Since the 1970s, Americans assiduously avoid anything that might smack of harassment, even at the risk of forgoing promising friendships and the joys of flirtation. Like men of an earlier decade-though for very different reasons-they are preternaturally wary of missteps. I find this depressing. The Puritans had a sound theological basis for restricting their desires and those of others. But today’s conformists have no such story to tell.
Who are these Americans “assiduously avoiding anything that might smack of harassment?” Not Mark Foley. Or Bob Packwood. Or David Letterman. Or Eric Massa. Or Bill Clinton. Or, allegedly, Bill O’Reilly, and Clarence Thomas, and on and on and on. I was going to include Roman Polanski on this list, but of course he’s not American, so presumably he’s more open to the “joys of flirtation.” As to Judt’s claim that “the Puritans had a sound theological basis for restricting their desires and those of others,” I’d actually argue that the right of women and men to go to work and school without being followed into supply closets, sexted, fondled, or being made to feel that their success or acceptance is dependent on their sexuality is a sounder basis for “restriction” than the Judeo-Christian notion of an afterlife, which Judt says he doesn’t believe in.
Based on the rest of his essay, though, I’m not sure Judt would find the above argument convincing. He also writes,
Why should I not close my office door or take a student to a play? If I hesitate, have I not internalized the worst sort of communitarian self-censorship-anticipating my own guilt long before I am accused and setting a pusillanimous example for others? Yes: and if only for these reasons I see nothing wrong in my behavior.
Presumably here Judt is defending not actual harassment but behavior that might cause others to suspect him of harassment. Still, he seems to believe that it’s his moral duty to push the boundaries of propriety because those boundaries themselves are a particularly deadening kind of No Fun. This argument is far from new. Ever since workplaces instituted sexual harassment policies, and ever since feminists started advocating against misogynistic jokes and language, opponents have complained that these limitations on what they do and say destroy something about American culture — something free and lively and wonderful, something Fun. These opponents usually forget that the old ways weren’t Fun for everyone.
Judt’s take on early-sixties sexuality shows he understands some un-Fun aspects of the past (like girdles). What he doesn’t seem to get is that a notional time when Men were Men and went after what they wanted wasn’t especially great for women who wanted something other than those men. Judt writes that “We-the left, academics, teachers-have abandoned politics to those for whom actual power is far more interesting than its metaphorical implications. Political correctness, gender politics, and above all hypersensitivity to wounded sentiments (as though there were a right not to be offended): this will be our legacy.” But to those who once had no “actual power” at all, “political correctness, gender politics, and above all hypersensitivity” feel more like “having a voice.”
Has this voice come at the cost of fewer closed doors, fewer theater invitations? Undoubtedly it has. Has it come at the cost of a less “free” working environment? Perhaps for some — but for others, the ability to go to school or work without what Judt calls “the joys of flirtation” may be a greater freedom. Yang writes that Judt’s voice has been diminished to “a hoarse whisper” by his illness — in one very literal way, he no longer speaks from a position of privilege. But his memories are colored by past privilege — he implies that his status as “chairman of the History Department at New York University-where I was also the only unmarried straight male under sixty” made him uniquely vulnerable to sexual harassment claims, but doesn’t acknowledge that this was in large part because of his relative power. Perhaps this doesn’t seem like “actual power” to him — and given that he’s a leftist academic in the early 21st century, it’s hard to blame him. But the power to fight back against unwanted sexual attention, to demand a workplace in which one is judged on work and not attractiveness, and to expect a certain level of respect in the speech of one’s colleagues —- these are “actual powers,” and Judt would do well to acknowledge them.
Image via Sears Catalog.
Girls! Girls! Girls! [NYRBlog]
The Liveliest Mind In New York [New York Magazine]
