I tweeted this a bit ago, and a follower said I was "virtue signaling." Let me correct the record: I wasn't. I was bragging. I was basically an amazing teen. I bet there are some things I did that hurt people then that I have pushed deep down and away in my brain... cont'd
If that is you, contact me via my #JJHO address or however you like and I will listen and try to make amends. But in light of the Setwick allegations just now, I want to say... (con'td)
It was never my point JUST to brag-signal. It was to say that yes, we absolutely CAN be judged on what we did when we were 17. And we should be. (guess what? cont'd)
Lots and lots and lots of people were good kids who did not assault or hurt others. It is a dishonor to their decency and good choices, often difficult choices, to say that other people's terrible choices don't count. (for real: cont'd. Maybe you should get a snack)
And people who make bad choices have a path back from those choices: ownership of responsibility, apology, atonement, therapy. People CAN mature past their bad choices, but skirting them and counting on the "kids stuff" excuse is only a further insult to real character. (Cont'd)
What is even more poisonous was that there are now generations of white dudes who were not only told (usually by their dads) that their youthful bad choices would be forgiven, but were actually encouraged (usually by their dads) to MAKE bad choices. (Cont'd)
I started Yale two years after Kavanaugh graduated, and I remember a frequent refrain among the more affluent prep school white dudes I encountered: "This is our time to go crazy and be bad, because when we graduate, the real world starts, & then we have to be good" (ugh. Cont'd)
The implication behind "go crazy" of course was: drink like crazy and have sex as much as possible with the non-humans called "girls." Further implication was that whatever they did NOW would be erased from history upon graduation... (cont'd)
And further further implication would be that they would then settle down to a traditionally moral life, eschew fun, and make money. (cont'd; here comes the boom)
And some of them would do this, while others, having essentially gone through hard party sociopath training would later buck at the now constrained life of not being a hedonist monster and become philanderers, assaulters, or US Senators (thus the boom. Now: cont'd).
I don't know where they learned this philosophy, from Animal House or older brothers or their own sad dads who missed their hazy drunken college rapey days. But I felt sad for them. This is a brag, but also a truth: that philosophy felt very and immediately foreign to me (cont'd)
I was like, "why not try being a good person all the time, and find lasting fun that does not hurt people or yourself, and accept that you deserve to have fun and happiness all of your life, not just now?" (Cont'd)
Let me say this: I also knew a lot (A LOT) of really wonderful white dudes from prep schools. Amazing dudes who did not live their lives this way. But that philosophy lingers on. Just this summer... (cont'd; it's a flash forward!)
[Hi. I deleted a recent personal anecdote here because it's not my story to tell. Suffice to say, a young person was faced with the same "It's our time to be bad" line, this person didn't fall for it, but ALMOST did, and barely avoided a very bad outcome. It was a hard choice]
I accidentally broke up my mega thread by making this correction, but the saga concludes here: FYI
