We Are Addicted To Looking The Other Way
There’s a quote from the television program ‘24’ (aka Kiefer Sutherland’s return to glory) that’s always stuck with me:
You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that's all you're doing: Compromising, because that's the way you think things are done.
You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren't, they weren't bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised… once.
As COVID continues to ravage society on a global scale, many things that we’ve collectively decided to look the other way on are coming back to haunt us. As I continue on this path of transformation while retaining the knowledge and experiences obtained while formerly masquerading as male, it’s become equally clear there are far too many things that people look the other way on that aren’t in the news cycle every week.
One of the greatest fears of a transwoman is that you’ll never be regarded as truly female. Aside from JK Rowling’s fan club on Twitter, I’ve yet to be misgendered or disregarded, and part of that is being truly accepted by all of the people I’m fortunate enough to call friends. As part of that acceptance, I’ve progressed through yet another door, that of being privy to and included in those discussions which others never dare have with a male in the room.
After passing through that barrier, there was a fundamental shift in the social dynamic between myself and women I have known for a long time. That inner sanctum of the female lived experience, even though I’ve only been living it publicly for a few short months now. Some of those conversations have had a powerful impact on me, some in a positive way but sadly some in a very negative way.
There is a big misconception that once someone is equal in some fashion on paper in a piece of legislation filed away in parliament, then the matter of their treatment is society is closed and any further discussion on the matter is just ‘asking for special treatment’. There couldn’t be anything further from the truth, and sadly I think this speaks to broader human nature. Unless our five senses directly witness something, we have to place some level of trust in others relating their experiences, and that belief doesn’t come naturally, especially from dominant power structures fearful of societal myths being overturned.
The way in which society has compromised on this matter is best described by both the #MeToo movement and the film ‘The Assistant’. #MeToo is a fairly well known social movement catalyzed by the crimes of Harvey Weinstein finally being made public and acknowledged. The Assistant is a lesser known film about a fictional executive at a fictional film production company which is modelled on the circumstances that unfolded at Miramax. The composition and execution of the film are incredible, however the public reception has been polarized, due to the fact that those who have always existed in a dominant power structure are unable to pick up on the nuances.
If you check the public reviews of that movie, you are likely to find comments like ‘NOTHING HAPPENS’ and ‘YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST WATCH SOMEONE FILING PAPERS’. It is not a typical hollywood thriller, but an exploration of how banal and normalized Weinstein’s behaviour became in his workplace. When talking about high-profile predators, people often ask ‘how did all these people not know?’. The sickening truth is this: Everyone in his office knew. Some overtly covered for him, others didn’t, but it hung in the air like a noxious odour, and eventually people fearful of the repercussions convinced themselves nothing was wrong.
The other dirty open secret is that this kind of compromise happens regularly, it’s just far less publicized. There are predators operating in the open in society that we continue to look the other way on in multiple ways. Sometimes we tell ourselves that a court conviction is the only thing that justifies accusations. Other times we ignore evidence right in front of us for personal benefit, or that we just don’t want to believe it could happen in our communities.
There are predators in the psychedelic community who prey on others with the aid of plant medicine. There are predators in the legal cannabis industry who rely on their positions of power and the precarious nature of employment in the industry and at large with a global pandemic decimating the economy. There have been (and still are) predators in the cannabis activism community. While not quite at the level of ‘everyone knew’, people know. And yet people are largely silent.
Victims don’t want to be ostracized as troublemakers, or incur the wrath of those with privilege and power. This is understandable. Less understandable, are the excuses that are given from other people. We have an epidemic of excuses. These are not excuses borne from disbelief either, I have personally listened to people stating they fully believe a victim’s story and then following up with the Buts.
‘I would say something, but I’ll get sued.’ ‘I would say something, but that’s not how things are done.’ ‘I would say something, but it’ll make my social gatherings awkward.’
If this isn’t bad enough, I’ve also personally listened to victims who were brave enough to come forward being judged for it. Insinuating that if only the victim had a mentor, they wouldn’t be breaking all of these societal taboos and causing trouble for everyone. What this really means, of course, is grotesquely insulting. It means that if only that victim would submit to the system, the dominant power structure that enables the abuse, everything would be just fine.
In example after example, we view ‘progress’ as notorious individuals finally getting called out, and continue to pretend the system(s) aren’t the problem. The stories of the misdeeds of a well known cannabis activist were passed around for years and years, before publications finally chose to believe voices of bravery like Deidre Olsen and publish her account of sexual assault. There could not be a bigger example of ‘everyone knew’, and the system that enabled him is still in place. It still enables others.
And yet, this individual mentioned above is far from entirely excommunicated, and continues to spout transphobia and COVID conspiracy theories to many willing listeners. Even with those who acknowledge the fact, Deidre and others who speak up are placed in the category of ‘those feminists’. It’s not just the lecherous who make these comments, but some men who fall into the category of ‘good guys’. These men want to straddle the line, they want to cultivate the image of supporting the marginalized, but don’t want to cause any disturbances in their lives. They aren’t willing to put themselves in harm’s way, or risk any consequences befalling them. It is this hesitation which makes the eventual performative acts of ‘support’ all the more upsetting.
The harassment of Kaitlyn Dobler, the daughter of a cannabis industry executive is even more recent. I will dig in more deeply to the evils of capitalism later on, but needless to say the retail investor community sometimes referred to as ‘potstocks’ sits alongside the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars as being accurately described as a hive of scum and villainy.
Various Twitter interactions has shown potstocks to be populated by entitled toxic males, some opining that women should be comfortable with being sexually harassed in a retail setting or that addressing equity issues in the industry is just women ‘bringing social issues into the boardroom where they don’t belong’.
Kaitlyn’s harassment was not a sudden departure for the individual involved, nor was it the first time this individual’s bad behaviour was highlighted. Each time I had brought it up, it was dismissed with statements like ‘well he’s really a good guy!’. The good guys emerge from the woodwork as soon as a victim puts in the emotional labour, at which time the performative gestures start. These gestures are not made in support of the victim, but for the benefit of those making them.
Anthony Jeselnik is a fairly well known insult comic, and one of his stand-up specials is entitled ‘Thoughts and Prayers’, referring to the performative gestures that plague social media after a mass shooting. Jeselnik engages in remarkable candour towards the end of the special, particularly on the topic of performative statements in the wake of a tragedy :
When I post a tweet on the day of a tragedy, this is who I’m making fun of. The people who see something horrible happen in the world, and they run to their internet, their social media, their Facebook, their Twitter.
They post something like ‘My thoughts and prayers….’. Do you know what that’s worth? Fucking nothing. Less than nothing.
You are not giving any of your time, your money, or your compassion. All you are doing is saying : ‘Don’t forget about me today! Lots of crazy distractions happening in the news, but don’t forget about how sad I am!’
These people are worthless and deserve to be made fun of.
While Jeselnik is directly referring to tragedies that make the news, this is equally applicable to predators finally being exposed and the predictable performative statements after their victims have put in emotional labour. The instagram story with the soundbite-like text, the quote-tweet, the performative attempt to gain some attention from someone else’s victimization is worth less than nothing. I came across a good quote the other day about character is how you treat people who can’t do anything for you, and that’s equally applicable to how you behave with those people everyone knows about prior to their behaviour being made public. The people who look the other way when it matters are the bad guys.
These stories are shared in ‘whisper networks’, which in the modern age have sometimes turned into online spreadsheets as to who to avoid in a particular industry. Knowing these names, and consequently being able to avoid being traumatized is entirely dependent on being part of these networks. It would be akin to only knowing who is on the sex offender registry if you know the right people in your neighbourhood. It is just not good enough when we consider the damage that is being done in professional communities, to say nothing of the lifelong trauma victims have to endure.
There is also the issue of paternalism. The solution to all the issues with victims speaking truth to powerful abusers is not, as often happens, to have them quietly ousted behind the scenes. This takes away all agency from victims, and often puts their fate into the hands of others with power. Trauma becomes just another commodity in dominant power structures, and I can’t say wielding the trauma of others in this fashion is really all that much better or different than utilizing institutional power to perpetrate abuse.
Capitalism is the form of institutional power that most of us are familiar with, and the one that is largely responsible for the vast power imbalances that are the root of these issues. Those with capital are largely able to chart their own cases and often escape scrutiny, those without it often live in fear and subservience to those that do. The degree to which it’s become ingrained as the default mode of society became very clear to me during a recent conversation.
The conversation eventually landed on the anti-pipeline protests some months back and one of their core messages of anti-capitalism. I watched as someone opined that to be protesting capitalism, that group of people must be a bunch of communists crammed into a flop-house somewhere. Similar things have been said over and over of course, but when you hear it in real life from someone you know it makes a much bigger impact as far as how indoctrinated we’ve become.
Without derailing this piece too far into the definition of markets versus capitalism, there are alternatives to our current implementation that don’t involve mandating state ownership of companies or property. People addicted to capitalism often can’t help regard universal basic income as some kind of entry point for communism, but it’s rather the reverse. If society had a functioning UBI system, abusers would have a far less easier time masquerading as decent. If victims didn’t need to justify keeping silent by saying ‘I really need this job’, workplaces and society at large would be a much safer place. Instead, we prioritize capital over humanity, and the tyranny of the majority dismisses UBI by saying that paying taxes entitles them to decide who is worthy of compassion and decency.
The entrenched ideals of capitalism see abusers now at the helm of psychedelic companies, and those who compromised ethical behaviour for personal financial benefit in the cannabis industry now also in positions of power in psychedelics.
The insidious nature of capitalism is not only in its explicit properties, but in how easily it lures in people willing to compromise, just that one time. To join the proverbial old boys club, and the associated benefits such as revolving board appointments.
You can look at this phenomenon through many lenses, whether it’s as a power fantasy or as one of the explicit practices of colonialism. The power imbalance allows the dominant power structures to spread their influence and values, and those with the perceived ability to improve the all important bottom line are among the first to be the recipients of looking the other way. Technology has already had some #MeToo moments such as Susan Fowler finally being able to hold her abusers to account, however I fear that when it comes to cannabis and psychedelics, not only have those stories not yet been told, they are still unfolding with regularity, and that at most we’re 5-10 years away from the cannabis / psychedelics version of The Assistant being released.
We also have to look at how the privileged work, consciously or not, to gatekeep the experiences of the victims of this power imbalance. The science-fiction series Babylon 5 covers a lot of heady themes, one of which being how one of the things the powerful dislike most of all is being inconvenienced. After a tyrannical government was finally deposed, those privileged with regaining their freedoms now cast aspersions over the issues of convenience :
“So, morally I was right, but politically I'm inconvenient." "Inconvenient doesn't even begin to cover it. Now we have to clean up the mess.
“The bitch of it is that you probably did the right thing. But you did it in the wrong way, in the inconvenient way. Now you have to pay the penalty for that.”
Society at large prizes the convenience and comfort of dominant power structures. Even just calling attention to the fact that corporate leadership looks very white and male ruffles feathers, which is to say makes these dominant power structures uncomfortable. As extrajudicial murders are carried out by law enforcement against racialized populations, some fret that we are saying things in the wrong way, the inconvenient way. This does not just happen along the racial axis however, the latest rounds of transphobia from a UK author with immense power and privilege were sparked by inclusive language being used to cover both biological females and trans males.
The privileged have the luxury of ignoring the dark truths of human nature, as their existence isn’t brought into question on a daily basis. It is not overly surprising, then, that communities facing oppression can only help but view privileged activism as a farce, some other flavour of ‘thoughts and prayers’.
At a screening for the movie ‘DOSED’, a legal professional in the area of drug policy was asked what the average person can do to help move policy forward. Her answer was fairly blunt : ‘We need your bodies at protests.’ We see the same thing in the ongoing civil unrest today, that results happen not from hashtag activism but when the privileged put themselves in harm’s way.
Police reform, anemic as it may currently be, did not start because of a blacked out Instagram story or telling others to live their best lives. It began when the injustice was so severe that society at large decided it was worth possibly sacrificing their lives to a deadly disease in order to take to the streets, and make it known to those with power that someone must finally be held accountable.