I was referred here by subbabub, I'm not actually sure where "here" is, besides the link I clicked.
Anyway, I read Icebear's post.
I believe the only way to create the change that Icebear wants, is to inflict all that damage to the culture. To damage all those "innocents", in social, economic ways. This is no different than entire countries initiating trade embargo's, and things like that on other countries because of transgressions deemed punishable by external sources from the culture itself.
If you mean the culture of the University I can understand believing that destroying the internal culture is the shortest path that but I believe the real goal is transformation of culture and, also, believe that transformation and change can be achieved by other means even if it takes longer. If you mean the broader State College and central PA culture and the economic culture then I do not believe that destruction is in anyway warranted or helpful. So you understand, Carl, I live and minister in the midst of the central valleys of PA about 50 minutes from the PSU campus. I guess a definition of destroying the culture and defining the specific community would be a necessary step to conversation.
It's the only way to ensure that the people in that culture seize the opportunity a tragedy of this magnitude provides - in icebear's words"
I firmly disagree that destruction is a necessary antecedent to the ability for transformation. I would say that a sense of guilt and/or shame can be helpful, sense of conscience. The measure is in some degree whether one values pace over the short term health of most individuals. The choice is a tension between the two.
......There is, also, an opportunity in all of this. There is an opportunity to learn how to put together a quality system of checks and balances that insures that no one has the power to be above the system ever again.......
When all those people are forced to pick up pieces of their lives and move forward, they will demand up the chain of democracy to the top, that that system of checks in balances that is put in place, prevents anyone from every having th absolute power again, to make a decision that can give external forces the ability to change their quality of life again. THat nothing like this every happens again.
You are not clear in your reference to "all those people."
This is the difficulty that people in position of power and authority over vast ranges of people and society face. There are quite literrally tens of thousands of peole that may be adverseily affected by shutting down PSU football home games for a season. (and that's what I advocate). This is not the decision to incendiary bomb the town square, in the city of Dresden in world war 2 that killed approx 25,000 Germans that had nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust - or the Nazi war machine, but happened to live in a capital city of a province of the country. It was as calculated decision to create change in the culture of German from within - and it worked.
There are people without any connection to the program and who would be the first to step in and stop these horrendous acts who will never recover if they lose their businesses because of the sins of a handful or two of men and the blindness of others who should have known. That is a price I consider unacceptable. I believe firmly the responsible have is to provide safety and security while doing minimal harm to ALL the innocent.
The difficulty, that people face, as subba mentioned in the palce I came here from, was the concept of free will.
The concept of free will, I believe, is an illusion. The concept of free will, is why absolute power corrupts, and when it comes to decision making, a dictatorship may be the most efficient form of government, but a committee, majority vote, representation model of leadership will always be morally and ethically superior.
The theological and philosophical concept of free will, good or bad, has little to do with the present situation. Within the present there is only penultimate freedom nothing more. Each agent is not captive to determinism in any sense. There is only action and inaction. There is "sin" by what I have done and what I have left undone as is said each week in the confession of the church tradition (Lutheran) in which I minister. Sandusky's actions were those of things done and Curley and Schultz are examples of the sin of things left undone.
The real choice, decision to be made at this point in time, philosophically, is whether or not the culture of the community at PSU contributed to the way Jerry Sandusky was handled and therefore is deserving of punishment. I believe the culture is at fault, and deserving of punishment.
I think there is little doubt that the culture within the university structure and even the immediate community at PSU played a significant part in the way in which the events involving Sandusky have played out.
And when you enter in the realm of entire cultures (define the limits of "entire cultures") being in need of change through punishment, the concept of collateral damage to innocents is reality, and that is why it is the most difficult decision there can be by people in position of power over others.
Collateral damage will occur without a doubt the question is how does one act to minimize that. It must be no less offensive to harm other innocents in the present drive and movement towards wholeness than it was offensive to fail to protect the innocents abused by Sandusky. The very nature of the present crisis is that no effort was made to protect the innocents, same as in the RCA. Failure to take consideration of innocents in the present cannot and will not ever make the boys abused whole.
it's why the NCAA ducked up royally in 1987 with SMU, and has never been able to really recover from that.
The NCAA can recover from that mistake, in choosing to inflict damage on entire culture that wasn't warranted, by doing it now, when it most surely is warranted.
I think that the NCAA mandates that PSU does not play any home football games in 2012, and then let the damage run it's course to correction in the society. Such action is exactly what will harm those without any connection to the university or its culture.
This isn't fire bombing the town square in Dresden to create change. People will not die becuase there is no football in State College played in the fall of 2012.
You are wrong. Their may well be those who will suffer death in varying forms exactly because of that type of action. Loss of businesses, jobs, homes are all a real possibility.
But the culture will change because of it. I believe that.
