The Supreme Court Justice in Waiting VS the Accusers
by John Lawrence, September 27, 2018
Today Christene Blasey Ford will emulate Zola and say "J'Accuse"! She accuses Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape. So do two other women. Now the dirty laundry will be aired in public. Stuff that for most men has been carefully hidden, especially if they're public figures, will be hashed over in a most astringent setting.
Marcuse nailed the problem when he talked about repressive desublimation. It seems that many people feel that they have to wear a mask in public; they have to present themselves to parents, teachers, nuns, priests and ministers as if they were choir boys, altar boys and boy scouts. They have to put on a most righteous face in public. But that's not who they really are. The more demanding the world seems to them, the more their true nature goes underground only to blast out when alcohol or drugs are consumed. Societal repression leads ultimately to a split personality.
Boys, who have aspirations of being high public officials, must present the choir boy image in public and back it up with a stellar academic and athletic record. Gatekeepers like college admission officers and future employers are going to sniff over their records to see who are the most promising. What happens in private, at alcohol fueled house parties and other hidden venues, should never come to light. But the #MeToo movement has changed all that. Human behavior - in particular male behavior - has come out into the light of day and it turns out that we're really animals after all.
In his book Eros and Civilization, Marcuse deals with humans' erotic nature and how that is repressed by society. However, this erotic nature cannot just be eliminated. Forced underground, it manifests itself in a split personality. There is the personality that is presented to the public and the personality that comes out to play in supposedly private settings that have plausible deniability. Today we shall see Kavanaugh plausibly deny accusations by a woman who is bringing his repressively desublimated behavior to light.
