A Scarlet ‘A’ for Accountability : Prudence, Not Prurience, Inclines Us to Judgment

“Time found you out,/all-seeing, irrepressible Time,” says the Chorus to King Oedipus when he discovers that the man he killed at a crossroads years before was his father. Though their offenses are considerably less heinous, some public figures have learned lately that time has all the power attributed to it in Greek tragedy--the power to damage and even ruin their careers when a youthful folly or transgression becomes known to the public and the public holds them accountable.

If there is one principle that binds together the classical and Judeo-Christian traditions in Western civilization it is the principle of accountability. Both traditions teach us that mature adults cannot simply shrug off their misdeeds by saying, “I was a different person then,” but must accept responsibility for them before man and God. From a civic leader, especially, we need guarantees that we are not entrusting our fate to someone who quick-changed his ethos upon entering the spotlight. This, not cynical networking, is the essence of the Dan Quayle controversy: Those who would forgive a young man’s decision to attend law school rather than be drafted in wartime might draw the line at the same fellow’s preaching the virtues of war from the White House.

Are we being too severe on our public servants, too eager to hound them about their former life, like the relentless Javert on the tracks of Jean Valjean? Obviously there is no one answer to that question that fits all cases. The public may condemn one person’s lapses but find reasons, often political ones, to excuse another’s wrongdoing. And the court of public opinion can be swayed by the rhythm of approval and disapproval in the media, especially when the fault in question does not strike too close to home. There is always a taint of hypocrisy in the air when people with guilty secrets of their own decry the wickedness of those who happen to be caught.

The issue of accountability is a central one in American literature, beginning with Puritan sermons and taking its most compelling form in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, “The Scarlet Letter.” In the agony of Arthur Dimmesdale, the Puritan minister who cannot bear to reveal the secret of his adultery with Hester Prynne or acknowledge the daughter of their liaison, Hawthorne shows how the failure to speak candidly and fully about one’s past frailty can compromise the entire community. Dimmesdale’s followers become all the more narrow-minded and repressive because they lack the noble example of his heartfelt confession.

Hester Prynne, by contrast, is Hawthorne’s attempt to move beyond the Puritan ethic that demands public humiliation for illicit acts. Precisely because she wears the scarlet “A” on her breast, Hester can achieve a humanity greater than that of her judges. The mockers who cannot see Hester as a person, only as a sinner, remind us that the accountability issue is double-edged. The “sinner” judges us as we judge him or her, by challenging us to be compassionate as well as just. It is in this sense that the biblical axiom cautions us, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

Having said as much, I must concede that “The Scarlet Letter,” however uplifting its humanistic attitude, pertains very little to the scandals of this year, even to the transgressions of latter-day Dimmesdales like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, whose sexual encounters lacked any redeeming elements of authentic love.

In my own field of literary studies, a controversy rages over the late Paul de Man, an eminent scholar who wrote anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi articles for a Belgian newspaper during his early 20s and concealed the fact throughout his distinguished career at Yale. These and other sordid examples make one wonder how many highly respected people do have the moral courage to tell the whole truth, as Dimmesdale does at the end of Hawthorne’s novel, when it threatens to spoil their genial image.

Truth, according to the proverb, is the daughter of Time. In the course of time, damaging revelations are likely to surface about people driven by ambition. The significance of these revelations must be negotiated between an embarrassed public figure and his or her aggrieved public. Surely the crucial point here is that neither side should be panicked into hysterical recriminations or reflex postures of righteousness.

It may be naive to expect sweetness and light when a Supreme Court appointment or the presidency is at stake, but on these and smaller occasions a national dialogue conducted rationally and open-mindedly can help to shore up the community’s precarious standards of decency and justice.