Over the last couple of weeks I've had occasion to check some of the stories from British sources relating to the scandal surrounding the late Jimmy Savile. I'm not exactly sure what's been drawing me to this, but I rather hope it's a concern with the operations of power and influence in the land of my birth, and the need to reflect upon the implications of various schools of sexual morality, and not just the lurid fascination of the whole mess.
One thing apparent in a number of accounts of the man's alleged activities jumped out at me as worthy of puzzled consideration. I was surprised at the number of commentators on the period of time involved - taking the crucial decades to be the sixties and seventies - who insisted that this had been a time of innocence. It wasn't. I was there and I know this to be so, even though I was fairly young at the time. It was like all periods: a sense of jaded knowingness pervaded most areas of public debate of an adult nature. There never has been a time of innocence anywhere, anyworld.
Why are we so keen to create versions of the past that rely on a wistful vision of something close to infantilism? Is our longing for the time before the fall so powerful that we are forced to project it onto any surface that can give back even a faint reflection of our yearning?
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