The difficulty with rape, is getting past the emotional wave of horror and revulsion, to ask “how are such acts possible in this or any civilized society?”  The #Me Too movement is not new.  Women have lived under the threat, and some have suffered from this manner of violence for 2000 years and longer.

The murder of George Floyd, a Black man,  by officer Derek Chavin on May 25th of this year was an event that caused a shudder not only for me, but certainly for nearly every Black citizen of the country.  Blacks have understood, that it is “open season” upon them, for all manner of abuse by white people with power, since their ancestors were brought to this country as slaves.  A war to end slavery and the passage of many laws to end Jim Crow, to desegregate, etc.  have not made a fundamental difference.

How to explain a society regulated by Normative ethics, an ideal measurement of proper behavior, that in fact subscribes to a raw exercise of force, of brutality — when it comes to Blacks, and when it comes to women in certain situations?  How does the Golden Rule recede so far into the rear view mirror that a police officer slowly, deliberately and with nonchalance murders a Black man in public view?  Do we recall the Golden Rule, a minimum standard of civility, of decency?  Act toward everyone else, as you’d desire to be treated…

How is the axis of normative ethics shifted, twisted?  Control the context and you rotate the needle of the normative, what is considered right and wrong…  An officer-of-the-law in uniform, or a socially prominent, financially powerful white male in a suit, well, “boys will be boys” etc..  Power tilts the balance of right and wrong toward the one with power.

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The fact remains that since improvement in performance increases the ability to produce proof, it also increases the ability to be right.

…in postindustrial societies the normativity of laws is replaced by the normativity of procedures.*

“Context control,”

in other words, performance improvement won
at the expense of the partner or partners constituting that context
(be they “nature” or men/women), can pass for a kind of legitimation.

De facto legitimation.

… since reality is what provides the evidence used as proof,,,,
and also provides prescriptions and promises of a juridicial, ethical,
and political nature with results, one can master all of these games
by mastering “reality”

*Niklas Luhmann, Legitimation durch Verfabren, 1969

— excerpt, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
by Jean-François Lyotard p. 47

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Finally a quotation from Cicero’s defense of Gnaeus Plancius in 54 B.C. Plancius was prominent politician accused of rape:

“You say that he raped an actress,” Cicero told the court. “And this is said to have happened at Atina, while he was quite young.”

There was a low, subdued chuckle from the crowd. They were all men — women weren’t allowed inside the courtroom — most from the town of Atina themselves. They’d made the 80-mile trip to support a man they respected, whom they believed had been unfairly accused.

His name was Gnaeus Plancius, and in the year 54 B.C., he was one of the most powerful men in Rome.

It was more than 2,000 years before the #MeToo movement, but a scene similar to the ones we’ve witnessed so often lately was already playing out. A prominent politician was on trial for corruption and bribery, charges bolstered by dirt his enemies had dug up from his past: the violent sexual assault of a young girl.

To read the entire article by Mark Oliver about the trial of Gnaeus Plancius CLICK HERE.