What If We Indicted Léon Blum?

Marine Le Pen wasn't enough: the young Socialist Guard, Benoît Hamon in the lead, had to rush to the aid of the new moral order that, for the past two weeks, seems to be turning the heads that one thought immune to the morally correct dear to our Fathers and Mothers of Prudishness, like Christine Boutin or Philippe de Villiers.

And so this is a considerable event, which seemed unthinkable to those who, like me, had put their hope in this group of forty-somethings -- like Benoît Hamon, but also Manuel Valls, Arnaud Montebourg... -- who, with others, bore the standard of the restructuring of the left: the crazy, profoundly unnatural, suicidal alliance into which enter the heirs of Jaurès and the Party of a man who, in the past, participated in some flyby tourism in Algiers, even naughtier than what Frédéric Mitterrand publicly admitted to and regretted, several years ago, in a book unanimously praised by critics.

Once again, as in the Polanski affair, of which this one is, alas, the logical and surreal sequel, it's not a matter of excusing the deeds which the person himself had the frankness to reveal in his time, and entirely to his own detriment.

But first and foremost, it's about observing the dizzying spectacle of this virtue squad bearing the socialist stamp that plunges right into the trap set by its worst adversaries.

And secondly, it's about knowing if, from this point on, we are going to have to rummage through the life of each and every one among us to evaluate the degree of "morality" in our past -- or why not in our adolescence, or even in our earliest childhood?

Officials, and future officials, who will have taken the risk in your writings or your confessions of revealing any kind of story, passion, good or bad action, learn from this point on to shut your mouth or realize that, if you don't, you will be the prey of the media and the public.

Artists, novelists, diarists, journalists who, in your fiction and autofiction, believed you were teaching us about a particular temptation, iniquity, perversion, or depravity, think twice, because you should know that you will be thrown to the lions in public opinion, and have the mort sounded against you by the left and the right in the name of defending morals.

André Malraux, who publicly expressed a penchant for the drug-induced "paradis artificiels" in his youth, and never completely abandoned them, wouldn't last five minutes as a minister today.

Blum, who, at the time of La Revue Blanche, happened to praise adultery and extreme freedom of morals for young girls imprisoned in the straightjacket of their families, would have to watch his step for fear of being denounced as a pedophile by the resident Benoît Hamons.

Gide would not publish Corydon or, if he did, wouldn't assume the Presidency of the Antifascist Committees of 1934; Jean-Jacques, judge of Rousseau, would end up with his Confessions hung around his neck; and let's not even mention Jean Genet whose Journal of a Thief would simply never find a publisher.

The new Moral Brigade is watching.

These are sad times.

Translated from French by Sara Phenix.

Comments

[gawd]

"It's about knowing if, from this point on, we are going to have to rummage through the life of each and every one among us to evaluate the degree of "morality" in our past -- or why not in our adolescence, or even in our earliest childhood?"

He was not a child, do not compare a child doing something like stealing gum, to a grown man raping a 13 year old. He admitted that he liked to have sex with young girls. He pled guilty to what he did to that girl and then he left the country for one that is apparently okay with child rapists.

I personally have NO problems with a rapist doing his time 30, 40, or even 70 years after the offense.

[Wozzeck]

Brilliant commentary, reminiscent of Maurice Sinet.

[iamjones]

Lolita was fiction. get it? FICTION. polanski committed a crime. get it? a CRIME.

[Horse Badorties]

"Once again, as in the Polanski affair, ... it's not a matter of excusing the deeds which the person himself had the frankness to reveal in his time..."

Polanski did not "reveal" his deeds. His victim revealed them. She also revealed that Polanksi acted against her will, after drugging her. Polanski is being extradited because of his crimes, not because he frankly said "Everyone wants to f*ck young girls".

Finally, I am not a member of any Moral Brigade. I am an atheist. However, I do expect Polanski to be responsible for his crimes.

[gawd]

Great post! I am also an atheist and ITA with everything you just said.

[AFran90]

How is it not wrong?
She was underage.
She was high on barbituates.
She said no.
Anyone of those things makes it legally rape. This is a threefer.

[Javani]

"All sects differ, because they come from men; morality is the same everywhere because it comes from God."

--Voltaire

What Polanski did was wrong, everywhere.

[GKJames]

Annoying as moral crusaders are, the author is tone-deaf on this particular case. Sex with children is a criminal act; end of story. M. Mitterand suggests that, his language about sex with (paid-for) "young boys" notwithstanding, he never had sex with someone under age. The reasonable observer can be forgiven for not taking this assertion at face value. Nor is it unreasonable to ask whether a person who may well have committed a criminal act should be in charge of a government ministry (not least the Ministry of Culture ... can one really be THAT immune to irony?) in service to the public. The author's snide prediction of future muckraking in private lives unhelpfully conflates two distinct issues: criminal acts such as those hinted at in the case of M. Mitterand, and activities between consenting adults. These issues are poles apart ... even on the Left Bank.