The first thing that needs to be gotten out of the way; Nobody is letting Jerry Sandusky off the hook. I have seen this argument from many Paterno defenders; that nobody is paying any attention to Sandusky and people are behaving as if Paterno had raped those young boys. Nobody is ignoring the perverse, disgusting nature of what Sandusky has been accused of. If Jerry Sandusky is indeed guilty of what he has been charged with (and lets face it, every article, radio segment and TV commentary so far has basically assumed that yes, he is absolutely guilty, so I won’t even attempt to play the “innocent until proven guilty” card), he is a despicable human being. The type of person who has his room in hell bought and paid for. God willing, Jerry Sandusky will get his punishment. Not that it will necessarily do any good for his victims, but we as a society like to know that criminals are being punished. Sandusky is a monster, and he will get what is coming to him.
The bigger question, in terms of moral culpability, in terms of room for discussion, and to put it crassly, in terms of salacious story telling, is how do Joe Paterno’s actions (or more specifically, inactions) fit into the narrative of this tragic story?
We know Joe Paterno was made aware of Sandusky’s activities by then graduate assistant and present wide receivers coach Mike McQueary. The details don’t need to be repeated, suffice to say McQueary witnessed Sandusky engaging in inappropriate contact with a young boy in the Penn State football team showers. The degree to which the “inappropriateness” of that behavior was expressly communicated to Joe Paterno is still up for debate, but I think most people would agree that if you were told about “inappropriate behavior” involving an old man, a young boy, and a shower, warning bells would start shooting off like crazy. It is hard to imagine most decent people could hear those details, as sanitized as they may be, and not feel compelled to, at the very least investigate further, if not simply dial 911 immediately.
But what Joe Paterno specifically knew really isn’t the point I want to make. There is going to be a lot more information to come to light surrounding this story, and eventually we will know much more specifics. And considering the wholesale housecleaning at Penn State (with the suspicious exception of McQueary, one of the few people there with a first hand, eye-witness account of Sandusky’s crimes), rumors that there is much more to come in this story (specifically Mark Madden’s assertion of possible “pimping” of young boys to wealthy Penn State donors), and of course, the missing district attorney, it is entirely possible that this whole scandal is much, much bigger than just Jerry Sandusky’s heinous actions and the hapless inactions of Paterno and school administrators.
Rather, the issue I want to comment on is that this whole incident is a classic example of an insulated community, a rigid chain of command, and the diminished responsibility that comes with “alerting your superiors”. We hear this story all the time. From corporations, to government bureaucrats, to police services; people become involved and engrossed in these isolated environments, and the institutionalized structure of the chain of command ceases to be an efficient method of organization, and instead becomes a rudimentary process of “report filing”, that serves mainly to protect the structure of the institution. Individual responsibility and personal morality is superceded by institutional consistency and regimented processes that serve to remove emotion and humanity from a discussion and replace them with adjudicative consistency and long term structural stability. In much smaller words, people who would otherwise “do the right thing” are allowed to take a step back and remove themselves from the situation because their immediate surroundings tell them “that’s how things are done”. When you get so entrenched into the organizational culture of something so big, so built up by friends, family, students, supporters and even politicians, it becomes almost impossible to remove yourself from that environment and say “wait a second, is this how we are really going to do this?!”.These people become so entrenched in their environment that they are unable to recognize their biases and look at themselves and their institution with any level of rational perspective. One need not look any further than the reactions of Penn State students and football players to see just how far gone some of these people get. Now it is more understandable from young people (although still not excusable); they’re young, they’re stupid and they don’t know any better. So when a Penn State football player tweets about Joe Paterno’s firing being akin to “a modern day crucifixion”, you just roll your eyes and laugh about it. But the problem is that this train of thought, this state of mind doesn’t always end when these young people become adults. It is bred into the institution and into its members.
Its why the riot cop on the front line maces a handful of corralled teenage girls. Its why the Catholic priest feels sexual abuse can be best handled “internally”, and its why people like Paterno, McQueary, Curley, Schultz and whoever else may ultimately be implicated in this scandal were able to go about their days knowing a pedophile was in their midst. The institution becomes so all encompassing that it’s members become comfortable seceding their own moral compass to that of a faceless, soulless institution. One no longer has to make those kinds of strenuous moral decisions, because they are part of the bigger machine. All they need to do now is submit information they might have to the next person up the line, and they then feel that their hands are wiped clean.It is a bit of a catch 22. Society needs structure. Society needs organization to exist and to get things done. But as we have seen, that structure that is necessary to get almost anything done, will on occasion get things done at the expense of real human victims. Because organzations (or to call them by another name, corporations), don’t have a moral compass or a conscious. Organizations do what is best for the organization. And organizations do not have feelings.
Jerry Sandusky is the true criminal in all of this. But the organization of Penn State, and all of those who contributed to it’s “functioning” in spite of these known problems bear some moral culpability. As a football coach, I doubt Joe Paterno would have ever accepted a player simply doing the bare minimum required by procedure so why did he do the bare minimum in a situation immeasurably more important that a football game?
Some correct steps were taken last night by the Penn State board of trustees but there are still more correct steps that need to be taken. And if the rumors surrounding Sandusky’s “Second Mile” children’s organization are even partially true, this whole story is only going to get immeasurably more depraved.
It makes you sad to know you live in a world where this kind of thing can happen, but it reinforces the knowledge that people need to maintain the strength of their convictions. It is a bit of a cliche at this point, but as the saying goes, "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing", and if any good will come from this horrible situation, its that people will be reminded to speak up, and to do something when they see evil.
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