This is a “just sayin’” post, so you can scroll by if it’s not of interest.
But the remarks made by Micheal Hart, Sr, in the New York Times article were heartbreaking to me, and, as a professional historian, worth a closer look.
Mr. Hart is the father to one of the underage students that Morris had “imported” to his farm while a junior from Minnesota and proceeded to sleep with. Michael Hart, Jr. is dead; you can read about what a friend of Michael Hart, Jr. though the younger Mr. Hart had to say about it. But his dad was quoted this way:
“‘Michael was dazzled by him [Morris].’ his father said, 'and to us, we thought ‘This is an opportunity.’ We had no idea. It’s late and it’s feeble justice.”
My remarks are directed at all the people who say “It was a different time” with any implication that that view of history should provide anyone with closure. Or rather, anyone who finds it necessary to go back and consider such old injustices is an unreasonable person. That point of view, I argue, is intellectually and ethically bullsh!t.
Google “whig history” and see what that means in terms of justice and history. It is from a position of privilege that one doesn’t have to care about the injustices done to other people, then or now. But it is not historiographically credible to foreclose subjects or points of view who had little power. It’s not a credible use of historical investigation to produce “history of the winners” where any inspection of the past endorses the point of view of those in power in the present.
To be clear, for all of the fun that the swingers had, it was not merely “a different time” for those who were not consenting to the kinds of sexual activity that was “accepted.” I’d say that there is no sense in which one with little power “accepts” being sexually exploited or being coerced. Heck, if you are a minor (and the most flaming version of Lolita at that), you cannot legally give your own consent. For those victims, then, it was still harassment or molestation or abuse or rape or a life-changing event. That point of view was/is as real and as legitimate as any other. Those just not the one held by a “winner” in that moment or in this one. So anyone defending George Morris via whig history ought to be called out for what they are and what they are doing.
And consider the other forms that this privileged, dismissal can take. A friend of mine has this remark or explanation (not sure which) to offer. “The parents were in on it. Anything for winning a ribbon. Some of them knew and didn’t care.” That’s an easy, pat answer. (Though it does not describe what Micheal Hart Sr felt, so there is at least one parent out there who did not knowingly sign up for his son to sleep with the kid’s mentor). What that kind of excusing explanation says to me is that, if true, kids need more adults that they can turn to if, it turns out, their parents are co-signing their sexual exploitation. I’ll say that again for clarity: Parents being complicit in any way (moms in the room with Larry Nassar and their daughters while he was molesting them), doesn’t actually exonerate the pedophile.
And another point for clarity: All of this exploitation-- sexual in nature-- was also about a power differential between perp and victim. I cannot think of any reason that a credible historian ought be exploring the past in a way that serves to screw over that same disenfranchised group in the present, can you?
