For a long time, leaders of movements that were a source of discomfort to heads of state (or some other powerful entrenched interest) were traditionally executed. They were decapitated, nailed to a cross, burned at the stake, shot in the head, etc. However, killing popular rebels was not without risk. A kind of canonization into sainthood might result, throwing a great deal of wind behind a cause that was meant to go down with the captain.
It took thousands of years, but status quo guardians have learned that character assassination is the surefire politically expedient strategy for taking out an effective agitator. And, in America, there's no silver bullet like a juicy sex scandal to shoot down the personal integrity of a public figure.
Why? Because our own collective character has been severely compromised by millennia of egregious religious doctrine. We become conspicuously infantalized around issues of sex and sexuality. Everybody feigns repugnance while indulging in a voyeuristic fascination with the subject at hand which, itself, signals a kind of convoluted morality at play.
A recent example of our predictable depravity in the face of a sexually-themed issue was seen in the ethical audit of David Letterman that transpired after someone tried to blackmail him. A story Letterman, himself, broke on his own show after reporting the incident and cooperating with authorities to catch the guy dead-to-rights. The conversation that commenced on network news and television talk shows, in magazines and papers, and the Internet blogosphere focused entirely on Letterman's transgression – workplace impropriety, implications of sexual harassment, abuse of power, the vice of celebrity culture, and the sex addiction and infidelity of rich and powerful men – all of which required a great deal of assumption. I couldn't believe my own eyes and ears. In the court of public opinion, the victim was mistaken for the criminal and was found guilty. Not one voice raised in protest of the attempted destruction of a family in its prime, or threat to the security and emotional well-being of an innocent child, or the federal offense of blackmail, for God's sake.
The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, remains one of the most widely-read novels in the history of American literature. Hawthorne's magnum opus portrays the Puritanism of 16th Century Boston as a sinister culture comprised of people so caught up in moral disdain and judgment they were oblivious to the dark cloud enveloping them as a result. The author describes the contraption Puritans used to confine the head and hold it up to public gaze to disgrace and demoralize offenders of their religious code. The very ideal of ignominy was manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron, Hawthorne wrote. “There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature – whatever be the delinquencies of the individual – no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as was the essence of this punishment to do.”
Americans are still possessed by the very demons Hawthorne marveled at over 160 years ago. The media is our version of that barbaric instrument that holds people – and the intimate details of their most private affairs – up to relentless inquiry, public scrutiny, and humiliation. We, like the Puritans, are so concerned with appearances and a semblance of morality that, even in the midst of extra-marital affairs ourselves – without blinking an eye – we partake in the collective derision of anyone caught in a compromising situation.
In almost every case, our collective spurning becomes far more contemptuous and morally debased than the deed that precipitates it.
Shame on us!
