As IF Times

Source: Woman accuses Al Franken of kissing, groping her without consent

Under the heading of “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” comes the most recent allegation du jour of harassment/molestation and general sexually inappropriate behavior, this time directed towards the charming Al Franken.  As if we need one more reason to dislike him.  Since the floodgates literally burst open last month with the “shocking” revelations of the real life Jabba the Hut, Harvey Weinstein, men (and those that resemble men), from virtually all corners and echelons of society have been outed like cockroaches in a kitchen when the lights come on.

From Entertainment, to Politics, to Industry, to Media, the roster of alleged scoundrels and worse is expanding so quickly that it may be easier to count those that didn’t rather than tabulate those that did.  The really shocking revelations are not the Weinsteins, Spaceys and Frankens of the world, those hardly raise an eyebrow.   But apparently even George Bush senior is a cad! George Bush!  While certainly his transgressions aren’t anywhere close to  the d-baggery exhibited by the other characters, the net of shame will likely go on to ensnare many others who may have had even a hint of impropriety expressed during their lives…even if it was 40 years ago.  However, to characterize this avalanche of bad behavior as sudden would be wrong.  It’s only the revelations that are sudden.  We can bet that opportunists will jump to portray that there are two kinds of men; those that have been outed and those that will be outed.

Oddly, while the activities of the ever increasing cast of miscreants are exposed and helping the cause of heretofore silent victims, they also create a new class of victims…. those being the vast majority of men who behave as civilized people.  Now they too will be on eggshells wondering if any or every one of their actions will be construed as some kind of assault.  Suddenly, like gun owners, all men will be cast collectively as villains because of the actions of a few.

We will see instances of even innocent interactions with vastly different contexts labelled as examples of ‘abuse’.  As an example, the vague claim of “unwanted attention”.   Most women will be the subject of attention at some point.  Whether it’s wanted or not may depend on whether it’s Brad Pitt or Al Franken.  Since there are many more Al Frankens in the world than Brad Pitts, it’s likely that most attention will be unwanted.   So, while the exposing of d-bag behavior is good, we expect that lots of innocents will be tarred as well.

The common denominator in all the cases of improper conduct is that instances of abuse are linked with disparities of power.  Someone in a position of influence by way of  station or fame feels empowered to exceed the bounds of acceptable  social behavior.  Why? Because they get away with it.  Many of the worst recently exposed miscreants are entertainers.  They have always escaped responsibility for their crassness by virtue of being ‘artists’ and have been placed on pedestals by their adoring fans.  Some may notice that no janitors or window washers have been outed for abusing co workers.  But if you live at the top of the power pyramid, you are allowed to believe that rules are for lesser folk.  That’s not a phenomenon peculiar to American society; it’s a social dynamic that  exists in all of nature.  The point of having an evolved and civilized society is that its members are expected to behave as civilized people.  Those that choose to not behave accordingly deserve to be outed.

Now that women have been empowered to speak out, maybe the best solution to keep this behavior at bay is the classic one; a good punch in the nose.

link More than half of U.S. Latinos favor same-sex marriage: survey | Reuters.

Seems that everything is done by polls these days, especially when it comes to election time.  Everyone wants to slice off a bit of demographic to imply significance from some bit of esoterica.  The standard technique is to isolate some segment of society and then make conclusions about their preferences as it pertains to the larger group.   This kind of segmentation has a lot to do with the messages being conveyed by the various political groups who would pander to whomever is likely to give the most votes.

An Internet search fails to find even an estimate of the number of polling firms operating in the U.S., but we are all familiar with the big name ones: Gallup, Rasmussen, etc.  There are also the newspaper  related polls such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Reuters to name a few.  Suffice to say though, if you want an opinion about something, someone will provide it for a fee.

The ubiquity of polling has created a political environment in which factions are pitted against each other in order to secure votes, which of course encourages polling to measure the temperature of any identified demographic, which brings us into a vicious cycle.  If you are catering to left handed people, the right handed people get disenfranchised and resentment between the two factions will escalate.   When people bemoan the polarization of the political process, this is ground zero of the cause.   Instead of saying anything substantive, politicians will employ strategies to rope in the desired demo as articulated by poll results.

The particular sample in the link above purports to show the proclivities of 26 million people via a sample of 1760.  The conclusion is that more than half of U.S. Latinos favor same-sex marriage.  I don’t know about you, but I think that this is not only a leap of logic, it’s a 3 day train ride of logic based on a sample of 1760 Latinos.  I would treat this conclusion with as much skepticism as if a sample of college men in San Francisco implied that 60% of college guys everywhere harbored homo-erotic fantasies involving Brad Pitt.   Angelina maybe.  To imply that all persons of an ethnic slice are likely to hold homogeneous opinions is naive at best, racist at worst.  I’m not convinced that all Chinese, all Germans or all Italians can be pegged by a sample of 1760 of them.

The real danger here is that in today’s attention deficit society, nobody reads the body of the polls.  They read the headline and ka-bing, it’s now a fact.  This is reminiscent of the early days of television advertising when marketers could say pretty much anything they wanted.  It was not uncommon to hear that “4 out of 5 doctors preferred Parliament cigarettes” or that “4 out of 5 Dentists choose Crest”.  Bottom line is, polling is as much marketing as science.  My poll of 5 people confirms this.