Chapter 22 2. What is uglier than a scandal is the schadenfreude of the onlookers

The scandal about the US president has actually lost all the so-called "peachy", and has been completely painted in "yellow".When the gossip about a contemporary man and a contemporary woman has been repeatedly reported to the world by radio, television, newspapers, and the Internet for nearly a year; when the content involves When the details of the man and the woman's more than ten sexual relations are accompanied by illustrations; when the content is labeled as "not suitable for children" like a tertiary film-the scandal has undoubtedly Turned completely "yellow".

Once the gossip becomes "yellow" and spread to the whole world, it will undoubtedly become a scandal completely.As far as I think, nine out of ten scandals in ancient and modern China and abroad always contain sexual content.If the details of this part of the content are presented one by one, it will inevitably have a "yellow" meaning. It is easier and easier for a gossip to become a scandal than to turn white sugar into sugar water.A spoonful of water will make a can of mash thin, and a scoop of water will make a can of mash water.As long as one-tenth of the quantitative sexual content is often enough to overwhelm other content in a scandal-such as the premise of the relationship between men and women, the background of political group contests, the limits of personal and family psychological endurance of both parties, the public's relationship with public figures It seems best to turn a blind eye to the morbid interest in sexual privacy that is pushed aside as if it does not exist.

Just like a book, the explicit sexual descriptions only account for less than 1/20 of the text.Almost all advocates of this book open their mouths first to talk about its social value, but almost all book lovers do not like to delete less than 1/20 of the text that is not important in the content.Although the social awareness value of the abridged version is certainly not affected in any way... Diana's gossip wasn't painted "yellow," so it was almost always a gossip, not quite a scandal.I feel extremely lucky for Diana.So I can't help but feel quite sad for President Clinton in 1998.From the very beginning, I didn't regard his affair as a scandal.

Not now. Now, to be honest, I sympathize with him very much, and, as a Chinese man who is about the same age as him, I very much admire his mental endurance.It is hard for me to imagine that in the "sad and difficult" (former Secretary of State Albright) situation he is currently in, I would have the same psychological endurance. I can feel the schadenfreude that a considerable part of the public in the United States, and indeed a large part of the world, feels about Clinton's predicament.As far as I think, this pleasure does not only happen to a considerable part of the public.It must have happened in the minds of his political opponents too.

Maybe (I'm afraid not maybe) it happened in the hearts of many other heads of state. Because America is the most powerful country in the world.The president of the most powerful country has always been the center of world politics. Now, he is finally no longer such a political central figure, but has become the central figure of a "sex scandal" incident.It seemed that even a drunk had the right to scorn him. Clinton - a man who could not get rid of the "sex scandal" incident at the end of the 20th century; a man who almost lost all human dignity; the most helpless man at the end of the 20th century.I sympathize with him for that.

Before him, there seemed to be no caricature of a head of state that was "pinned" on a woman's silk underwear advertisement.And the woman's body stretched out into the shape of a cross; and the advertisement was published on the centerfold and back cover of a certain pictorial in the United States; and the pictorial was distributed all over the world, and it was not difficult to find it on the shelves of books and magazines in almost all major hotels around the world. Find…… Presidents are human too. The President of the United States is also human. I can't help but shudder when I think that after the civilization of our world has reached the current level, the minimum personal dignity of a specific living person has been desecrated to such an extent, and when I think of businessmen making huge profits legally in this way.

In my opinion, the morbid schadenfreude pleasure of some humans, and the mercenary mercenary of business practices, is far uglier than a presidential husband's extramarital sex. Advances in technology have changed humanity in many ways.But the ugliness above human beings has hardly changed at all from ancient times to modern times.Moreover, it is even worse than in ancient times, even worse than it is.The sympathy I feel for Clinton goes hand in hand with my disgust for the ugliness of the human mind itself. Mr. Clinton, the most isolated public figure at the end of the 20th century, seems to have only one person to rely on, trustworthy, and get a little helpless comfort—a woman, his wife Hillary.

When some people in the world can't help admiring Hillary's rare psychological endurance as a woman, as a wife, and her extraordinary third-party attitude, it is their daughter that I think of. Yes, I also envy Mrs. Hillary's various commendations.But I still think of their daughter more often in my heart.She was still a girl after all.She may be the most psychologically traumatized teenage girl at the end of the 20th century.Compared with her, the two sons of Diana and Prince Charles are lucky-after all, as teenagers, they did not see their parents' respective scandals being painted "yellow" by various media.Instead, after the tragic death of their mother, they saw so many people in their own country and the world crying for their mother; they saw so many flowers, so many ways of mourning, so many Praise the article.So much so that at such a young age, they had to act like adults twice last year and this year—begging those who worship their mothers to mourn, be rational, and restrain their emotions, and try to keep all kinds of mourning activities as simple as possible ,normalization.

But the Clintons' daughter had only one option to speak out publicly -- begging for forgiveness for her father.In addition to this option, the other is to bear the pressure in silence. Undoubtedly, on the day when she suffered the most serious psychological injury, there must be some other girls in this country and that country in the world, who were caught in this or that misfortune, and were suffering physical and mental injuries in one way or another. —But the latter, given the proper opportunity, can call for help from society, from the world for sympathy, and from the law for justice and protection.

But the first Miss America is, and never will be, clearly unlikely to qualify. Because it was the American law that pushed her father into the disaster of "sex scandal" step by step, steadily and completely in accordance with the law with the principle of being just and almost ruthless. When I say this, my deep sympathy for her, and for her father, Mr. President Clinton, in no way imply my prejudice against American law, much less my condemnation of it.On the contrary, this matter cannot help but make me feel once again the powerless and insurmountable authority of American legal principles.

In this world's most powerful country, all authorities and authority figures appear so small, so humble, so fragile, and so vulnerable to a single blow in the face of the law. In this world's most powerful country, facing the law, how strict are the requirements for political authority figures—from governors to mayors to congressmen to vice presidents and presidents!Strict to the point of being harsh, harsh as if on purpose—from the quality of honesty (even if you lied about a certain matter in your student days) to whether you pay more than ten dollars in taxes, to the one or two mistakes in the relationship between men and women ( In fact, just one time is enough to step down), and it is not a "subsection". In this world's most powerful country, a series of political mistakes made by political authority figures, politicians and even the president are almost always lenient.On this point, Americans don't seem to require their president to be perfect.However, social supervision has never let go of their self-discipline quality in the "section".Other countries in the world, especially China, are apparently just the opposite.In my opinion, what this opposite means to the United States and what it means to China deserves further analysis. In some countries, presidential scandals are almost always considered national scandals.For the United States, the scandal of any president has always been regarded as just the scandal of a certain American president himself.The United States has almost never felt a national shame over the scandals of any president. The United States has always demonstrated its self-confidence and the supremacy of its laws by relentlessly publicizing scandals of this nature.America never cared what happened to their president.They ditch the president like old shoes.But the United States did not decline step by step because of this. Almost all Americans are extremely concerned about what happens to their laws.They care about that, like every parent cares about how their children are doing.Perhaps this is one of the conditions for the continued prosperity of the United States.While sympathizing with President Clinton, I have to be respectful of the laws of the United States. There was, I admit, even an element of horror in this solemnity.