Living in different times

A few generations ago we would still have been numb with shock over the revelation that schoolchildren were performing sex acts for the camera. It would have been bad enough if their indiscretions had been clothed in concealment. That – or at least so it seems – they may have agreed to be caught on camera raises other issues like whether, for example, the footage might have been intended for wider audiences, which of course raises the question as to whether a probe into the matter ought not to go well beyond the Ministry of Education’s promised enquiry.

Those decades ago, long before the tongues had stopped wagging, we would have circled the wagons, summoned the stakeholders and begun a discourse in earnest on issues ranging from suggestions of a decline in the quality of parenting and school supervision to religious offerings on ‘signs of the times.’ There would have been reminders in schools about the risks associated with under age sex, and schoolgirls, particularly, would have been lectured on the risks associated with getting pregnant or contracting some sexually transmitted disease.

The limited fallout of a few weeks ago from the revelation of the sex tapes, serves as a barometer with which to measure the extent of the societal drift that we have undergone, the descent into the loss of those feelings of shame and scandal which two or three generations ago, would have pierced our consciousness like daggers.

The rapid and indiscreet dissemination of the information and the footage was facilitated by the proliferation of the social media. It is they that have broadened the parameters of media freedom beyond anything that might have been imaginable not so long ago. The fact that the footage went viral and that public comments ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime provides more than ample evidence that there are far too many people who handle the prerogative of being able to disseminate information badly. We have learnt as well, that established and experienced media houses that really ought to know better can also be guilty of shocking indiscretions.

The whole affair is a poignant if distressing reminder that these days we measure morality by an altogether different yardstick. What would have been cause for serious and sombre contemplation barely a few generations ago is now reason for absurd excesses of ludicrous public discourse and the sharing of footage of the most profane and disturbing examples of teenagers ‘gone wild.’

We have moved on and in the process we have left behind our moral probity so that these days, we are better able to ‘stomach’ the shock of events like the sexual excesses of high school boys and girls.

Not only are we, these days, more prepared to cope with the scandal, some of our social media friends are even prepared to make light of it, to turn tragedy into trite and tasteless comment. They do not hesitate for a moment to press the tools of social media into service to make believe that real tragedy can be downgraded to theatre. Truth be told they are far too preoccupied with their new-found power to reach mass audiences to dwell for any length of time on the sexual excesses of teenage school children or to contemplate the damaging consequences of their indiscretions. That is the reality of how we have become.

Here, we are reminded of the weakness of the libertarian theory of the media, fraught as it is with the risk that people, for all their claims to sound and sober judgment, are often prone to ruinous recklessness.

That kind of media free-for-all can be risky in a society where there are already sorry few barriers to the continued erosion of our already seriously comprised moral standards.