Editorial: Monsters can be destroyed.

Weinstein was not the first. We could, and should, see the last.

“My mommy always said there were no monsters – no real ones – but there are.”

“Yes, there are, aren’t there?”

“Why do they tell little kids that?”

“Most of the time it’s true.” 

Aliens, 1986

Scapegoats serve a function. Traditionally, they allow any culture to eradicate its worst behavior — behaviors that the culture feels they will be punished for. This transfer of sin onto the flesh of a visible sacrifice provides catharsis from the most ancient cultures to our current information age. It provides a small moment in which the contradictions any culture lives with can be viscerally resolved. And yet, scapegoats keep being placed on an eternal altar. History, alas, seems perpetually doomed to repeat itself.

Harvey Weinstein will not be the last scapegoat sacrificed on the altar. In his wake, it seems this may now be a historically rarer system purge. Yet human culture seems to have a thing for repetition compulsion. Intellectuals often spend time on cultural tragedies asking how these things can happen. The real question is, given what we know of human nature and history, why don’t they happen more often?

The chilling answer, especially for our community, is that the worst we can do does happen. Often. Weinstein and others may now be purged. The ability of an ensconced few to lure young people into hotel rooms with vague promises of career advancement in return for the opportunity to be physically and mentally degraded may now be attenuated, if not ended. 

The way to bet, however, is that a similar meeting with a shadowy person granted money and power is taking place, as you read this, right now. Somewhere, a person without power but with dreams and aspiration, like most of us human beings, faces a loaded proposition that may advance their deepest wishes but will exact a scarring price.

UNC students, graduate, undergraduate and professional, but also assistant professors, administrators, athletes and others, are all vulnerable to this. But so too are all workers short on power but long on hope. That the powerful not always but too often leave a vile mark on the rise or even bare survival of the powerless is nothing new. It does not have to be this way.

For this to stop, dear choices must be made. UNC often marks the start of a life path, of careers that help create a greater good. That a bright future must be crawled toward from a coerced sexual experience in any instance is an abomination to the act of sex itself. Roaches, however, scurry from light. That light should be made to burn this scourge from our collective future. Scavengers zig, zag and hide in corners and behind objects, but they can and with due diligence must be crushed. The good news, as has been demonstrated in the last few weeks, is that it has never been easier to band together against these stains on humanity. 

This board offers one caveat. Playmakers gave us a stirring rendition of The Crucible last season. The potential for the current storm of allegations to turn into a vindictive court of social media and news must be acknowledged. The due process which protects all citizens must be given patience. Otherwise, grave injustice may occur. At any rate, what can stop all this is not judicial. It is cultural. Chances are, abusers model themselves after other abusers whom they see as successful. The pull toward models of this nature must be interrupted with help from all. All must be constantly reminded of their human allegiance to the practices of courtesy and empathy towards others in all realms. It is common parameters of conduct adhered to in the social realm that ameliorate the need for judicial retribution.

The scapegoat is meant to account for past sin. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of Weinstein, Cosby and the infinite rest assignable here is that only when their power waxes are people willing to quicken the inevitable path to irrelevance perpetrators trace. That can, and should, be reversed. Be part of the refusal, not the reveal. Monsters are not born. They grow, just like any other living thing, with nourishment and succor. Crush them. Deny their feeding. Only then can the altar necessary for the scapegoat be smashed.