire a tour guide, to take the best genes out of our Canadian wilderness to hang on their living room wall. This is senseless, and the folks running such businesses are nothing short of prostitutes of the bush. Maybe someday society will realize the longevity and economic benefits of hunting with a camera.”
Ted Wilson took an opposite view: “Every life form on earth, from the cold germs in our sinuses to blue whales, expands until it reaches the limit of its environment. That includes the apex predators such as wolves, bears, the big cats etc. And humans. We are a part of the food chain too. Although the position is often contested, there can be only one apex predator. The price of losing is being down in the food chain, or worse. If you and other like-minded people wish to be there go ahead, but don’t tell me I have to! You do not have that right and I strongly object to being relegated to it.
“Bear populations in National Parks are usually at or near their saturation point, which results in surplus animals overflowing into adjacent areas, like Canmore. Park bears tend to have a higher tolerance of and less fear of humans than hunted bears. By moving Bear 148 to the Kakwa Wildlife Park it was hoped that she could find space there. She didn’t, and was looking for it when she died. Moving a wild animal from one saturated population into another is not an act of kindness. It’s just a feel-good thing for the perpetrators.
“Trophy hunting of bears has several up sides that need to be taken into consideration;
1) The hunter pays the government to shoot a bear rather than having to pay employees to shoot more surplus bears.
2) Trophy hunters create bear population voids in prime bear habitat for the relocation of problem bears that are encroaching on human habitant. That was probably a factor that drove Bear 148 into B.C. Eliminating grizzly hunting in B. C. takes that tool out of our conservation officer’s tool box.
3) Shooting some bears creates a fear factor in the rest of the bear population that reduces the risk of confrontation when they encounter humans. We have established ourselves as the apex predator.
“If we want more bears what we have to do is create more bear habitant. The lower Fraser Valley was the best bear habitant in B.C. before we arrived and wrecked it.”
These letters sometimes foster further letters. Judyth Mermelstein challenged Steve Roney’s question, “When has skin colour ever mattered in Canada?”
Judyth replied, “Since Europeans first arrived here, and right down to today. Early settlers deemed indigenous people fair game or enslaved them. Black people were imported to be slaves --more than most Canadians know -- through the 17th and 18th centuries, and some were not freed until the 19th. Some Canadians may have espoused the abolitionist cause but that doesn't mean racism vanished. Quite the contrary: blacks were effectively ghettoized (e.g., Africville in Halifax) and restricted as to employment (e.g., railway porter was about the best work for a black man) well into the 20th century.
“Indigenous people and people of colour still face discrimination in housing, hiring, and even medical treatment in our hospitals. And it's not as if these facts are hidden from anyone who reads newspapers, watches TV news, or even shops at an average mall.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
I’ve had to leave out the recommendations of links to other worthwhile websites. The anti-spam program that monitors all the mail coming to quixotic.ca seems to be reading those links as spam. I think it is being excessively officious, and perhaps over-efficient, but it’s hard to argue with a computer program. The program has worked wonderfully in eliminating the 100 or more spam messages I used to get, just because my email address is available to any phishing programs scouring the Internet for potential victims. My techie will see what can be done to teach the program to accept the right inputs, but for the time being, I have to remove references to sites hosted by Tom Watson, Isabel Gibson, Ralph Milton, and Wayne Irwin.