Jeffrey Epstein is a symptom

The other night while flipping the dials we came across Stripes. I hadn't watched any of that movie in years. To be honest, I'd only seen excerpts of it before.

The two main characters went into an Army recruiting office, where they had this exchange:

Russell Ziskey: You could join a monastery.
John Winger: Did you ever see a monk get wildly f****d by some teenage girls?
Russell Ziskey: Never.
John Winger: So much for the monastery.

Immediately I thought of Jeffrey Epstein and the accusations of sex with underage girls.

Then I recalled another movie from around the same time period at Stripes, Animal House.

In that movie, one of the youngest members of the fraternity was apparently about to have sex with the daughter of the mayor, and the following exchanged took place:

Pinto: Before we go any further, there's something I have to tell you. I lied to you. I've never done this before.
Clorette De Pasto: You've never made out with a girl before?
Pinto: No. No, I mean, I've never done what I think we're gonna do. I sort of did once, but I was...
Clorette De Pasto: That's okay, Larry. Neither have I. And besides, I lied to you, too.
Pinto: Oh, yeah? What about?
Clorette De Pasto: I'm only 13.

Later, she perkily introduced Pinto to her parents

Clorette De Pasto: Dad! Mom, Dad, this is Larry Kroger. The boy who molested me last month. We have to get married.

In both movies the idea of sex with underage girls is a laughing matter. Yes, people can argue that the movies were just comedies, but comedies reflect the culture of the writers/directors/performers, and they influence the broader culture. Comedies take things that might be considered taboo, then, by presenting those things again and again with laughter, they normalize what was taboo and make those things seem more acceptable.

What Jeffrey Epstein allegedly did is wrong, but it is also a symptom of that normalization of what had been taboo. People are rightly reacting strongly now, but what he was doing was basically allowed to slide for decades.

Jeffrey Epstein is a symptom of what's happening in our culture.

Think of other things that were once thought of as wrong by the culture as a whole, but through film and television - comedy and drama - and songs have come to be "normalized." Sex outside of marriage. Cohabitation. Homosexual acts. And more.

One of the songs of my youth, for example, was Crosby Stills and Nash suggesting "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." No direct mention of casual sex, but the message was clear.

Think of the effects on our children as they watch and listen to this sort of fare. The lessons they learn is that these things are perfectly fine. And they evil one knows that. Notice lately some of the things that are creeping into even children's cartoons? Children's books? School curriculums? A steady diet of that helps to form their thinking and their morality. And in a culture where faith and church-going play smaller and smaller roles, these secular influences are often all that young people know.

The song from South Pacific, "You've got to be carefully taught," is true of more than prejudice.

Again. the arts don't MAKE us do these things, but they do help to break down our resistance.

So the alleged crimes of Epstein, can trace their roots to films like the two I mentioned, and, of course, to their fellow movies and television shows and songs.

There's plenty of guilt to go around.

But, of course, according to the morality of those movies, shows, and songs, guilt is just an out-of-date and laughable concept anyway.

Pax et bonum