Hitchens On Cain And Sexual Harassment
It might be argued that all "advances" begin as unwanted. Christopher Hitchens writes at Slate:
A Washington attorney named Joel Bennett issued a statement about a female complainant in the case of Herman Cain. She makes a claim of sexual harassment, which in Bennett's formulation consists of "a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances." In a related commentary, Charles M. Blow of the New York Times and others have brought us polling data, to the effect that a majority of committed Republican voters do not give a damn whether Cain is guilty as charged. And Cain himself has continued to soak up the cheers and applause, even as reports surface of another female complainant. Indeed, the figures seem to show Cain sharing the lead with Mitt Romney, which in some if not many ways is absurd.Blow's conclusion, that the right wing doesn't care about Cain's victims, would appear to have a corollary, which is that the left wing doesn't give much of a damn, either. Or at least that no numbers can be found to suggest the contrary. For liberals, Cain is no more than a ghoulish puppet of the Tea Party, a pathetic insurance against charges of racism, a lobbyist and a front-man devoid of ideas. The notion that there might be some wounded woman employee in his past is, to most American radicals, one of pure irrelevance. Why does this somehow not delight me?
Why does it also not delight me that the extent of the allegations against him, at least on some showings, is "unwanted advances"? It might be argued, by the cynical or the naive, that all "advances" begin that way. True, a period of a matter of months is specified, but don't I seem to recall, in President Obama's jaunty account of his courtship, that it took him a certain amount of time to "wear down" his intended target? I dare say that many of us could say the same, while reminiscing among friends, and still hope to avoid getting too many sidelong looks. But in the present circumstances there seems to be a danger of a straight-out politicization of the sexual harassment issue, with many people deciding it in advance on the simple basis of campaign calculations, or--to put it more crudely--of whose ox is being gored. This appears to represent a general coarsening by silence, and yet another crude element in a depressing campaign.
Y'know, didn't we just do this? With Clinton? In the '90s, remember?
(The "90's" was one of our recent decades... It was very popular! You still see it mentioned in books and magazines, especially in stories about Kurt Cobain and internet powerhouses like AOL and Netscape.)
Is anyone accusing this guy of rape the way Clinton was so convincingly accused?
DON'T ANSWER THAT.
It's 2011, so it's not technically a presidential election year. We have no business worrying about these people yet, and I'm ashamed I asked. I'll make this up to you.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 8, 2011 11:32 PM
But in the present circumstances there seems to be a danger of a straight-out politicization of the sexual harassment issue - has sexual harassment been politicized only in this instance? The whole notion of sexual harassment, domestic violence, date rape etc etc is a politicized thing to bring into existence non existent problems in order to get pork funding for "special interests"....and we have seen this happening for at least 20 years. Ditto for child support and the divorce industry as well.
Redrajesh at November 9, 2011 6:50 AM
Hope this works:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19911215&id=gjQdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jKUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2516,5233616
If you've never seen this sort of thing before, to read the column, you have to move the tiny blue rectangle on the right.
It's from Miss Manners, from 1991, and she points out that the trouble with "welcome" advances on the job is that all too often, such behavior ends up interfering with the work the two are supposed to be doing. Pretty interesting.
lenona at November 9, 2011 8:48 AM
Unfortunately Miss Manners has, dare I say it, a very antiquated sweatshop vision of what the workplace looks like.
It seems like she envisions 20-100 little robots sitting at their desks behind typewriters and sharpened pencils, grinding it out from 9-5.
The best workplaces, in my experience, tend to be kind of informal, with quite a bit of break and lunchtime socializing going on. In business language this is known as "networking".
These business value productive people who can get paperwork done in half the time an ordinary worker takes. They don't think they need to punish efficiency by giving their productive people double the work, in order to make it "fair" and keep them at their desks with their nose to the grindstone.
Your best employees will get angry and resentful watching "cubicle Bob" get the same pay they get for doing less than half the work they do.
Isabel1130 at November 9, 2011 11:16 AM
Is anyone accusing this guy of rape the way Clinton was so convincingly accused?
In a nice bit of serendipity, Hitchens was the one who most convincingly made that case in No One Left To Lie To. One of the greatest polemics ever written.
Ltw at November 9, 2011 5:49 PM
Maybe Cain is guilty, maybe he isn't but doesn't "innocent until proven guilty" mean anything anymore?!
Doubly so when all of the women who have come out of the shadows so far appear to have most peculiar connections to either the DNC or DNC-friendly journalists.
Robert W. at November 9, 2011 11:33 PM
guilty, Robert? heh, try and find someone who can tall you what the allegation even is... much less if there is some kind of crime to be innocent of.
This is all hints and allegations, and the reason it's all wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?
What DO they mean? Why would they wait 15 years to talk about this?
SwissArmyD at November 10, 2011 10:15 AM
The simple answer is that the public has come to recognize that most claims of sexual harassment are bogus. This is unfortunate for people who are actually being harassed but not surprising due to how the issue has been treated by Feminists and other advocates of the concept.
jj at November 10, 2011 11:36 AM
It's not just feminists. During the SC governor's election, Nikki Haley was accused of having inappropriate relationships with male members of her staff. She was elected anyway. But your right JJ, the public assumes these claims are bogus.
ken in sc at November 10, 2011 5:16 PM
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