Why do political scandals revolving around sexuality and sexual relations matter to the larger political context of a nation? Anna Clark in her novel Scandal asks this question of her readers, in her quest to understanding how sex scandals shaped the influence of politics in eighteenth-century England. Clark effectively argues that scandals were employed as a tactic to mobilize the public in political situations but that the scandals were not always successful in creating public participation. The reality that some scandals worked and others did not is extremely important in understanding the larger debate of what is considered private versus public in relation to the public figures of a society (1). Carks interpretation of the word scandal
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There are adulterers, gamblers, domestic abusers and embezzlers but no one seems to be particularly concerned with their actions. We have a social code that deeply values privacy and the right to a personal life. While this idea was new in the eighteenth-century the debate over what actions belong in which category has not become vastly clearer throughout history. Be it the debate over the United States government's role in social affairs, (i.e. marriage, welfare) or the politicians right to personal views that differ from their political stances, we still struggle with this dynamic. Particularly concerning sexual scandals society like that of the eighteenth-century cannot decide on a unified understanding of sexual morality (214), allowing for opposing political forces to pry into each other's lives in the hopes of using immoral actions as representations or symbols of immoral politics. Without Clark's sound argument where she illuminates how sex scandals were created and employed as a means to indicate larger political issues we would not have a historical foundation from which to understand the debate of public versus private. It is through her analysis of scandals that both worked and failed that we gain insight into the ways in which the privacy of public figures can be connected to their public actions when the greater political good of the public is perceived to be in
There are adulterers, gamblers, domestic abusers and embezzlers but no one seems to be particularly concerned with their actions. We have a social code that deeply values privacy and the right to a personal life. While this idea was new in the eighteenth-century the debate over what actions belong in which category has not become vastly clearer throughout history. Be it the debate over the United States government's role in social affairs, (i.e. marriage, welfare) or the politicians right to personal views that differ from their political stances, we still struggle with this dynamic. Particularly concerning sexual scandals society like that of the eighteenth-century cannot decide on a unified understanding of sexual morality (214), allowing for opposing political forces to pry into each other's lives in the hopes of using immoral actions as representations or symbols of immoral politics. Without Clark's sound argument where she illuminates how sex scandals were created and employed as a means to indicate larger political issues we would not have a historical foundation from which to understand the debate of public versus private. It is through her analysis of scandals that both worked and failed that we gain insight into the ways in which the privacy of public figures can be connected to their public actions when the greater political good of the public is perceived to be in