Polanski and Kennedy

@ fsilber: smashing taboos?

By: teaspoon | Fri, 10/02/2009 - 09:04

as noble as you try to make him sound, he wasn't smashing a cultural taboo. he was smashing the free will and choice of an innocent 13 year old child who repeatedly said no.

Yep

By: patron002 | Fri, 10/02/2009 - 08:47

This post hits it on the head. Only a decidely disturbing person could believe that a person should be pardoned from jail because "I did good things, I suffered boohhooo So since I suffered I shouldn't be punished for druggind and raping a child, or leaving a woman to die after I drove drunk, because I was afraid for my political career.

You have to remember

By: fsilber | Fri, 10/02/2009 - 06:37

You have to remember that this was the 1970s, and pedophilia was just one of many sexual taboos that the cultural elite gloried in smashing. Polanski was unfortunate in the 1977 was the year that the opposition made its stand against child porn, and poured into the child-exploitation issue all of their pent-up anger and frustration at not being able to do anything about pornography and sexual sin in general.

@You Know

By: Vville222 | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 21:41

Ok, I understand better what you were saying. So, if a person does one really bad thing in his life, is he then a "bad guy"? In my mind, the answer is pretty much yes, and he must then do quite a lot to overcome it.

If you've ever read "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad you might see Kennedy in that book. Jim takes one small action in the heat of a crisis, a cowardly leap, which haunts him for the rest of his life. (Coincidentally, it also involves leaving people to drown, except in the novel they do not drown.)

Kennedy showed at Chappaquiddick that he could not be counted on to do the right thing in a moment of crisis. (BTW, his actions were not simply those of a man in shock. He hid the incident for over 10 hours, and confessed only when the car was discovered by divers.)But I am willing to see his subsequent remorse and tireless work as a partial redemption.

In Polanski's case there is no argument for redemption, which may explain the frustration many of us feel. It is clear that justice was not served, and time doesn't change the need for a public resolution of the matter. And this may be priggish of me, but I've never really wanted to see any of his movies since this happened.

False Equivalent

By: vim876 | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 19:29

Let me get this straight. Roman Polanski knowingly drugged a 13-year-old girl and then raped her and sodomized her against her will. Ted Kennedy drunkenly drove a car off a bridge, and left the scene, probably in severe shock and terrified authorities would discover the level of alcohol in his blood. You are saying they are the same? Kennedy should have been booked for drunk driving and probably done some time. That does not mean that his actions are equivalent to those of a rapist pedophile.

Did I come across as implying

By: you know it is | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 18:43

Did I come across as implying I doubted her account? I certainly didn't mean to, because I don't. I was just trying to answer Emily's question about why people do this. I suspect it's a partly inborn heuristic to label people as "good guys" and "bad guys", because probably that was a good enough strategy throughout much of human evolutionary history. Appreciating the much more complicated reality doesn't come naturally and takes active deliberate consideration. It's the sort of thing you have to spend a fair bit of time thinking about, and you (or at least, I do) have to intentionally apply it in everyday life to counteract the oversimplification that happens automatically.

In short, I'd say our moral instincts about others are too simple to deal with the complex reality of human psychology, and I "blame" evolution, which favors good-enough heuristics (i.e. "cheats") over full-fledged complete solutions to problems.

@You Know

By: Vville222 | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 18:16

I think the problem here is that some are trying desperately to get beyond the good guy/bad guy dichotomy in a case where many of us see a clear wrong that was not righted (because the perpetrator fled.) If you haven't already done this, read the grand jury transcripts. You can read them here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskia1.html
In my opinion, they show that Polanski planned and committed rape of a 13 year old girl.

I think a classification more

By: you know it is | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 16:11

I think a classification more complex than good-guy/bad-guy is just too demanding for standard-issue human moral intuition.

parallels

By: Vville222 | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 15:44

I agree with your assessment - the parallels between these two recent events is disturbing. And it shows that liberals can be just as unprincipled as conservatives. But the Polanksi uproar takes defending the indefensible to a whole new level.

Though the Chappaquiddick tragedy was glossed over by many giving Kennedy eulogies, there was an acknowledgment that he was a flawed character. The extent of criminality in Kennedy's actions is a little more open to question, and in the end Kennedy did seem to truly regret his actions on that night.

On the other hand, Polanski planned and committed rape. Nor have any of his actions since indicated remorse; in fact he continued to pursue much younger women. Ironically, the reaction of the Hollywood crowd may have the exact opposite of the desired effect by spurring the general populace to a higher level of righteous indignation.