The Bill Cosby Effect:
“You have been told that, even like a chain, you
are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as
strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to
reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to
cast blame upon the seasons for their
inconstancy.”
Khalil Gibran.
The Prophet.
There is invariably something
disturbing about a senior citizen who is legally blind being harassed by a
drone strike whilst serving a sentence in a prison yard. Even more distressing
is to consider that this man had created Little
Bill and The Cosby Show. But perhaps
what trumps all of those details is this: that he is NOT referred to, in an
article by USA Today, as a “comedian”, a “producer”, a “philanthropist” (unless
we mispronounce this term in the manner of Charlie Day), a “family man”, or a “spokesperson”.
Perhaps the reason that his entire legacy has been overwritten, at least by
this one reporter in this seemingly isolated incident, is what one might call
the Bojack Horseman effect: the
presupposition, propagated by that latter cartoon show, that if one’s
contributions to society are insufficient cause to clear one’s name of a reputed
vice, then the latter vice must for some reason entirely subsume all contributions
made to society.
One question in particular swims
up to the surface, then: if Bill Cosby’s contributions to society were
insufficient to entitle him to the company of women, so much so that he might
be suspected of having sought that company by illicit means, then WHERE DOES
CONSENT COME FROM?? OUT OF THIN AIR? Who “manufactures” consent in this
country, if in fact this is not a land of free enterprise and meritocracy but
rather one where the testimony of a relatively unproductive citizen could spark
the flame that burns a giant to the ground.
It is troubling to think that
senior citizens are not to be regarded as sages whose life lessons dictate
policy, whose daring will to pursue their own notions of love and freedom,
irrespective of the absurdities of bureaucracy and prejudice, in the manner
that the Romantics lauded and that the Jungians espoused, are acclaimed, but
that they can honestly become the victims of that same bureaucracy under the
watchful eye of the same generations which they educated. But this appears to
be the TRUE question: if my contributions to society might so easily be
forgotten, without due process, without evidence, even without consideration
for the fact that I am NOT what I produce, and hence my personal and
interpersonal struggles reflect NOTHING of the quality of my work, since that
work must by necessity be divorced from my own self-interest in order that it
might be authentic, (verily it is so, if I cannot even expect to be included in
consensual sex!! Truly a thankless task indeed.), then how am I to live as a moral
agent, whose only function is to serve his fellow human beings? If this is how
the new generation expresses its gratitude for a man’s achievements, with
unwarranted bias, then perhaps consent comes from the same places as these
allegations: utter meaninglessness. If they cannot even separate an author from
his lifestyle, as though they sought to consume the man through his novel, then
what kind of altruism motivates the global public? CERTAINLY one does not watch
television shows strictly and exclusively in search of a role model, as though
possessed of an infantile father complex, and even when one finds a role model,
certainly one loves him not for the thought of following in his footsteps but
because of the IDEALS WHICH HE REPRESENTS IN FICTION. Am I now to consider the
most disturbing of possibilities: that the new generation will not look to
prior generations for moral guidance and intrigue, but rather, presuming on
their own righteousness a priori, they will seek them out to find paths towards
personal gain??
People still play songs by O.D.B.
at downtown bars. We really need to reconsider who our heroes are, if we have
any heroism remaining.
Dm.A.A.
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