The subtle morality of kissing the as*es of rich as*holes
The subtle morality of kissing the as*es of rich as*holes
Leon Botstein thought Jeffrey Epstein was just a “normal” sex offender
[Leon Botstein]
Friends,
As more and more of the nation’s income and wealth is siphoned off to the top, an increasing number of people are kissing the derrieres of the wealthy in order to raise money for worthy causes.
The heads of the entire nonprofit sector of the economy — of universities, museums, concert halls, research institutions, public broadcasters, charitable institutions — have turned into sycophants.
Their kissing often involves bestowing honors on the wealthy — naming buildings after them, awarding them honorary degrees, giving them medals and certificates of merit, putting them on boards of directors, making them trustees.
It also requires endless visits to and from them, countless dinners and lunches with them, and every possible effort to make them feel appreciated and valued — not just for their money but also for their friendship, wisdom, and all-around wonderfulness.
The problem is that some of those derrieres are truly abhorrent, which is causing a great deal of moral confusion and ethical handwringing.
Think of the Sacklers, who made a fortune by getting people hooked on opioids. Or Michael Milken, convicted for junk-bond fraud. Or David Koch, the right-wing mega-donor. All have been the objects of fawning attention by the presidents of universities, museums, and opera houses seeking their money.
Perhaps the worst is Jeffrey Epstein — the disgraced billionaire sex offender. In 2008, Epstein was accused of sexually abusing girls as young as 14, but he minimized his legal exposure with high-powered lawyers, settlements that silenced complaints, and a plea deal that short-circuited an F.B.I. investigation. He served a short time in jail in 2008 and was registered as a sex offender.
Between then and when Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York, Epstein had multiple dealings with several well-known people. (He died in his jail cell on August 10, 2019; the medical examiner ruled it a suicide by hanging.)
According to a recent expose by The Wall Street Journal, among the supplicants was Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, who made frequent visits to Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse.
In his defense, Botstein explained to The New York Times that he was seeking donations from Epstein for Bard.
“You cannot pick and choose” from whom you’re going to ask for money, Botstein said, presumably because the number of the ultra-wealthy who will give it to you is limited.
Botstein further explained that “among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people.”
Being the president of a college or the director of a nonprofit is hard enough. Having to spend lots of time with unpleasant and not very attractive people — that is (not to mince words) with rich as*holes — and act as if you enjoy their company must be excruciating.
Why do the rich harbor a higher percentage of as*holes? Botstein pointed out that “capitalism is a rough system,” implying that becoming very rich under capitalism often requires people to act like as*holes.
That certainly seemed to describe Jeffrey Epstein.
Botstein’s further defense is (as it were) rich. He says he “had no idea, the public record had no indication” that Epstein “was anything more than an ordinary — if you could say such a thing — sex offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”
I’ve got to hand it to Botstein. Drawing a distinction that makes it permissible to kiss the derriere of an “ordinary” billionaire sex offender to raise money for a worthy cause, but not to kiss the derriere of a billionaire sex trafficker, is a remarkable achievement in the navigation of moral justification.
I don’t mean to pick on Leon Botstein. My point is that as wealth concentrates in America’s new billionaire class, otherwise reputable people like Botstein must now bow to horribly disreputable people like Epstein in order to raise money for worthy causes.
This gives the super-wealthy extraordinary power over the Botsteins of the world, which — unless the Botsteins are exceedingly careful — could compromise their integrity as well as the worthy causes they represent.
There’s a very obvious reason to shun Epstein. That Bostein did not says everything about him, whatever his justifications. He is saying that his job requires him to have no moral line whatsoever. But who takes such a job? I think the idea is that money cannot be dirty, it washes clean as soon as you give it to something worthy. But the truth is that the money is there to wash dirty people clean. This is the only reason they give that money. Strictly speaking, there are people destroying the health of the planet and making weapons that kill many that should also not be washed clean. Eschewing the Sacklers means that virtually all of these people should be eschewed who kill as many as the Sacklers did. We should not be so cynical to say it is all a farce so why not take the money. However, if we do not say this, then the rift widens and we have to look it square in the face and see how complicit virtually every laudable institution is, how awash in blood money and harm they all are.
So when are we going to say this? I think we should. We should stop our servility and start to speak out against these people. They should not be regarded as ‘respectable citizens.’ A number of environmentalists have said as much, including Aldo Leopold. Unless we start to create social norms around behaviors of mass harm we are always letting the money and prestige wash away the crimes. Henry Kissinger’s birthday party was a cheering example--people were called out for attending that party. The enormous social cachet of that group of people is very hard to affect. They operate as a gang and because the power structures are fairly closed and refusal to say anything critical about even the worst and most harmful crimes is the price of admission to the gang (as Larry Summers apparently told Elizabeth Warren) it’s hard to have any effect. So I doubt anything we say will matter. Harvard undergraduates will climb the greasy pole with internships with these very people. Nevertheless, we should still be as loud as possible about what they have done and what we think about it. We should speak and bear witness because it is true. Money can erase a lot of things but we shouldn’t let it erase the truth.
Like the PGA-LIV merger. I guess wealthy murderers are also acceptable, if the price is right.