They don’t need punishment. They need gunishment.
This week I really feel like following up on my column about paedophilia hysteria. The column generated a very interesting and often quite sophisticated debate. Since then paedophilia hysteria has hit the news big time in the form of the film director Roman Polanski. Polanski was recently arrested in Switzerland for sexually molesting a 13 year old girl in 1977. He’s currently sitting in a Swiss prison awaiting likely extradition to the United States.
My point in the last column was to try and get beyond the dreadful moralising and hypocritical judgments that surround the whole issue of paedophilia. Simply put, paedophilia has become the moral outrage of the century. If you’re a paedo you’re worse than Hitler. The paedophile is now every moralisers favourite whipping boy. (Can I even write ‘whipping’ and ‘boy’ in the same sentence? Does this make me come across a little bit suspicious? Just a tad sado-masochistic paedo?)
I don’t want to get bogged down in the facts of the case. I’ll have something to say about those in a minute. The right wingers like Miranda Devine seem to quite relish the details of the case – she’s salacious about it.
And that’s despite the request by Samantha Geimer (the now 40-something victim) that they stop doing so. Anything to score points I guess. Lordy I’m sick of the pseudo-virtue that’s about these days!
The left wing feminists are also joining forces with the right to publish the details.
But really. Left? Right? What does it matter eh? There seems to be a collective hysteria and a global consensus.
The Salon commentator and professional feminist Kate Harding is surprised that she is suddenly on the same side as the “right-wing dudes” in America about all this. She shouldn’t be. There is indeed a global consensus. Everyone is agreed on the “facts” – the man raped a child. No further argument shall be entered into. Devine is clear on this: she doesn’t want to be “sophisticated” about it. She just wants the “facts” to speak for themselves.
But that’s just the problem. Facts NEVER speak for themselves. They’re always interpreted and run through a number of filters. Cases like this need to be thought about very, very carefully. And in a way which gives humanity back to ALL who are involved. The media is just not the place for such a humane treatment.
Nevertheless we’re being subjected to trial by media. And instead of examining carefully and critically the complex issues that surround this case we are being asked to all join hands and sing a chorus of moral condemnation. Kumbaya My Lord Kumbaya! We shouldn’t bother with too much thinking. It might mean that we actually start to show a little humanity. Rather, it’s best if we simply judge the man harshly, lock him up forever and sit back assured once again of our own moral superiority.
Actually, in a very impressive op-ed for the LA Times, the victim of the crime displays more humanity and real virtue than any of her crusading defenders.
The same thing happened with Kyle Sandilands a while back. Kyle also got bound up with a mother who was intent on putting her child under the media spotlight. The so-called “shock jock” lost his job because he became the favourite target of the media. I’m no fan of the pugnacious porker but hell he’d been doing that segment, being rude and obnoxious for years. It’s actually his job. I may not like what he does. And I don’t. BUT why single him out for attack? Many of the people who jumped on the anti-Kyle bandwagon play an active part in the very same media system that creates his kind of show in the first place.
But what’s my real beef? Well I said it last time and I’ll say it again. I think the hysteria about child abuse is a distraction from the real issues affecting our children – the urgent threats like poverty, lack of decent public education or health systems. When we should be thinking about the POLITICS of child care we’re encouraged to moralise instead. And that’s just what the politicians want.
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I wont lie and say that the idea of paedophilia doesn’t disgust and scare the crap out of, because it does. I keep a firmer eye on Erin because of the stories. But I also agree with you.
As a society we like to focus on one issue be that terrorism, Muslims or paedophiles. I tend to think it gives us a sense of control in a world where there’s so much that could go wrong. It’s all an illusion of course, but it makes people feel better.