Megan McArdle writes:
Every society is going to have those who knowingly, perhaps even joyfully, break its rules. And this is the problem with phrases like “rape culture” and “teach men not to ”¦”, which imply that transgression would stop if only society disapproved enough. Society already disapproves. We did teach men not to ”¦ . They know.…
No, what you see in the allegations against Weinstein is not ignorance of right or wrong, but a man who seems to have enjoyed doing wrong things. Teaching such a man that something is not merely wrong, but really, really, really wrong may only increase his enjoyment…
…[C]old economics may reduce harassment, but won’t end it. If sexual harassment law has also failed — and in Weinstein’s case, it obviously has — then there are two ways to alter that dynamic.
To truly change the dynamic, we will probably have to raise the level of moral outrage we feel about sexual harassment even further, past “men shouldn’t do this” and past even the Victorian distaste for homosexuality, and closer to something like a capital crime. Harassment would need to become the sort of thing that people couldn’t wink at and still look themselves in the mirror the next day.
And that change cannot be demonstrated by the outrage on display in public Facebook posts or in columns. It will have to happen in private hearts.
We’ll know we’ve made progress when women are willing to accuse men at the height of their powers, men who can hurt them for years to come — or benefit them in exchange for their silence. And when the people around those men move swiftly and without hesitation to deprive them of the power they’ve abused, even though they’ll be tainted by the scandal, even though they’ll suffer personal costs from the loss of an ally.
We are not in that world today. And despite the public outcry, I’m not really sure that we’re any closer to it than we were three weeks ago.
The first point of McArdle’s with which I would disagree is “they know.” Overt sexual coercion is clearly wrong, and Weinstein’s more despicable predations were and are very clearly verboten. They even segue into assault and possible rape, and everyone knows that’s wrong. But I would bet that Weinstein himself rationalized most of it by saying, not just to the world later on but to himself at the time, that she wanted it, too.
People can fool themselves and often do. And if Weinstein didn’t actually fool himself that way, a lot of other people are quite capable of fooing themselves that way.
But those are the clear cases of wrongdoing. A great deal of sexual harassment is not of the Weinstein variety. It exists in a much grayer zone that includes what is often thought to be playful flirting or jokes. And in that zone it’s not always so clear what is consensual and what is not; what is wrong in other words.
The borderline is where the trouble in knowing vs not-knowing occurs, and if I were a man in the workplace I might be tempted to never speak flippantly or playfully or mildly flirtatiously to a woman at all, lest my words be misconstrued. Dating someone at work is already frowned on, but do we really want to make people terrified to make any sort of overture to anyone, even welcome overtures? And has this prohibition and fear already taken hold, for most people (not, of course, for the Weinsteins among us)?
Another fact that is undeniable—although I suppose people deny it all the time—is that sexuality of the consensual kind contains more than a hint of aggressiveness, and that’s part of its frisson. We don’t want it to be real aggressiveness, destructive or unwanted aggressiveness. But I don’t see how one can ignore the fact that we face a dilemma in trying to do away with the unwanted type while keeping the desired type. It’s not impossible to do so—and in fact I think most people manage to do so. But we have to be very very careful not to take all the—well, let’s just call it the “yetser ha-ra”—out of life.
What on earth am I talking about now? It’s an idea from Judaism:
The ”˜evil inclination’ [yetser ha-ra in Hebrew] is frequently identified in the Rabbinic literature and elsewhere with the sex instinct but the term also denotes physical appetites in general, aggressive emotions, and unbridled ambition. Although it is called the ”˜evil inclination’, because it can easily lead to wrongdoing, it really denotes more the propensity towards evil rather than something evil in itself. Indeed, in the Rabbinic scheme, the ”˜evil inclination’ provides human life with its driving power and as such is essential to human life. As a well-known Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 9: 7) puts it, were it not for the ”˜evil inclination’ no one would build a house or have children or engage in commerce. This is why, according to the Midrash, Scripture says: ”˜And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good’ (Genesis 1: 31). ”˜Good’ refers to the ”˜good inclination’, ”˜very good’ to the ”˜evil inclination’. It is not too far-fetched to read into this homily the idea that life without the driving force of the ”˜evil inclination’ would no doubt still be good but it would be a colourless, uncreative, pallid kind of good. That which makes life ”˜very good’ is the human capacity to struggle against the environment and this is impossible without egotistic as well as altruistic, aggressive as well as peaceful, instincts.
It follows that for the Rabbis the struggle against the ”˜evil inclination’ is never-ending in this life. Nowhere in the Rabbinic literature is there the faintest suggestion that it is possible for humans permanently to destroy the ”˜evil inclination’ in this life…
So I’m not winking at or excusing sexual harassment. I am saying that we don’t want to do away with the yetser ha-ra, either. Let’s not pretend this is a simple matter. It’s the sort of thing people have wrestled with for just about as long as we’ve been fully human.
[NOTE: Here’s a story I came across many many years ago. I quoted it in this post from 2006, but the link to the story no longer works:
Jewish lore tells a tale of a time when Evil was actually captured (B. Tal. Yoma 69b). Now, one might think that if Evil could really be physically contained, the most sensible thing to do with it would be to destroy it right away. So much for sensibility. It turns out that Evil’s captors paused before they acted on their first instincts.
Evil was held captive for three days, during which time its fate was debated. The Talmud does not record many details from that debate. I suppose they decided to leave that part up to our imaginations.
Well, three days passed”¦ And then, someone made a startling realization. During the time of Evil’s imprisonment, all chickens in the land stopped laying eggs. It was as if they had gone on strike.
Had folks looked further, they would have realized that other strange things had been occurring ”“ or more precisely, not occurring, during those three days. No houses were built. People didn’t show up for work. No marriages took place. No homework was done”¦ and I suppose that no lawns were mowed, no leaves were raked, no trash taken out, and no gutters were cleared either.
The reason was obvious. The Evil Inclination is that which causes God’s creations to act aggressively and acquisitively. Building houses, and families, and careers ”“ these are activities that require healthy, yet well controlled, measures of both aggressiveness and acquisitiveness.
Folks realized that the Evil Inclination could not be obliterated. It couldn’t even be held captive forever. For Evil’s own source is also the source of creativity and productivity. The only thing that could be done before setting Evil loose again in the world, would be to wound it. So Evil was blinded, and then set free. Thus, it was placed at a decided disadvantage in its continuous struggle with Good.]
