When the Overton window is a view of the swamp

Scrolling the socials last week, I came across a video clip of a random podcaster (a young male I didn’t recognize) taking a call from someone I presume was a listener, and the caller (another man) was asking the host, somewhat combatively, what exactly was wrong with what Jeffrey Epstein did. To his credit, the host was stunned into silence. Before he was able to formulate an answer, I closed out of the app and declared enough internet for the day. So, this is where we are.

Over the last few years, I have worked hard to keep current events in perspective. I am one person, and I am humble enough to know that I alone cannot fix it. I do what I can to encourage the outcome I believe is best for everyone, and I try to let go of the rest. Lately, I have been finding that difficult. I have been ruminating on my perception of humanity.

Until recently, my belief was that humans are inherently good and our unhealed pain is the cause of all the harm we do to each other. I believed that evil did not exist. During the time I needed it most, this belief helped me to see the people who hurt me as humans in pain. Believing that made it possible for me to forgive them for what they did and to let go of the burden of anger I was holding onto. It didn’t require me to embrace them back into my life, but letting go of the idea that they were evil released me from the task of fighting them. The idea that evil did not exist helped me on the scale of my small life, but my brain cannot seem to reconcile the amount of harm that has been perpetrated on the larger scale with the lack of accountability or even acknowledgement from those with the power to do so. There is not enough pain in the world to warrant this atrocious treatment of children. Evil must exist for these men to do what they do. What other explanation is there? I’ve been thinking I might need to pick up a sword.

I talked through it with my therapist this week. I told her I was questioning my beliefs about good and evil, and she pointed out that I was granting these men a lot of power if they were able to change my ideology. She’s right. F*ck if I’m going to let a man change how I think. Thank God for therapy.

So instead of accepting the existence of evil, I started thinking about the role of power and why someone might desire so much of it. It might be for the exact reason my therapist hypothesized. If you have enough power to shape ideology, you can convince others that your immoral behaviors are acceptable. Instead of believing you are a bad person, you can use your power to change what “bad” is. Power lets you say that money is more important than the lives of innocent children. Power lets you say that some men are too important to be ruled by laws. Power can absolve your shame by telling society you aren’t as bad as they’ve made you out to be. Power allows you to influence the narrative. That makes sense to me. I can understand a play for power as an escape from pain.

I do not accept their narrative that children can be bought and sold for the sexual gratification of powerful men. I believe the victims’ stories and will do what I can to help them get justice so that their pain can be healed. They do not deserve to harbor the suffering that these cowards passed onto them.

I do not accept their attempt to change my ideas about humanity. I don’t want to see them as evil. That gives them too much power. I choose instead to see them as terrified little boys doing everything they can to avoid their suffering. A man who desires to subjugate a child must feel very, very small. Feeling small in a big world is scary. I can empathize with feeling afraid.

Does that mean I accept what they do? F*ck no. I feel afraid of the world all the time and it has never once occurred to me to rape a child. Their actions are reprehensible and they deserve to spend the remainder of their days removed from the rest of society. They should be striped of their power and fortunes. Their names should forever be synonymous with their crimes, without the qualifier that they increased the value of the stock market. But it does mean I see them as human.

Seeing them as human means we are all the same. When evil is no longer a viable explanation for abhorrent behavior, it puts into perspective just how consequential it is that we treat each other kindly. We are all passing our pain around, and if we are not mindful, we create monsters. Seeing these men as human is a reminder that we are capable of a broad range of behaviors, from the miraculous to the heinous, and that it is the obligation of all of us together to draw that line. We ought to let them know they have crossed it. We should refuse to accept their proposed adjustments to our collective moral code.

My therapist revealed something I wasn’t awake to; I was allowing them to change me. It is easy to believe they are evil. It is easy to let their actions stir my pain into a hatred that I can spew back at them, but that is not who I am. At least that’s not who I want to be. Don’t get me wrong, I am struggling over here. But I believe that hatred fuels violence, and more than anything, I want to end that. I may have no control over how these men choose to disseminate their shame, but I can be responsible for what I pass around.