Roger Canaff refuses to accept George Will’s use of one anecdote to dismiss the reality of every male or female survivor of sexual violence.
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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Attributed to the anthropologist Margaret Mead, this sentiment is both insightful and beautiful, but deceivingly tragic as well. If, after all, Mead was right that only small, committed groups of people have really changed the world, then it’s exactly because human beings as they’ve assembled in larger groups never would or could.
It’s sad but true. Tribes, nation-states, empires and entire civilizations have made, by and large, miserable decisions over the millennia in just about every area of human interaction. In our largest collections, we’ve consistently chosen slavery, patriarchy, militarism, vengeance, racial and sectarian violence, bigotry and greed.
Regardless, hope and progress persist and have moved the world forward; I believe Mead is right that this progress in humanity has been driven in large part not by the masses but by the outliers, the suffering, the unusually reflective, empathic and brave.
When it comes to the shameful and shame-based, age-old shroud of silence that has been draped over survivors of sexual violence, nothing is different. Progress is being made, much of it born of the efforts of women (and some men) who refused at last to suffer silently and who finally punched through to the social consciousness with the feminist and victim’s movements of recent decades.
And now a small but surprisingly growing number are coming forward to expose what’s always been true and almost never acknowledged: Colleges and universities, like most institutional environments, have been havens for sexually violent individuals for far too long, and for reasons that institutional leadership could address far better than it ever has.
But for writers like George F. Will, this shedding of light and move toward accountability must be dismissed as hysteria and the establishment of yet another “victim class” with a hidden agenda. He’s armed with nothing more than one, remarkably atypical and grossly misleading anecdote of an apparently mischaracterized sexual assault. Yet he spends half of a column on its facts before dismissing pretty much all college-aged victims as confused and coddled miscreants, unable to characterize their own experiences due to “hook up culture,” or “hormones, alcohol, and faux sophistication.”
As Will himself would write in judgment of such a moronic conclusion:
Well.
Like so many before him, Will combines ignorance and useless moralizing; unlearned in sexual violence dynamics, he fails to grasp that most clear cases of victimization- let alone awkward or even borderline violent sexual events- almost never lead to complaints of victimization to anyone. Of course, awkward and negative sexual hook-ups happen. Of course regret sometimes sinks in. Of course women (and some men) feel cheated, used and angry after sexual encounters in many circumstances and because of many factors. The idea that they’ll now “cry rape” because of a handful of Department of Education initiatives, thus filling the country’s prisons with innocent men, is paranoid nonsense.
Regardless, as with so many men of his generation and inclination, Will’s real concern is with the fate of the hapless, charming lothario who he is certain has no ill intent but now faces the wrath of the badly behaved, deviously empowered woman with an axe to grind and a sympathetic, left-leaning government to help her grind it.
It’s garbage. But it’s not surprising. Will’s hysteria is a common and oft-repeated pattern of those who would preserve the status quo and the appearance of white, male dominated normalcy at any cost; just as women who demanded equal rights were once marginalized and dismissed as a small, vocal group of disgruntled malcontents; just as those who fought for an end to racial segregation were once branded as the minority in an otherwise content sub-culture of second class citizens. It’s that ever-present, all too common drone that has damned the world to so much misery and injustice for so long without change. On this issue, Will champions it shamefully.
My hope is that efforts like Will’s- ones which regrettably resemble the sad echo of mass group-think through the ages- will continue to falter, however improbably, because of a small group of thoughtful individuals who have simply had enough.
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Originally appeared at RogerCanaff.com
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Photo: AP
So if we use the more likely than not standard and they found that there was no sexual victimization, why wouldn’t that equate to a false accusation? Unless the college rules that there is a precisely 50% chance that sexual victimization has occurred then they’re saying that it’s more likely that it hasn’t occurred.
I had the privilege of studying under Mead in a serious of lectures many moons ago. She was a pioneer and brilliant. She was also wrong-alot- but she did move the question and the science of anthropology along. That in itself is quite an achievement. She brought forth questioning. Now, in this case, I believe she is correct. Whether she speaks of chimps or humans, small minority populations move society. Having said that, I agree with wellokythen. And we find that that is exactly how “leaders” today treat us. That the vast majority of us go along to get along.… Read more »
You have an interesting take on what MM meant with that quote (and you’re right- it’s been repeated multiple times; some dispute whether she actually said it). In any event, to be fair I don’t know much about Margaret Mead, but I have never read anything that would suggest that she intended that quote to carry the tone that you appear to have taken from it. In my mind, MM was not at all saying that the hapless masses needed to be led by white elitists or any elitists. In fact, I think she meant the opposite: Mead’s “small groups”… Read more »
You completely and utterly lost me at Margaret Mead. Didn’t think any half sane person took her seriously still. Next…
Interested to know why she’s dismissed so readily.
It’s bizarre that Will could think the situation he describes in his op-ed, where the woman clearly said no, is not rape. There are other issues he could have discussed, but failed to, such as the lack of due process on many campuses, and the need for law enforcement to handle crime rather than university officials. And if Will is concerned about rape allegations that are in fact unclear, why not instead reference the incident at Occidental College where a man was expelled, even after the police said no rape had happened, because the man had sex with a woman… Read more »
What Will lacks, as do most people, is a research-based understanding of the nature of sexual violence as it usually plays out. It usually plays out in non-stranger situations. It is almost always a predatory act- the idea that a man can ‘accidentally’ commit rape b/c of mis-communication or intoxication is largely baseless. As a myth, however, it’s a very useful tool for predatory offenders (which most are) who know exactly what they are doing with alcohol, bystander assistance (usually unknowing), manipulation, etc, etc. “Predatory” does not mean that every offender plans his offenses out weeks in advance from some… Read more »
Mead’s quote is elitist and condescending, but let’s say that it’s true. If only small groups of committed people can ever change the world, then there is no need for those leaders to speak to the rest of us in the unwashed masses. There is no need to seek wide readership or broadcast on the web or create mass demonstrations. No need for voting, no need for Twitter campaigns. The world-changing elite should not waste their time anymore preaching to the vast majority of us who are apparently incapable of improving society. In fact, if you are one of the… Read more »
I won’t try to answer to all of this, but I will share what I have carried with me from this quote (and it’s nothing to do with elite, I assure you.) We are ALL capable of changing the world. Every single one of us has the opportunity to join with the other few individuals who are committed to our particular desired change, therefore becoming part of one of those thoughtful and committed citizens. It is one area where we all have equal opportunity because we can all be thoughtful and committed. The reason, I think, that this resonated with… Read more »