Penn State's Moral Lapses -- A Reflection

The latest round of allegations of child molestation have set off a firestorm, this time in the frenzies world of college football.

Child predation is difficult to deal with in part because care-takers taking care of young people then take advantage of the relationship of trust which they have built.

Once they molest the child, they can manipulate the young person with fear and guilt to keep them from seeking help.

It is understandable that people are driven to hysterical distraction regarding this problem.

Yet there are fundamental beliefs which are thwarting out capacity to deal with this issue properly.

For one thing, we have molly-coddled young people into accepting too saccharine a world view. Two hundred years ago, young people were taught about death and evil, hard realities which today we have dismissed or disdain to discuss for fear of offending someone's sensibilities. Long before, children were infused with a healthy sense of distrust about the world. Nursery tales like Little Red Riding Hood were more severe in content, warning children to be wary of wolves in the forest, as well as wolves who would prey on them physically. Young people did not have a soupy-sappy view of the world then, as many do now, since many have become desensitized from reality with electronics and innovations which fail to expand their capacity for responsibility.

Young people -- and adults, too, have failed to teach proper boundaries of respect.

Granted, we want young people to heed their elders, do what they are told. Yet if young people do not have an absolute sense of right and wrong, one which empowers them to speak up against their elders when they are doing wrong, what power do they have when they face molestation at the hands of a trusted caregiver?

The cult of equality has damaged our capacity to speak up for ourselves and speak out against those who seek to harm us. We as a culture do not support young people, or anyone under authority, the proper means to be assertive. Our very nation was founded on the Founders' clear understanding of rights as Englishmen, an appeal to history and law that provided a firm footing for redress of grievances to the Crown of England. When the British Government refused to recognize the common law rights of their subjects in the American colonies, the colonists had no other choice but to appeal to the Supreme Being, detailing that their rights descend from God, and therefore they have the right to rebel against tyrannical government that subverts these rights. If young people had a greater reverence and respect for this higher authority, they would be empowered to speak up when abused, whether the perpetrator was a stranger, an acquaintance, or a guardian.

We have prolonged the childhood of our young people for too long. Admiral David Farragut, the heady of the United States navy during the Civil War, piloted ships when he was thirteen. Abraham Lincoln was apprenticed to many careers, finally becoming a successful attorney and President after many failures -- yet he attended formal schooling for only two years. How can we forget the limited education but extensive accomplishments of the young Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and many others of their time?

Young people have become so infantilized, that the younger generation has become the older generation still living with Mom and Dad. There are a number of abuse victims who still live with their abusive parents, so afraid are they to step out into the world on their own.

The Rousseau Revolution of Romanticism has deluded us into thinking that people are basically good, that if given knowledge of right and wrong, they will invariably choose to do right. This mentality is on full display from high ranking officials in College Footballl, who cannot explain or even understand why Joe Paterno and "good people" in the words of former Pac-12 Commissioner Tom Hansen, would not follow up on allegations of child predation among their ranks.

This misguided belief in the basic goodness of man also leads long-time coaches like John Gagliardi to wonder: "how could a guy who's married, has kids, grandkids [do such things] . . .I don't know. Who knows?" Only a mindset geared toward the basic goodness of mankind presents such moral quandaries.