The society of suspicion

Photo archives Agence QMI
The ex-leader of the conservative party of Ontario, Patrick Brown.

Denise Bombardier

Friday, 16 February 2018 05:00

UPDATE
Friday, 16 February 2018 05:00

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Denunciations, almost daily sexual behaviours unacceptable involving personalities are in the process of profoundly transforming our democracies. The presumption of innocence, a fundamental concept of the law, which does not exist in dictatorships, is in the process of being demolished.

No one will deny that the release of the voice of women victims of sex offenders is a major step in the progress towards gender equality. But this word, in fact, arises all too often without a railing and without precautions. So that the hint takes precedence over the search for the truth even before the indictment.

The sexual exploitation of women is an absolute evil. But the rejection of the presumption of innocence is also morally questionable, and its social consequences lead to a regression of the values established over the centuries.

The excessive suspicion of the targeted people in social networks, regardless of whether there is prosecution or not, are an update to social death in some way.

Information inaccurate

I have no sympathy for Patrick Brown, the ex-leader of the progressive conservative Party of Ontario, that two young women accused him of sexual harassment and who was forced to resign almost on-the-field, upon release of the denunciations. Now, one of the accusers had assured him that she was a minor when Brown has offered to have a sexual relationship with him. On Wednesday, the young woman has retracted. It was not a minor when the incident occurred. That is, one must admit, a shade size.

The suspicion is a perception to a double-edged sword. It could open the door to settlements of accounts between people antagonisées and it casts doubts on public figures, unable to defend themselves. The suspicion, however, is the identification of true sexual predators and other uncouth individuals practicing the right of cuissage”.

In the society of suspicion widespread in the process of being put in place, no one is immune. The word is equivalent to the word of the other. In the common life means.

In the company of the suspicion, the sense of trust can be reduced to a trickle. Gold, how to live in harmony and with a minimum of serenity if it is suspected that systematically everyone ?

The doubt

More serious in the long term, the suspicion that too live of citizens is trying to extend to all institutions and leaders in all sectors of activity. Doubt prevails in the face of politicians, for example, and now in the face of police, whom the media describe behavior unworthy of their function.

The society of the suspicion changes people, and can create pressures as damaging on the workplace climate that the presence of stalkers.

The abuses at the Weinstein allowed number of denunciations of people, many of whom have gone under the radar without judicial proceedings are set in motion. How many of these people are guilty, how many are innocent ? We may never know. In other words, the society of the hint announcement an atmosphere unbreathable. But what is the solution ?