Well, if you haven’t heard about the New York paramedic who was outed as a pornographer, if you want the background here’s the story. But, as often happens in our world, the story isn’t the story, the story about the story is the story, because stories aren’t about stories but about storytelling. But perhaps that’s too dim and depressing a view to take of journalism for a bright, sunshiny Friday afternoon. But, anyways, there was a story about the paramedic prostitute and not only did the press, generally respond, but Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with her inimitable tact and brilliance tweeted out this little gem of genius:
“Sex work is work.
The federal gov has done almost nothing to help people in months. We must pass stimulus checks, UI, small biz relief, hospital funding, etc.
Keep the focus of shame there, not on marginalizing people surviving a pandemic without help.”
OK, I mean, first and foremost it’s nice to see a commie like AOC applauding capitalism. I just wish the only time she were applauding capitalism weren’t when she was applauding capitalism in its most vile and dehumanizing iteration. But that’s another story for another day. The story that seems important to me and which I’d like to focus on is AOC’s comment – which is echoed by Teenvogue – yes, I actually read a Teenvogue article as part of my research – Rolling Stone also lambasts the New York Post article, as have other less reputable journalists…and yes, that means that Teenvogue and Rolling Stone aren’t the bottom of the barrel…which is…disturbing.
And everyone seems to be saying the same thing – including Miss Kwei who recently told her own story in the UK independent. It seems from everyone not working at the New York Post that the bad guy is the New York Post. Everyone is saying the same thing which is: it doesn’t matter what you do in your spare time as long as you do your job right.
Kwei says this in the UK Independent article:
“How I make my money in order to help those in need is nobody’s business but my own, and certainly no patient has asked if I’m on OnlyFans before allowing me to help them.”
Now, at first glance, this has the glimmer of truth. But upon closer inspection, it really doesn’t hold up. Think about it this way: when my son was in the hospital I didn’t ask the life-flight team if any of them were prostitutes (because let’s not pretend miss Kwei isn’t a prostitute). And I didn’t ask any of the doctors or nurses either. I’ve never asked any of the neurologists of physical therapists who have treated my son if they were prostitutes. You know why? Because I didn’t think that that was a realistic possibility. I also didn’t ask them if they were serial rapists…or child molesters…or murderers…or war criminals…or crackheads.
I didn’t ask those questions because, in the moment, I didn’t think it was a possibility that a person working in those professions would be involved in any of the nasty stuff I just mentioned. But here’s the thing. If we accept miss Kwei’s argument that what she does in her free time doesn’t matter, then, logically, it wouldn’t matter if she were a serial rapist either. If being a child molester doesn’t affect her ability to be a paramedic, then nobody should get upset, right? I mean just because somebody murders homeless people and then cannibalizes them, that doesn’t, necessarily, in any way affect their capacity to care for people in an ambulance. Right? Because as long as it doesn’t affect her job performance nobody’s allowed to care, right?
The New York Post is “shaming” and “doxing” miss Kwei – and they’re really the ones doing a shameful thing. Or, so say our social betters in the media and politics. Which is high irony coming from the News-Industrial Complex for whom doxing and shaming their political opponents is their bread and butter and stock in trade! But, OK, fair enough, maybe the NYP shouldn’t have released her name, etc. But hasn’t miss Kwei already done that, and tried to profit off of it. The fact that it might cost her her job is something, perhaps, she should have thought up before she, you know, engaged in behavior she knew would get her fired if it came to light – but for sake of argument, ya know.... Maybe the NYP shouldn’t have done what they did. I’ll accept that premise. As long as it means, since turnabout is fair-play, that Teenvogue, Rolling Stone, AOC, and all the rest are never going to dox a conservative, or try to keep enemies lists (like are actually being compiled), or, Geez, I dunno, attack teenage boys and talk about how punchable their faces are – that behavior’s gonna end from the left, right? Because to not play by the rules they demand their opponents play by would be rank hypocrisy, right?
Yeah, I ain’t a-gonna hold my breath. The reality is that all the arguments presented by the outrage-mongers are either specious or hypocritical. And moreover, I expect, and I think many other people expect, that people who work in healthcare meet certain moral standards. It DOES matter, it matters to me and it should matter, because people who will sell their bodies for money have demonstrated an incapacity to properly weigh ethical matters. And people who hold people’s lives in their hands need to demonstrate a modicum of virtue and competence in weighting ethical considerations.
And moreover, let’s continue her argument a little bit. Miss Kwei is saying, and I’m quoting exactly:
“How I make my money in order to help those in need is nobody’s business but my own, and certainly no patient has asked if I’m on OnlyFans before allowing me to help them.”
Umm, so by that logic, it’s OK for me to rob banks to give to the poor. Or maybe, I dunno, kill the rich and give their money to the poor. I mean, I can kill some wealthy Jews and give their property to the poor because it doesn’t matter how I get my money to help other people – that’s what she says.
Now, you could run to her defense and say, “well, Luke, that’s OBVIOUSLY not what she means – OBVIOUSLY there are limits.” Ummm, there aren’t any limits in her statement. And if she does believe in limits then her own argument collapses under its own hypocritical weight.
Now, she presumably would say something like, “well, the limit is that as long as you aren’t hurting someone else, then it doesn’t matter how you get your money to help other people.” Yeah, nice try, but that dog won’t hunt, either. For several reasons, and I’ll just give you the most important:
Pornography and prostitution DOES hurt people. It’s hurts the pornographer, it hurts the viewer, and it hurts society at large by creating people with less virtue and more vice. This is the same nonsensical argument – and by the way hypocritical argument – we get from secularists all the time. On one hand they say, well, what people do behind closed doors doesn’t hurt anyone else so it’s fine. But then they want to say that I’m guilty of a hate crime if I don’t call a mentally disturbed person by whatever pronouns they happen to prefer on that particular day. I mean, silence is violence, but on the other hand, things that actually undermine our culture – those are fine and dandy!
Yeah, no, that’s blatant hypocrisy! Now look, I actually agree with the hardcore left that people can be complicit through silence. I’ll buy that – I think that position needs to be nuanced, but I think that the fundamental idea is true: you don’t have to actively be doing evil to be culpable for the evil being committed; if you actively or passively facilitate the evil you can be considered liable. I agree that more is violence than just physical violence. I agree that people are complicit in the culture and society they create. I agree.
The problem is that we have fundamentally and irreconcilably different views of what constitutes evil. We don’t agree on what is good and what is evil and what is beneficial and what is harmful to society. I agree with the Wokeists that things that harm society, indirectly, can and should be legislated. I think that we can and should expand the laws to illegalize many of our idiotically termed “victimless crimes”. The problem is that I am using the eternal, inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God as my Authority and they’re using Marx, Darwin, and Freud.
But, at a deeper level, this whole conversation reveals a much deeper problem, and that is that we think that our lives and our selves are infinitely compartmentalizable. We think that you can cut the human personality into ever smaller little pieces and that they never have to affect eachother. And this is utter foolishness. Freud actually helps us here: when you try to compartmentalize your life, it’s usually evidence of a pathology. People who want to live dis-integrated lives have disintegrated personalities – and that’s pathological. You don’t have to suppress painful memories or impulses to be unhealthy. And despite the fact that this is well known, this is what our society seems to be pushing for more and more.
Our entire education system, for instance, works like this! Contemporary education treats disciplines like food on a 4-year old’s plate – nothing can touch, nothing can integrate – even though we know it all goes to the same place and HAS TO BE INTEGRATED FOR IT TO BE USEFUL!
But that’s not the way we currently view things. We think we can just cut the human personality into a billion little pieces and they never have to touch or interact or bother eachother, and you can be a despicable, vile, vicious, pervert in private, as long as you go to work and are polite to the neighbors. ‘Cept it doesn’t work that way. The issues of life refuse to be segregated. The human personality refuses to be segregated and disintegrated and our very souls will rebel – and as psychology warns. And when our subconscious rebels against conscious repression or disintegration, you really can’t predict the results…other than to predict that they’ll be bad.
But here’s the final point I want to make. It would be easy to point to this story and connect it with the Bible’s condemnation of people who can’t even blush – arguing that the Wokeists are trying to eradicate shame – but that’s not really the case. They aren’t trying to get rid of shame – they’re trying to reimagine, and realign our values so that things that used to be shameful aren’t and things that weren’t are. To the godless in our culture, being white is shameful and being a prostitute is noble. But even if miss Kwei is a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold – that’s still humiliating and shameful…because she’s still a a hooker. The heart of gold doesn’t nullify the hooker part.
And I’m not trying to tear her down, really; I’ve done more than my fair share of shameful and vile things that I’m grateful aren’t public. It really is humiliating, and distressing, to have shameful things made public. I think we can all feel some sympathy for her. In fact, I think we all SHOULD have sympathy for her. I wish her no ill will, and I really hope her life turns around and that she can stop doing degrading and shameful things for money and can live a life that’s full of flourishing and happiness and honorable uses of her body, time, talent, and treasure. But the answer to being shamed or being ashamed is not to try to eradicate shame but to stop doing shameful things. But more than that – we, especially in the Church – we need to come to grips with the fact that there are, indeed shameful things, and we shouldn’t be afraid to call them such – even if it causes people existential and emotional pain. I’m not, of course, talking about trying to harm people, but I am talking about being plain and clear about what sin is, and not backing down on that to spare the people’s feelings so they can avoid shame. Because shame, properly, understood, convicts us of sin. If you want to avoid salvation, avoid humiliation.
But I pray the Church will grow enough of a backbone to fight against this reordering of virtues and vices and live and promote a virtuous life, which honors and glorifies Christ.