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March 12, 2008

Elliot Spitzer and America's Ethical

Perversity
By Rabbi Michael Lerner

The cross-the-political-spectrum attacks on Elliot Spitzer and the intensity of the

demands that he resign his office show just how far the Right-wing sexual moralizing
has been able to trump any other kind of ethical reasoning in American society.
Going to a prostitute is legal in some states and some countries around the world,
and is often the very arrangement that saves families from splitting up whose sexual
energies have diminished but whose love is intact. It's not uncommon for men (and
now increasingly women as well) who have achieved great power in our society by
adopting an outer show of ruthless pursuit of power and influence (even, as in
Spitzer's case, if the power is aimed at pursuing laudable ends) to feel a deep
emptiness and loneliness that is not addressed by friends or spouse, and hence to
seek some kind of outside connection no matter how superficial that is not bound by
previous rules and roles. Nevertheless, I and many others in the religious and
spiritual world oppose that practice when it involves adultery or prostitution, because
it depends on the objectification of another human being, so that sex is disconnected
in ways that it should not be from a significant encounter with the spirit of God in the
other or a deep recognition that is the only real way to overcome existential or
situational alienation.
Moreover, the trade in women for sexual purposes has frequently led to rape and
abuse and the kidnapping of young women who are sold into sexual slavery. All of
these outrageous practices are abhorrent and should be challenged. The flaunting of
sexuality in the media, and the implicit message that the only real satisfaction comes
from having the most physically attractive people as sexual partners, not only
generates huge dissatisfaction even as it allows corporate advertise to become
predators manipulating our personal sense of inadequacy to sell their products, but
also generates desires that feed the sexual trade in women. Given this larger social
context, until sexual satisfaction is so broadly available in our society that no one has
to pay for it and so deeply tied to love that no one is objectified in the process, this
kind of exploitation of women and degradation of sex is likely to continue. All of these
practices foster the sexual predators of the contemporary world.
So Elliot Spitzer deserves to be critiqued and ought to be doing deep atonement for
what he did. His previous moral arrogance and willingness when he had power to do
so to prosecute others for their participation in creating prostitution rings makes him
an easy target. We, in turn, might practice the forgiveness that our religious and
spiritual traditions preach, particularly those of us who have been willing to honeslty
face how flawed we ourselves are, and how at times we ourselves fail to embody in
our actual practice with others the values that we publicly espouse. Humility and
compassion are also part of the path of a spiritual progressive.
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But the intensity of the critique of the N.Y. governor, tied with the demand that he
resign, shows more about American society's ethical perversity than about Spitzer.
The President of the U.S. and the Vice President, working in concert with several
other high ranking officers of our government, lied and distorted to get us involved in
a war that has led to the death of over a million Iraqis, the displacement of 3 million
more, the death of 4,000 Americans and the wounding of tens of thousands more.
After token opposition in Congress, our elected representatives have overwhelmingly
passed budgets funding this war, rather than refuse to fund any military projects until
the President stopped the war and withdrew the troops.
Meanwhile, our government has overtly engaged in torture, wiretapping of our
phones, and violation of our human rights and the rights of people around the world.
Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Charles Schumer votes to confirm as Attonrey
General a right-wing judge who refused to repudiate these crimes.
The U.S. government has rejected every attempt to implement the Kyoto
environmental agreements or to work out new agreements sufficiently strong to
reverse environmental destruction that is certain to lead to new levels of flooding
particularly in several poor countries around the world. The consequence: tens of
millions of deaths.
The Clinton Administration pushed, along with corporate support, a set of trade
agreements that have devastated the farmers of many developing countries, forcing
many off their farms and into city slums where their daughters and sons are often
sold into sexual slavery. The global economic system we have fostered has led to
increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, so that over one out of every three
people on the planet lives on less than $2 a day, 1.5 billion live on less than one
dollar a day, and over 15,000 children die every day from malnutrition-related
diseases and inadequate availability of medicine that is hoarded by the rich countries
who can afford the prices made to ensure huge profits to the pharmaceutical
industry.
Health insurance companies and private medical profiteers are doing all they can to
ensure that there will be no health care for tens of millions of Americans, unless that
is provided in ways that guarantee corporate super-profits and thereby guarantee
that the cost of health care paid through taxes will be huge and create anger at all
government social welfare and well-being programs, leading to their likely de-
funding.
People in the US have faced severe economic crises on a regional and soon on a
national level because corporations move their centers of production to countries in
Asia where they can exploit workers with less government or union interference and
where they can destroy the environment with less societal restraints. Wild to achieve
greater profits, corporations and the rich have managed to support politicians who
lower the taxes on the rich, in the process bankrupting the public sector or severely
reducing its ability to provide enough funds for quality education, health care,
libraries, public transportation, and social welfare.
That there is no outcry for these government officials and corporate leaders to resign
immediately or be impeached, that there is no moral outrage at the entire system
that produces this impact, is America's ethical perversity. Instead, the only crime
against humanity that the media takes seriously and the politicians fear is being
exposed for personal sexual immorality. While everyone basks in their own self-
righteous demands on Spitzer, we all allow media and elected officials to
fundamentally distort our ethical vision and play out our morality on the smallest of
possible stages while ignoring the global and personal consequences of our larger
ethical failures.
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Authors Website: http://www.tikkun.org

Authors Bio: Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun and national chair of the Tikkun
Community/ Network of Spiritual Progressives. People are invited to subscribe to
Tikkun magazine or join the interfaith organization the Network of Spiritual
Progressives-- "both of which can be done by going to www.tikkun.org