- could not coach again, and Penn State made the correct decision in terminating him.
- deserves more than the instant and total excoriation he’s receiving in far too many quarters.
The most reasonable piece I’ve yet read also says as much. It also discusses the instant, continuous communication with which we find ourselves in the early 21st century, and the competition it generates. It’s important to be more outraged. It’s important to call for graver consequences. There is some validity in that premise, but I also think there is something more.
There is a powerful human need for resolution. Indeed, there is a part of our souls that prefers a negative outcome to an unsettled state. And I believe we are desperate to get the Penn State horror into a box. When so, if it’s not fully understood—even if it’s never fully understood—it has boundaries. It can only hurt so much, because we can see where it stops. We can’t see where this stops yet, and that generates profound dissonance.
The victims here dwarf any other consideration. They need care, and their abuser needs justice. I believe there is no reasonable differing position. However, I think it’s that very lack of ambiguity that generates talk about other aspects—like, oh, what we ultimately do in our heads with a guy like Paterno, who has laid down six consistent decades of leadership and generosity.
Realize that considering such is not necessarily disrespectful. It just might be the only conversational ore there is to mine.
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