After graduating from college, most people want to avoid avoid campus politics like it’s a leper with the plague. But not Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan.
He returned to the pages of his alma mater Wesleyan University’s student newspaper to duke it out with a student columnist. His goal was to defend the honor of his Oscar-winning leading man, Casey Affleck, who has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple woman.
The assistant opinion editor of the Wesleyan Argus, Connor Aberle, wrote a biting op-ed criticizing Wesleyan for being complicit in Affleck’s success, by partially taking credit for Lonergan’s achievement and promoting the director as an alumnus.
“Wesleyan University has an obligation to reject sexual violence of all kinds,” Aberle wrote. “Therefore, it cannot claim credit for Lonergan’s success without also recognizing his role in promoting Casey Affleck’s career. Wesleyan must either be cautious in its alumni praise, or it must admit to its students that it cares only about building the Wesleyan University brand rather than social justice or the well-being of the Wesleyan community.”
The op-ed also takes care to compare socially just Oscar victories like Moonlight winning Best Picture, to socially unjust one, like Affleck’s.
Lonergan would not let these transgressions slide, especially at the site of his old stomping grounds, and wrote a brutal, personal rebuttal in the Argus.
Somebody as interested in actual as opposed to merely vocalized social justice as Mr Aberle presumably is, should unwind his tangled, immoral chain of reasoning and start over at the fundamental precept that an allegation is not an indictment. Nor can it be treated as such by any ethical person living in a democratic society supposedly based on the rule of law. Anything less vigilant exemplifies a disjointed abuse of morals and reason which those of us on the Left like to imagine exists only on the Right. I wish it were so. But I do hope that Mr Aberle is capable of taking a much harder look at the merits of his own arguments before he decides to air his views in public again.
Damn, Lonergan, he’s only a kid! While the rebuttal was a tad convoluted, Lonergan argued that the allegations against Affleck were unproven and that Aberle was presuming his guilt in the op-ed with no concrete factual basis.
But why the hell is this fight taking place in some lame student newspaper? What Lonergan should really do is pull that beer-stained college hoodie out of the closet, put a bro-y baseball cap on backwards, and challenge this fool Aberle to a game of beer pong.
Settle this on the court, you two!