Bureaucracy and Sexual Harassment

Let’s talk about Sexual Harassment.  And get ready for a ride, because we’re going to be tearing apart some Orwellian Double Speak.

To start off let’s get our definitions straight – because like most words in our Modern Era, this one has two distinct meanings, and they ain’t nothing alike.

Surprisingly enough, the origins of the term seem to be fairly innocent – in that it grew organically out of the term ‘harassment’, and pointed to a phenomenon newly-recognized thanks to women’s entrance into the workforce.  Mad Men explains the manure which seeded this plant; you see, back in the sixties Men were nothing more than vile creatures, forcing their wives into loveless marriages, while date raping their secretaries.

This is a Widely Believed Fact.

So in response to the constant unreported rape on Madison Avenue, the government stepped in and said it was no longer legal to demand blowjobs in exchange for promotions.

Reasonable enough, I suppose (mind you, all of this begs the question of why women couldn’t just quit the job, and report the ill behaviour to the New York Times, and then start up their own gynocentric corporation, but I digress).

So now we had Sexual Harassment 1.0 – ‘Shaking Booty’, ‘Blonde’ and ‘D-Cup’ could no longer be job requirements outside of the porn industry.

But for some, this did not go far enough.

You see, despite banning sexual-favours-as-job-requirement — ie Sexual Harassment — a great deal of Harassing Behaviour was still allowed (huh, ain’t it funny how words can have more than one meaning?).

“Hey Sheila, nice butt!”

“Hey Tom, suck any good dicks lately?”

“Hey Jamie – how’s that rash coming?”

These comments, while Sexual, as well as Harassing, didn’t qualify as Sexual Harassment because the definition was quite clear – if-and-only-if Sexual Favour As Job Requirement.

Sexually Harassing Behaviour, and harassment in general, have been around since the dawn of time and they ain’t going nowhere any time soon; first off, it’s how us humans operates – we tease, cajole, and outright hate at times.  Secondly, offense is all in the eyes of the beholder – Homo Hypocritus loves his double-entendres, and the most innocent of phrasings can contain perceived barbs.

Traditionally, harassment – including Sexually Harassing Behaviour (as well as actual Sexual Harassment) was dealt with by the local Patriarch.  Any barkeep worth his salt had a good grip on his establishment; so if the doorkeep was being a jerk, or the cook wouldn’t stop bugging the waitresses, or – for that matter – if the waitresses were being hysterical, he’d deal with it appropriately (respectively: punch, yell, ignore).  Things Got Dealt With, back in the day, else we never would have built the spinning jenny.

But that just wasn’t good enough, not in the Seventies, what with all our fancy technicolor TVs.  And hey, the government was already taking care of Sexual Harassment (with its rigid legal definition), why not take care of all the other Harassments while we’re at it?

Now this is when things started to get weird.  If you’ve been paying attention you’ll realize that it was a logical progression of sorts, but right around here is where the Malcolm Effect took flight.

Sexual Harassment 2.0 no longer focused on the actions or intent (mens rea) of the alleged perpetrator – it only looked at the outcome.  Did somebody feel offended?

You can’t exaggerate the importance of this distinction.

Remember, we are Homo Hypocritus – the ape who enjoys elaborate, poorly-defined social rules, so that it can always argue an exception.  The ape who never says “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?” but instead engages in indirect, supposedly innocent behaviours which can be dismissed if the target declines.  This is how we save face.

However, now, instead of letting these vague, obscure, misdirected behaviours be judged by the sort of intelligence which innately understands them (by which I mean a Human Brain), we’re judging them by an intelligence built of ones (-ish things) and zeroes (more or less); we’re measuring human behaviour by that blind idiot Justice.  There are certain human behaviours which are discrete and measurable – murder, for instance, or owing somebody $20 – and in these situations Justice does fine (usually).  But when it comes to the vagaries of humanity, she just ain’t up to the task.

To put it in a nutshell – Anything and Everything can now be considered Harassment.  We’re swinging a broad sword when what we need is a scalpel – when what we used to have was a scalpel!

***

Has that sunk in?  Good.  Because it gets Weirder.

Remember Homo Hypocritus?  Well he hasn’t gone away.  You, Me, Sheila, and John?  For us, human vagueries are No Longer Allowed.  We’re all living in the world of Legal Clarity – where everything and anything of what we say, how we move, where we look, what we read can come crashing down on us as a Crime Against Humanity – but Homo Hypocritus?  He’s still here.

He’s pulling the strings.

They tried this once before – and it worked for a long-fucking-time.  It got to be so bad that some dude named Copernicus, upon threat of death, had to declare that his Equations – which Proved that the Earth went around the Sun – were simply a sort of mathematical shorthand, and easier way of calculating, of navigating the celestial spheres – of course they didn’t actually Mean Anything.

He knew he was lying.  The men he said it to knew he was lying.  And yet this confession saved his life, because it absolved the egos of the Hypocrites who questioned him.

How many lies have you said lately, lies which both you and the listener know to be true?  Lies about politics, race, gender, what have you – idiotic statements on the face of the evidence – which you spoke to avoid admitting the Truth?

Homo Hypocritus is still around, all right.  He’s the one pulling the strings.  It was a nice two-hundred year vacation, that time after the Enlightenment where we got to call a Spade a Spade, but those days are done with.

Bow down to your new Masters.  It’ll start to feel good if you relax.

Fighting back?  You gotta be a Man to do that.

***

Dear loyal readers; I apologize for the long absence.  To be frank, the death of Thomas Ball, and the subsequent Media Blackout, threw me into a deep philosophical funk.  This world truly is an evil place, I thought.  There was little I could stomach doing but riding my motorcycles.

But you know what folks?  They can knock me down and I’ll get back up.  There’s too much bullshit left for me to mope about in self-gratification.  I’m back.  Socialists, Feminists, Bureaucrats, and Perverts, look out!