| Charismatic
leaders and ultra-popular figures in society undoubtedly
have the ability to redirect our attention towards some
specific problems. But there is no doubt that a scandal
in any aspect of a society may be a useful and powerful
attention-getter that can motivate people to sit up and
take notice of a previously unknown or little-discussed
problem.
To begin with,
a scandal cannot actually exist if no one knows about it.
Normally when one hears of a scandal, it is caused by someone’s
truly outrageous behavior. It is quite often someone of
a least some celebrity status that is the offender; thereby
making the scandal an even bigger news story than the conduct
itself would have been in the first place. Just looking
at the news worldwide, one can see that, many times, the
news covers a particular political or societal scandal.
The very fact that a scandal mesmerizes and titillates a
society makes it an ideal motivator for focusing public
attention on a particular problem within that society.
As one example, the recent scandal involving sexual abuse
by Catholic priests and officials focused the world’s attention
on the problem of pedophiles in high-ranking positions of
authority. Although there had been such allegations and
even lawsuit settlements in the past, it took a large-scale
scandal to really focus the public’s attention on the problem.
When only a few people had previously spoken out, very little
attention was directed towards the potential problems. Then
a massive scandal broke out involving hundreds of priests
and victims, internal cover-ups and the Church’s admission
of the moving around of accused priests from parish to parish.
The public was outraged, causing the problems to be addressed
at the highest levels of the Catholic Church, including
an announcement by the Pope, the leader of the Catholic
faith.
In an example
from academia, a scandal over world famous author Stephen
Ambrose focused the academic world’s attention on the previously
little-discussed problem of plagiarism. Although allegations
of plagiarism had arisen in the past, there had been no
scandal created because those accused were not well known
and had mostly written little work of any consequence. On
the contrary, Mr. Ambrose had been cited as an expert authority
on history and had sold millions of best-selling books worldwide.
The ensuing scandal that erupted over his admitted (and
supposedly inadvertent) plagiarism probably focused attention
on the problem of misappropriating the writings of others
in a way that no individual could have done.
A further example
of the impact of scandal on society can be found in the
history of the public’s reaction to the AIDS virus. In the
early 1980’s, the general population was not concerned about
the disease as it was seen mainly as a homosexual problem
with little risk to so-called “normal” people. But when
famous movie star Rock Hudson died of AIDS, followed by
the resulting scandal over his previously little-known sex
life, the public’s attention became more focused on the
plight of people with the deadly disease. Many individuals
had spoken out on the potential problems caused by AIDS
before his death. But it was the scandal caused by revelations
over Mr. Hudson’s life and death, followed by the similarly
scandalous deaths of other celebrities that tragically brought
home the reality of the disease – everyone could be at risk.
In summary, there
are potentially many very charismatic and influential people
that can be truly motivational leaders and focus a society’s
attention on a particular problem. But quite often it takes
a scandal and the accompanying publicity to make the public
truly take notice and actually contemplate a specific issue.
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