7/30/2019 GREessay4
1/2
Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems
in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you
agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and
supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling
reasons and/or examples that could be used to
challenge your position.
***
There are two main problems with this assertion; one of them is
in the logic of the statement
itself, and the other has to do with the practical effects of
scandals in the modern world.
Although the vibrant interest that surrounds and defines
scandals may seem to imply that they
galvanize public interest in a powerful and inimitable way, the
truth is that their influence is not
generally useful or positive.
The first problem, the one dealing with logic, is in the
dichotomy the assertion draws between
scandals and human beings. To imply a contrast between scandals
and speakers and
reformers is to portray scandals as existing autonomously, in a
vacuum, which is simply never
the case. The truth is that the scandals seen as usefulthat is,
the kind dealing with political
or financial misconductare generated by whistle-blowers and
media content creators. These
are reformers and speakers, respectively. Scandal, rather than
being opposed to the activities
of activists, is almost always simply a tool that activists use,
a fire that they light. Scandals are
activism gone viral. To distinguish between scandals and the
people behind them is an
understandable error, because of the frequently higher profile
of the scandal when compared
with that of the activist; but it is an error nonetheless. The
Watergate scandal provides an
example of this. The scandal itself was clearly useful in that
it pointed out the dishonesty and
invasion of privacy to which insufficiently regulated government
may be prone. But to ascribe
the scandals effects to the scandal itself, without
acknowledging the actions of the heroic and
shadowy figure of Deep Throat/W. Mark Felt, would be patently
ridiculous. The involvement of
the media was similarly pivotalwithout the enthusiasm with which
the scandal was reported,it would never have gained the visibility
it did. It is no exaggeration to state that the activists
responsible, and not some amorphous notion of scandal, are
responsible for the increased
awareness that resulted from the events of Watergate.
But this discussion has only dealt with the kind of scandals
that are, on some level, genuinely
useful. The fact that this is far from all of them leads into
the second problem with the
statement that scandals are more useful than speakers or
reformers: that a great many
scandals are only dubiously useful at all, from most defensible
points of view. Recent scandals
have dealt much more directly with the publics prurient interest
than with genuine problems in
government and corporations. The scandals around the sexual
misconducts of John Edwards
and David Petraeus, for example, accomplished little or nothing
in the way of governmental or
societal reform. Rather, they generated a national festival of
woman-blaming, in which the
women with whom these men likely leveraged their power in their
efforts to have illicit affairs
were vilified and ridiculed. Although it could be argued that
sexual scandals like these
encourage a culture of conventional sexual morality, such a
culture would, in reality, be much
less enthusiastic about creating high-profile media events
around what it would define as
sexual immorality. (Moreover, creating this kind of culture is a
dubious goal in itself.) Scandals
