Did you hear the latest about Harvey Weinstein? He drew the unlucky number and was stoned to death by that ever-increasing crowd of smug, self-satisfied Hollywood hypocrites who knew all along he was a scumbag but never said a word until they got the signal from someone on high (Anderson Cooper?) that it was okay to come forward and tell their stories, and the more the merrier. Now every woman who ever brushed shoulders with the man at a cocktail party is claiming sexual harassment of the most heinous kind.
This phenomenon, which I call "The Lottery Effect," after the brilliant short story by Shirley Jackson (The Lottery) that explains the dark side of human nature in just eleven pages, happens all the time, albeit usually without as much fanfare as the Weinstein debacle. For example, just this week I watched it happen to a man who works in a large organization run by a close friend of mine.
It all started when one female executive didn't like the guy, mostly because he knew too much and made her feel embarrassingly inept in meetings. She called him out as "abrasive and insensitive." Soon another employee voiced a similar complaint, and before you could say "severance pay," the whole damn office had decided that this one guy, a smart and diligent worker with a crummy personality and an aversion to chit-chat, was the whole problem with everything! He was the reason the company (of over 200 people) was struggling! He was the reason behind all the missed deadlines and falling revenue! He simply had to go!
So they fired him the old-fashioned way, stripping him of his manhood in front of his boss and the HR lady, but in their minds they were pelting him with stones in the middle of the parking lot, then carting away his lifeless body, relieved that the Evil One had been dealt with. Just like they had done about a year ago, when it was a woman who talked too much and distracted everyone and caused things to be late and nobody liked and just had to go.
Last year Bill Cosby was the monster. Now it's Harvey Weinstein. I wonder who's next?
This phenomenon, which I call "The Lottery Effect," after the brilliant short story by Shirley Jackson (The Lottery) that explains the dark side of human nature in just eleven pages, happens all the time, albeit usually without as much fanfare as the Weinstein debacle. For example, just this week I watched it happen to a man who works in a large organization run by a close friend of mine.
It all started when one female executive didn't like the guy, mostly because he knew too much and made her feel embarrassingly inept in meetings. She called him out as "abrasive and insensitive." Soon another employee voiced a similar complaint, and before you could say "severance pay," the whole damn office had decided that this one guy, a smart and diligent worker with a crummy personality and an aversion to chit-chat, was the whole problem with everything! He was the reason the company (of over 200 people) was struggling! He was the reason behind all the missed deadlines and falling revenue! He simply had to go!
So they fired him the old-fashioned way, stripping him of his manhood in front of his boss and the HR lady, but in their minds they were pelting him with stones in the middle of the parking lot, then carting away his lifeless body, relieved that the Evil One had been dealt with. Just like they had done about a year ago, when it was a woman who talked too much and distracted everyone and caused things to be late and nobody liked and just had to go.
Last year Bill Cosby was the monster. Now it's Harvey Weinstein. I wonder who's next?
