By the time you read this, a news story that surfaced this weekend has exploded into a major scandal that has already
claimed the job of the winningest D-1 football coach ever, put a
university president on notice and left a couple more high ranking officials reading the writing on the wall. Not to mention the lives of at least 8 young men forever scarred. I'm talking about the
happenings at Penn State University.
There isn't much I can add to the discussion of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal that hasn't already been said. And believe me, I looked. I did extensive research on this issue- literally reading more than
three articles for over twenty minutes and accumulating at least two
pages of notes.
But I'm still going to blog about it anyways. Don't worry- I'm not going to be playing the part of Internet Avenger or Moral Crusader. What I am going to say is that in light of what we know about human psychology
and organizational theory, this type of cover-up response is not
necessarily indicative of any moral failure- at least, not as we understand morality in our day-to-day lives.
Before I begin, I'm going to tell you what I'll not be saying. I'm not saying
it's okay to sexually abuse children. I'm not saying it's okay for people
in power positions to abuse their position. I'm not saying
that people (Paterno and Spanier specifically) shouldn't lose their jobs.
I'm not saying Penn State and Second Mile are blameless in this. I'm not saying that organizations should expect to employ child predators or that it's okay to cover up the transgressions of others. That should cover the list of things that I'm not saying.
Now, to what I
am saying. And what I am saying is that the behaviors of Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and Graham Spanier (among others) are understandable within the context of organizational theory and our understanding of psychology.
Look, I'm 99% sure we can all agree that there is no place for the abuse of power that happened in this situation, and that people need to be held accountable. And obviously sexual abuse is a moral issue and its perpetrators have what I would consider a moral failing. But I do not agree with those that say Paterno and Spanier (by omission) committed gross moral failure. In fact, statistically speaking, they probably did what a majority of us
would have done were we in their same shoes.
Chilling? Maybe. Unbelievable? Most definitely. But that's why you read this blog, right? To be consistently and routinely amazed. Anyways, enough about me. Let's talk about you- what do you think of me?
I'm building my hypothesis with bricks of psychology and macro-sociology.
To start with, check out
these human behavior experiments.
Ordinarily, Cracked probably wouldn't be the first source of authority I'd send you
to to back up my points (Wikipedia would be the first), but these are all legitimate scientific studies that each tell a frightening tale about the depths of common humanity.
The
whole article is relevant in that it talks about ways we change our behavior
from norms depending on social settings/power/etc. Pay particular attention to #3
(Bystander apathy) and #2 (Stanford prison). Have you read it yet? No. Okay. Go read it, and then come back. And no, I'm not stalling.
My point is this- our ideological morality is not necessarily our pragmatic morality. Most of us have some sort of moral code that we adhere to. It helps us navigate a very grey world by making certain areas black and white. That means we have to spend less time thinking and pondering those situations- we can just process them through our moral filter, make a quick judgment, and move onto the next
episode of American Idol pressing ethical dilemma.
The thing is that, as these studies have shown, our moral compasses are not always set to 'stun'. Our behavior is shaped by a multitude of forces other than what we believe to be right and wrong. Sometimes people will do things they would otherwise deem inappropriate because of social setting. Sometimes people will do those things because they are given power. Sometimes people will do things because of peer pressure. But regardless, there are situations that arise that will impact our behavior and cause us to do things that we probably swore we would never ever do.
These statements will make more sense as I awkwardly transition to my second topic, which is organizational theory. But first, another disclaimer!
Again, I am not saying that people shouldn't be held accountable for what happened. I agree with State police commissioner Frank Noonan when he says "somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral
requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are
taking place with a child...I think you have the moral
responsibility, anyone...to call us". I just want everybody playing the moral superiority card to tone it down a few notches- because each of us has a unique set of circumstances that could put us in morally compromising situations that we probably would handle pretty damn poorly according to the popular consensus.
Moving on.
Organizations are, anthropomorphically speaking, survivors that form a symbiotic relationship with human beings. They give us power, money, prestige- we give them the ability to survive. Fair trade right? Except for the part about human beings giving them life. That's just asking for a techno-organic cluster-frack.
 |
| This is an example of a non-profit techno-organic cluster frack |
Looking at the Penn State situation specifically, some are chalking it up to
big bucks football power-type stuff, where love of the green (grass) and love of the green (money) come together to sacrifice kittens in crudely drawn, bloody pentagrams in endzones across the country. I would posit that it's much more than that. This isn't just about money and football- it's a reality of any organization. It's a systemic issue. It's inherently built into the system.
There's a reason that
certain people are mandated reporters. I'll give you a hint- it isn't because these people are screw-ups or likely to have indecent moral standards. I'm guessing it's because sticky ethical situations probably arose and the government wanted to have some form of legal recourse (note: I'm sure I could do some research to find out the origin of mandated reporter laws- but you've been flat-out blessed by all the research I've done so far. Don't push it).
In the ESPN article I linked to above (good read, BTW), Bryant says the "special power of an institution lies in it's moral authority". I disagree. I say that institutions (to be fair, he may be talking strictly collegiate institution whereas I am applying it in a broader sense) have power because that power has been given to (or more accurately, not taken away from) them by those we charge with our governance. We tacitly give our stamp of approval by our willing submission to those organizations on a daily basis. Many of them are necessary to run our society- at least, the society that we choose to live in. I mean, when you have cities with hundreds of thousands of people, you pretty much have to turn things over to the Man in order for things to even run with a modicum of precision.
Of course, that precision comes with a price, and unfortunately there are times when the cost is our humanity. Our systems are largely built on chain-of-command communication which can lend itself quite skillfully to breaking down while also providing a wonderful layer of protection. Just make sure to pass on information to your superior (or whoever you are supposed to tell), and you can pretty much cross it off your to-do list- once you've made the proper documentation that is. This sort of thing probably happens way more than you'd think- it's just not usually with serious things like sexual abuse.
Communications breakdowns aside (and there were a crap ton of them with this Penn State debacle), I think there are a couple of reasons why something like this could happen without someone being like 'hey, um, this is pretty...wrong'. Note: I'm not saying that these are legitimate reasons that give a free pass for covering for illegal, immoral activities. I'm just saying that in the context of an organization's desire for survival, these are probably reasons why 'cover-ups' would happen.
1) Protect the organization. There can be a lot of chaos when something like this hits the tabloids. Disruption in the work place and at home. Loss of jobs. Tarnished reputation- both for an individual and the agency/organization they are associated with. It's pretty easy on the outside to say that those things are not more important than people- and in a vacuum, you'd be 100% right. But when it comes down to protecting a living, breathing, known quantity (self, friends, family) or protecting a nameless, possibly faceless statistic...that 100% can come down considerably.
Like a living organism, an organization is going to fight to survive- and it fights for survival through the people it feeds. It will not be consumed. It
disguises its intentions behind peoples lives, their jobs, and their
financial security. It takes what we have in common and disregards it in favor of what makes us different (namely that you're here and they're not).
2) Protect friends. It's easier to want to cover up and hide people you know and are probably friends with than unknown- which doesn't make it right, but that doesn't make it an ethical slam dunk either. Paterno knew Sandusky for over 40 years. Sandusky played football while Paterno was an assistant coach at Penn State, and became the defensive coordinator the year after JoePa started as head coach. So they worked together for over 30 years. Sandusky started his Second Mile foundation (a non-profit which helped at-risk youth) in 1977. So they knew each other for over 40 years, worked together for over 30, and Sandusky ran a non-profit organization for over 20 years when the 2002 incident happened.
So when a graduate assistant came to his house and told him he had seen Sandusky behaving inappropriately in the shower with a young boy- I'm just assuming that it didn't register as something that was really happening. Obviously he told his superior, which fulfilled his legal requirement. We know the incident was never followed up on. But I imagine there was probably quite a struggle of being confronted with that terrible accusation- a person, a friend that you've known for over 40 years does the absolute most disgusting, horrible, inhumane thing you can imagine.
There's also probably a degree of self-indictment. If you allow yourself to really think on the horrible things that your friend has done while still outwardly appearing like everything is going on like business as usual...it seems like there would be a tremendous overwhelming sensation of 'what else have I been wrong about?'. You probably refuse to believe that you could be deluded, because you have such a strong, alert moral filter. Maybe you live in denial of the event. Maybe you minimize it. Maybe you think 'well, I told my boss, so if this is the real deal, then something will happen and
then I will deal with this'.
Of course outside people are quickly accusing the Penn State big wigs of simply passing the buck. They say they absconded from their moral and ethical responsibilities. To which I would say, well of course they did-
they live and work in a system that is set up for them to do such a thing.
One of the board members said on Tuesday that they want to put "systems, procedures...in place so this can never happen again". You mean like the ones you have now? I mean, the chances are that there was already some sort of system in place- the one where you just keep telling your boss to tell his boss and assume that someone has to tell the relevant authorities.
I don't imagine anything like this will happen at Penn State again for awhile (if ever) simply because the University's reputation has become stained by this event. But for him to think that there is some sort of magical system that can be installed in such a large institution to keep this horrible tragedy from happening again- it's just not realistic. There are always precautions and measures to be taken. Precautions and measures that are sometimes conflicted by human psychology and organizational structure.
In the end, Goliath did not throw the stone at his own
head. What brought Sandusky's horrible actions to a stop was not the
system. It wasn't a chain of command. It was a mother, who persisted until there was action. Let this be a warning to all of us- that we need to be active participants in our lives and the lives of those around us. We
can't rely on our systems and we can't necessarily rely on others. Don't wait for the cavalry...because chances are, they've been held up by loads and loads of red tape.
As the people involved in this Penn State tragedy move forward and the world tries to learn from this, I hope that you can see that our moral actions do not take place in a textbook or a video game. Life is not as black and white or linear as we try to make it out to be. Yes, we humans have our standards to always live up to our conscience whatever system our morals are based on. Accountability and consequences are an important part of a healthy society in my opinion. But that said, there are forces outside of us, outside of our understanding that can cause us to do things that we might not normally do outside of that context. Therefore we shouldn't be so quick to judge. Who knows- one day we could be the ones answering to the torches and pitchforks.
Information from ESPN was used in this blog.
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