First off, I don't know if Woody Allen abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and nor do you. I only know what I am inclined to believe and what the reasons are. Those reasons are, in fact, opinions. Some are to do with this particular case, some with the way that victims of abuse are routinely dismissed, some with the way Hollywood operates. Some are to do with the films he makes – the texts themselves – and some with the context: the context in which so many perpetrators walk free. That context is changing.
When the custody battle between Farrow and Allen took place in 1992, social media was not around. Right now online, especially on Twitter, many people are absolutely certain that Allen is guilty. Just as they are absolutely certain that Amanda Knox is guilty, just as they will be absolutely certain that what I am saying here is wrong. There is not a lot of nuance in Hashtag Justice. There is a hashtag #IBelieveDylanFarrow.
I hesitate (just slightly) to write again about social shaming as an increasingly prevalent method of enacting mob justice. But I thought this case provided an opportunity to share a parallel example of a legal point of view -- the infamous Dreyfus Affaire, in which a French Jewish artillery officer was railroaded by a corrupt justice system because people were so certain he was guilty of his alleged crime (espionage). Evidence was falsified and secret court proceedings were held to accommodate the feelings of the masses. As Emile Zola argued in his own open letter to a newspaper, "J'accuse":
“Above all beware of this line of the reasoning . . . : ‘It is possible that Dreyfus was convicted illegally, but it was justly done; that is enough.’ . . . It is a serious error. . . . See to it that the supremacy of the law is undisputed, and through the law rid our hearts of this respect for reasons of state that is absurd in a democracy.”
What Zola is describing is the very definition of a kangaroo court -- picking an outcome, and then coming up with a procedure that will guarantee this outcome. Zola was arguing against this method of justice because we will almost never be able to determine "the truth" with absolute certainty. Since we will almost never know (or agree) about who should be punished, why, and how much, our only hope is to ensure that we follow fair procedures for determining guilt. In the United States this idea is enshrined in the Due Process clause of the Constitution, which guarantees that nobody shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of the law. There is no constitutional guarantee that the justice system accurately identify wrongdoers or uniformly dispense justice for the simple reason that it would be impossible to do so. But we are seeing a resurgence of the idea that mob justice can be real justice. This is why the Dreyfus Affaire is perhaps more relevant now than ever. As Adam Gopnik argues in his review of Louis Begley's, “Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters”:
It showed that a huge number of Europeans, in a time largely smiling and prosperous, liked engaging in raw, animal religious hatred, and only felt fully alive when they did. Hatred and bigotry were not a vestige of the superstitious past but a living fire—just what comes, and burns, naturally.
Sound familiar? It reminded me of this comment from yesterday's post:
It's important to delineate sociopathic impulses and "emotional overload". Sociopathic impulses have a basis on having a lack of emotional barriers (ie. regret, grief, and remorse) which would typically inhibit/prevent fulfilling the impulse. Emotional overload have a basis on overwhelming rational barriers (ie. logic, situational awareness).
So I understand why sociopaths can be scary -- we don't have any of the emotional barriers. But empaths can be scary too, especially when their emotional sense of right and wrong overwhelms rational barriers.
The difference between the "Dreyfus Affair" and the accusations
ReplyDeletedirected against Woody Allen, is that Dreyfus was just a nameless
powerless victim of antisemitism (Like Leo Frank) while Woody Allen
is a popular, powerful and beloved celeberity.
Children are the most vulnerable members of society, and it's highly
unlikely that a 7 year old girl would construct fantasies about a
"relationship" with such a devestingly handsome man as Woody Allen.
Given Mr. Allen's track record-the content of his films-the prior
accusations of "cradel robbing' and marriage to his adopted daughter,
I would employ the old addage: "If it looks like a duck, if it walks like a
duck. if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck!" Where there's smoke, there's
fire!
The only thing that might give me pause is Mia Farrow. Long known to
be a cookcoo bird she is not to be trusted herself. Her "adopted" son
Rownan looks very much like former husband Frank Sinatra.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," so it's possible that some
"coaching" might have ocurred.
Can we stick to the facts: "marriage to his adopted daughter". Soon-Yi was not Allen's adopted daughter, nor was she his step-daughter. She was the adopted daughter of Farrow and her ex-husband Andre Previn.
DeleteDo you think Woody is a psychopath? A Narcissist? Or just neurotic? It's hard to know what to believe but the daughter's claims ring true. I didn't think there was any Statute of Limitations on child sex abuse, wonder why she doesn't just take legal action against him. Surprising that the New York Times blogger ran the open letter, US dafamation laws seem quite lax.
Child testimony, even in hindsight at a much older age, is notoriously unreliable. A child's brain has yet to develop to a point where it can store and recall authentic memories reliably. Imagination, suggestibility, and the brain's unreliable ability to separate and organize these thoughts has been studied significantly the past couple decades. If anything, a child *is* highly likely to construct fantasies of a so-called relationship. This is undisputed fact in child psychology. It is also undisputed in many legal jurisdictions, where child testimony must be collected under very strict conditions - not only for the "child's safety" as publicly reported and in some jurisdictions protected, but in reality because of this phenomenon (which is never reported or noted in the news because alienation of alleged child victims would be damaging to the media, regardless of whether it was true or false).
DeleteFrom Vanity Fair: Another neighbor, the novelist Philip Roth, says, “Mia has a conscience as big as the Ritz. She is one of those people who can’t bear to be in the presence of human suffering without acting on her feelings.” He adds, “If she wasn’t a lapsed Catholic, I would say she was the best Catholic.” Roth is attracted to her “utter lack of ostentatiousness” and her intelligence. “And I do not suppose I am the first man to think this.”
ReplyDeleteSo Mia, it would seem, is an empath. Her brother is a convicted child molester. Extremes of light and dark seem to emerge from certain families.
It reminds me of all the accused on death row - who have committed no crime to deserve this . Mob justice and falsified evidence is the scary shit. Good read.
ReplyDeleteGood post, M.E.
ReplyDeleteWhat irritates me is that people are bagging on Cate Blanchett now like she didn't deserve her Golden Globe. For one thing, the letter was released after the Golden Globes. Secondly, most people don't investigate their employer to see if he's a child molester before taking the job, so why should she? Because she's rich and all the redundant social justice bloggers hate rich, white people? It's hypocritical to expect her to discredit herself from the film and make some sort of public statement about it, because she has nothing to do with it and most people wouldn't deny themselves of something they earned just because someone they worked with may have done something to his step daughter 11 years prior. If she wants to disassociate herself from him and all his work, fine. But it is unfair to expect her to.
ReplyDeleteevil is done by people who never make up thier minds to be good or evil
ReplyDeleteAnything concerning children is now so overwrought that there can be said to be crimes worse than murder-certainly a child abuser can be released, but the hate that will follow him is such that the real punishment is the revocation of the offenders status as a human being. The Bulger case in the UK has lessons, two disturbed children killed a younger child-after a period of imprisonment they where released, but clearly the baggage was such that one of the now adult killers was caught with child porn-in the outcry and rage an innocent father of 4 was driven from his home and job over and over-all because of a similarity to a court officials name-we now have lynch mob mentality and they are hyper primed to become rabid if a child is involved-I think the case could be made that false accusations in such an area amount to soul murder-socially and spiritually the results are catastrophic, and innocence will offer no protection from the self righteous empathic mob.(Also in the UK the illiterate mob burnt down a pediatricians office, on one of its emotion fueled quests.).
ReplyDeleteSecrecy is one of evil's most powerful weapons. Free speech that is upsetting is very different than trolls inciting a mob. The rich and famous typically are insulated from consequences in a way that the average citizen is not. I suspect that this extreme letter has everything to do with that dynamic. Sexual abuse is an inflammatory topic. But not talking about it doesn't make it go away. There's been enough of a whisper campaign to merit this issue coming to a head, and this letter was designed to do that because other channels have not yielded results. This is very different than social media bullying.
ReplyDeleteBut making it public can be seen as damaging and compounding problems, creating a state of victim-hood that can cripple a life as much as the initial abuse itself.
DeleteIt already was public- but this time the victim spoke with her own voice. Up until now this has been a typical "scorned woman" creating drama situation by using her daughters situation as a platform for expressing her own grievances. Because the privacy of all parties was violated long ago, I actually think having the accuser speak directly is the only way any resolution will happen here.
DeleteGood point on secrecy Mach. You have children, what's your gut instinct on this?
DeleteThe accuser responding directly is flawed due to two reasons:
Delete1) It is what the mobs wants. Since what the mob wants is flawed, it is fulfilling a flawed desire. Coupled with the unique nature of mob mentality, this leads to #2.
2) It will only reinforce the mob's flawed response. It is typical when an accuser directly speaks that instead of acting as a counter-weight, it counts against them. No matter what is said. This is because it mob mentality strongly rejects anything that opposes #1.
The only reliable way to counter the mob is to diffuse it, and the only way to do that is to stop additional instigation (unless people or the media - a third-party - is instigating beyond your control) and let it disperse naturally ("burn itself out", because people have finite memories).
This is made even more difficult by the nature of online social media. You have many instigators that keep stoking the flames, multiplied by mainstream media. The classical colloquialism is "a witch-hunt", and in reality it accurately stems from the original use. A popularized satirical version can be seen and understood by watching the epitomal scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (which you can see on youtube).
Given the length of time between the accusations and response I actually don't think it's what the mob "wants". Sure they love drama, but the attention span is so short within pop culture that this was not the only thing going on.
DeleteI respectfully disagree with you that Dylan speaking for herself was harmful because it only reinforces the mob's response. Perhaps there has been a growing sense of collective distrust and/or loathing because of these accusations, but Woody Allen has experienced no legal blowback for these criminal allegations.
Since the victim finally speaks there is an opportunity for this unsavory situation to come to a head. Allen may find himself in court- in which case he will either clear his name or experience legal consequences. Both would clear the air that this situation has fouled.
As for my being a mother- obviously I have a visceral reaction to the idea of predatory pedophiles. But I also understand that kids do have very vivid imaginations and are highly suggestible. The one thing I do know is that it's extremely rare for a child to maintain a story like this over a period of time unless there is something to it, even if hazy memory has distorted the original events.
What speaks to me louder than all the rhetoric is Woody Allen's lack of compassion towards his obviously distressed daughter. He seems to have a pattern of dropping people that displease him. While this may be a necessarily harsh way of dealing with static, I would have hoped that his daughter might merit enough special consideration for some reconciliation/resolution to have been sought from the Woody Allen camp.
No such luck. Whether or not he abused Dylan, Allen sucks as a dad. In the end, his lack of ability to reconstruct a burned bridge with his troubled child is what has kept this gossip "newsworthy" beyond the time period of Allen's bitter divorce from Farrow. For that reason, I'm not terribly interested in giving him a carte blanche to ignore the past at his daughter's expense.
This was in regards to the "twitter mobs", not the mainstream public opinion.
DeleteBy the way, an interviewer/counselor/psychologist can easily influence recollections by inappropriate using close-ended questions. Much of the time, the interviewer is doing so unknowingly.
DeleteAlso, is it fair to shut him out because he wasn't a good parent (by not good I do not necessarily mean bad, just not significantly positive). The reason I mention this is because typically when someone constructs a statement of "denying carte blanche to ignore X", in reality they aren't just denying full freedom but freedom altogether.
The real issue is there isn't sufficient evidence to properly judge. There is more than enough reasonable doubt (defined as "with using reason" instead of number/size of proof) to not be able to prove. Due to the severity of the accusations, it would be improper for everyone to pass any judgment whatsoever. At the moment, until evidence can actually be seen, proponents are currently operating under frontier justice.
frontier justice would be a lynch mob that Woody Allen's celebrity seems to protect him from.
DeleteFirst off, his celebrity status hasn't protected him. If anything it has exacerbated it, because of his popularity. Second, the lynch mob does exist - it is the twitter mob mentioned. It is the primary complaint of the article.
DeleteHe's not in prison. If he could not afford a top defense team and did not also command a lot of personal respect, I think that we might've seen this case go to trial back in the early 90's. In that sense it has protected him.
DeleteAs for the twitter mob (also the comment section of any article about this) - Allen is vilified- but with little focus- he's the scapegoat du jour and there appears to be little or no further damage that a twitter mob could create given how long this situation has existed. If it was a newer situation and twitter was the primary driver of this story, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But this situation has legs with or without twitter.
There doesn't need to be a legal punishment. Allen will always now be known as a child abuser my one too many people. It will affect his reputation.
DeleteRemember this is about manipulation and narrow-mindedness of views. Potential jury members will already be inappropriately swayed even before the selection process. Due to his popularity - the notion of being known by the populace - the slant is disseminated amongst too many people. As ME can tell you, it is never about convincing the judge, and everything about convincing the members of the jury. In this case, non-evidence related to his guilt is already preprocessed before any charges, nevermind trial.
this is why attorneys get to select their juries.
DeleteBoth lawyers get to use peremptory challenge, and the number of times you can challenge jurors off is limited. If the slant is prevalent among the populace due to a person's popularity, the challenges will not be enough.
DeleteAllen isn't even Dylan's real father. It's clear she has abandonment issues regarding her real father when despite all of her resentment towards Allen she STILL refers to him as her father. That's sort of strange to me. If it's not because she has daddy issues from her real father that she's projecting onto Allen, then it could very well be that she says things like "I thought it was the way fathers doted on their daughters" in her letter just to make the situation more dramatic. Isn't it interesting that she thought his behavior towards her was normal? It seems she didn't have her real father to compare him to. A part of me wonders if she's doing all this in hopes her real father will finally come to her side.
Deletei never wonder if i'm a bad man
ReplyDeletebecause this world needs bad men
I believe her. As someone who has experienced what it is like to have the tribe unable to come to terms with the evil actions of one of its honored members- I understand how she decided to advocate for herself- no one else would. It gets to a point where you have already been so dismissed by the forces of "sweep it under the rug" that you can feel like you have nothing to loose. Everyone already abandoned you and are playing along with the big lie. I am sure there are plenty more people who have witnessed this side of Woody Allen- Mr. Whatever Works. Well guess what Woody- pedophilia might work for you, but there might be consequences.
ReplyDeleteYou still need evidence. As in something that proves it happened. It is inappropriate to discard "innocent until *proven* guilty" for some people because it is emotionally inconvenient.
DeleteSince religion has been the topic the last few days, I think one of the verses of the Bible applies to Allen's demise. It reads "everything that is hidden - will come to light."
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake - it comes to us all, and no one escapes.
-except those that do. Because plenty do. This isn't a failure of God, but a failure of Humans in general.
DeleteThe exposure could be in the mind and soul of the perpetrators resulting in strange behaviors.
DeleteThat is a flawed premise. What if they were hallucinating? Delusional? What if it never happened?
DeleteIt has to be true first before it can be exposed. The Bible speaks a lot in numerous ways regarding false witness.
I'm fully aware of false witness's but my comment was based on the perpetrator's knowing guilt.
DeleteYou are operating under the assumption that Allen is already guilty. He isn't. That's the point of the blog post.
DeleteAllen has shown questionable behavior and my comment was more of a blanket statement, not proven guilt. His "demise" is a result of his blatant behavior.
DeleteThe light is about revealing the hidden truth. It is not about the truth of potential demise but truth of guilt (or evil). It has nothing to do with revealing questionable/blatant behavior, because that is not hidden. It also can not be about demise, because in this context a demise comes after revelation of guilt. In this case, his demise because "he is guilty, and he'll received justice/retribution for it."
DeleteOr, to quote what you just said, "...my comment was based on the perpetrator's knowing guilt."
The fact that you also state it is not about proven guilt is disturbing.
I think God decides the definition of "light;" not you. Also, his timing of such light is perfect.
DeleteIt's not God's use I am concerned with as it is pre-eminent. It was yours.
DeleteYesterday and today it seems like "empaths" are seen as wildly out-of-control emotional beings that react at the drop of a hat to what is going on around them. But that's not the definition of empathy. Empathy means being able to recognize emotions in others. It doesn't mean acting on those emotions. If you choose to react it suggests that you are able to reciprocate appropriately to the perceived emotion.
ReplyDeleteI think that the mob mentality and public shaming is a result of the lack of emotional maturity in an individual's development. With children, one day "Jimmy" is the bad guy, everyone puts him down, then next week it's someone else and everyone has forgotten about Jimmy. Social media and the internet has just made it easier for adults to show their lack of emotional maturity than in the past.
The mob mentality of emotional immaturity is not just seen in public shaming or when someone does something "wrong". It's also seen when a public figure dies. I remember as a child when John Lennon died. I couldn't understand why people were so distraught over someone they didn't know personally. I get that he was an icon, it was very sad and tragic, but how can you cry and get so worked up about someone you never met? I can see the same thing when Nelson Mandela died. He was a remarkable person, but I can't see getting physically upset about someone I didn't know or ever meet.
An emotionally mature person reacts not just with the appropriate emotion, but with the appropriate degree of emotion and in an appropriate context.
MelissaR
Mob mentality isn't based on the individual at all. Even the most rational and compassionate people get caught in it.
DeleteTo put simply, it is biology.
Mob mentality is an evolutionary anachronism that stems back to group/herd mentality. Specifically protectionism and co-operation at an instinctual level. The anachronism still in place in modern humans has been studied in great detail for quite a number of years.
Mob mentality stimulates regions of the brain which bolsters the aforementioned "emotional overload". The waves become amplified by mutual reinforcement from members of the group, bypassing rational control due to evolutionary circuitry. This is why you will never see a "rational mob", because even a large group of erudites end up having their rational control bypassed by the evolutionary phenomenon.
It has nothing to do with emotional maturity, and everything to do with natural evolution.
As an addendum, this mentality is so prevalent that it applies to other group activities, such as task forces and dedicated teams. After a while a group of people, despite differences of opinion, begin to narrow their observations, limiting their outlooks. It is commonplace to introduce an outsider - who has not been affected by being exposed to the group - to provide "a fresh perspective". This is not because the outsider is particularly insightful or intelligent, but because they have not been affected by this. Corporations and law enforcement use outsiders to great effect, specifically because they recognize this phenomenon.
DeleteIt sounds like what you just said stems from a lack of evolution, or, lack of emotional maturity.
ReplyDeleteMelissaR
Based on? As I noted, mob mentality is an anachronism *from* evolution. I also noted that emotional maturity is irrelevant - that even the most mature person is affected by it - because biologically there exists a bypass which overwhelms rational behavior. To quote what I already said:
Delete"It has nothing to do with emotional maturity, and everything to do with natural evolution."
The Dreyfus Affair, and how the Jews just won't let it drop, is frightening. It shows that they have the same tribal passions of the past, despite living in prosperous, safe times where they have vastly disproportionate power relative to their small numbers.
ReplyDeletehuh? the Jews won't let it drop? do you refer to all groups that way? "the" blacks? "the" gays?
DeleteThat reminds me personally of all of the falsely accused with passing away strip -- who have determined no crime in order to ought to get this kind of. Mafia proper rights and also falsified proof may be the intimidating shit.
ReplyDelete