Like most of the United States, all of us at Lovefraud were horrified by the sordid story of child sexual abuse that emerged from Penn State University last week. Unlike most of the United States, we probably weren’t surprised.
That’s because all of us at Lovefraud have learned a very difficult lesson that millions of other people have not learned. This is the lesson: Evil exists.
For most of us, however, there was a time before the lesson. At that time we didn’t know evil existed—let alone what it looked like or what to do about it. So at that time, we were vulnerable to the sociopaths.
The sociopaths came into our lives, showering us with affection and maybe gifts, asking about our dreams and promising to make them come true. Kind of like the way Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, treated some of the young boys from his Second Mile organization for disadvantaged youths.
Then, after a period of time, we glimpsed inappropriate or immoral behavior from the sociopath. Perhaps it was directed towards someone else. Perhaps it was directed toward us. In any event, we were shocked.
Did we really see what we thought we saw? Did that person, who we always thought was so wonderful, who had been treating us like gold, really do that? It’s so out of character. It can’t be true.
Kind of like the reaction many people probably had towards allegedly seeing or hearing about Jerry Sandusky abusing young boys.
Complicated issue
Many people at Penn State failed to take appropriate action to stop Sandusky from preying on young boys. All of the following people have been criticized:
- Janitors who knew of an assault
- Mike McQueary, the graduate assistant football coach who witnessed an attack
- The Penn State athletic director and senior vice president, who failed to contact police
- Penn State University President Graham Spanier, himself a family therapist
- The legendary football coach Joe Paterno
But the issue is complicated. I am not making excuses for anyone, but experts say that any decision about what to do in this situation would have been fraught with psychological issues and societal pressures. An excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette raised the following points:
- Did the officials who failed to report feel allegiance to a friend? Did they feel allegiance to Penn State football, or to the university?
- What about the phenomenon of “diffusion of responsibility”? Did everyone think reporting was someone else’s responsibility?
- What about the human brain, which is “remarkably adept at believing what it wants to believe—”and not believing what it doesn’t want to believe?
Read Penn State: Why doing the right thing isn’t as easy as it seems, on Post-Gazette.com.
Teachable moment
So how do we correct the problem? How can people be prepared to respond appropriately when they come face to face with evil? We need awareness, education and training:
- Awareness: Evil exists.
- Education: Evil is not always obvious. Sometimes, it masquerades as goodness.
- Training: When we discover evil, what do we do?
Quite frankly, I think many of the people who could have reported the behavior of Jerry Sandusky were shocked into inaction. They saw or learned something unbelievable. They didn’t know what they saw or learned was possible. Then, with no guidance about what to do in such a situation, they decided there was less personal risk in doing nothing, or doing the minimal, or soft peddling what they learned, in case they were wrong.
Make no mistake: Doing the right thing in this situation involved enormous personal risk. It was the individual’s word against that of a scion of Penn State football. It was like going up against the church.
Perhaps, in the end, good will come out of this tragedy. What happened at Penn State has provided a teachable moment on a grand scale.
The child sexual abuse scandal has forever tarnished the legacy of the legendary Joe Paterno and the storied Penn State football team. It is a lesson of what can happen when people fail to do the right thing. The sudden and drastic downfall may be just what is needed to help people faced with similar situations in the future take the personal risk and go to the right authorities.
Doing nothing may be safe in the short term, but perilous in the long term. If Joe Paterno can be ruined by not doing enough, anyone can be ruined.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad and if I didn’t think the man BELIEVED what he said! Talk about narcissistic. I hope the man rots in prison and gets BUBBA for a cell mate! Maybe Bubba will think the guy is “promiscuous.”
Your comment “purposely picked kids from “troubled backgrounds” who would A) not have involved parents and B) wouldn’t be believed if they did report the abuse” is spot on!! My ex is a pedophile and this is his pattern with both women and children. He is a very good liar and con-artist and he convinced church leadership that it was about “one photograph that did not really depict what they thought it did”. I never knew the truth until I found a transcript of the trial in his papers that he left behind. The truth for the incident that he was caught in was that he had a room full of pornographic photos of an 8 year old girl (that he took) AND he admitted to sexual abuse of her, he confessed and asked for a deal. People don’t do that type of thing one time either, they just get very good at hiding it! He cons women into relationship saying that he loves them, but he is just using them financially and he will be on the computer at night when she is asleep feeding his porn/sex addiction. He claims he is all about ministry and helping the victims of abuse, neglect and oppression…but it is all a lie ( CLASSIC GROOMING) to get you to trust him. When the people in the church catch on to his con, he just moves to a different church leaving behind a bunch of used and abused people that he never cared about at all! He has a constant supply of women that buy into his lies, he is a narcissistic psychopath, evil to the core!
Hard to believe that idiot called a one year old girl “promiscuous”!!! A “moderate risk”…are you freaking kidding me!! Outrageous!
The other thing is the child feels responsible, and the abuser MAKES the child feel responsible. The abuser can then use the child’s own guilt and shame them in the form of a threat if they tell anyone. It’s a very tragic situation.
You are right Oxy, the “at risk kids” like his organization was “helping”. After just putting Grand into the boys and girls club, basically for “at risk kids” it sends chills up and down my spine.
I still don’t think it hurts to pop into places from time to time, but if these creeps are going to do this they will do it regardless. sick – sick – sick.
The promiscuous one year old, like the one year old in supervised visitation, filmed by the sicko parents.
And I thought Montana was tougher on this kind of crap, if he would have shot a grizzly, he would have been hung.
The Trojan Horse psychopath who was a 3X convicted child abuser, ages 9, 11 and 14, was a ‘HIGH RISK FOR REOFFENSE AND VIOLENCE” in Texas, but Arkansas decreased his risk from a level 4 (the highest) to a level 2 (not on a map, you must search for him by name on the sex offenders list) “because he didn’t do any of these crimes in Arkansas.” In Texas he would have had a SIGN IN HIS YARD….not here.
Identifying psychopaths is a can of worms that most of society does not want to know about . In my mind there are a few problems . Identitifying someone as a psychopath, almost has a racist tone to it . Psychopaths can hardly be called human so indentifying and publicizing the fact is frowned upon . You are labeling a segment of society as a group . A group that should not be given the freedoms and rights that the rest of society takes for granted . Human rights and freedoms in the hands of a psychopath is like a fox in the chicken coop . Most humans treat each other with respect , along comes a psychopath and the situation changes . The human treats them with respect while the psychopath goes into covert destruction mode reaping havoc all over town . Treating a psychopath with respect is a recipe for disaster . From my own experience I would say they will never change to be reasonable human beings , so what to do . The eskimos apparently have a name for this type of person . Their answer to the problem is , push them off the edge of ice flow at an opportune moment . Anyone got any better ideas
Quest,
The problem is that until they have BEHAVED BADLY you don’t know what they are, so by the time you figure one out, they have usually done a LOT OF DAMAGE…yea, the Inuit’s plan is a good one, but unfortunately here the law frowns on such justice as that.
If our laws that are on the books already were enforced there would be fewer of them out on the streets to commit MORE CRIMES at least. The 3-strikes you’re out (or three felonies and you are in prison forever without a chance of parole) I think is a possible solution. Or any rape or killing that is premeditated or “first degree” instantly qualifies as a “life without parole” sentence, and ALL PEDOPHILES. As long as we have judges though like the one that let Sandusky out of bond wihtout him having to actually PUT UP A BOND, well….what can I say. SHE needs to go to prison with him.
quest, at the start of May this year I wrote on my facebook, “Goodbye, my kunlangeta, I wish you peace and rest until the end of your days in the icy waters of my arctic.” I just made him dead in my mind. And it wasn’t him that I wished peace and rest for… but my mind. I just pushed him off an ice shelf in my mind and froze him in there away from any human feelings.
quest,
I was reading that ONE person showed up at the football game carrying signs in support of the victims. He was accosted, beer was thrown on him, his sign was smashed.
The “sports fans” said, “not now, this is about the football players.”
They don’t want their good times ruined by being reminded of all the atrocities, indignities and suffering in the world. That would just be a bummer.
http://gawker.com/5858988/this-is-about-the-football-players-moron-tells-penn-state-protester
Sky, sometimes it’s amazing to me how much people seem to live in a fantasy bubble, as if they can shut out the raw reality of evil like the button on the remote control… I know that if I would really give my opinion on certain cases, they’d think I’m the one who’s paranoid… people can’t be that bad. But I just think, yep keep those blinders on and get fooled and perpetuate the bad.