Tear down the university with the statue

Everybody lies.  Sometimes, when we look back on those lies, we wish we hadn't done it.  Sometimes, when we look back on it, we see the damage that we created.  Sometimes we see both the regret and the damage.


That's what I think about when I look at Penn State and the line of troubles that have come out of the attempts to cover up child rape.  Let's not sugar coat what was done by saying "the tragedies" or "the bad stuff."  It was child rape.  It was sexual acts committed against minors by an adult male.  And it was hidden, and therefore permitted, by other adult men who held power in the university and the town.


A real fulcrum here is about where the people stopped and where the institutions began.  Was Joe Paterno the person, or was he the Coach of Penn State Football?  Was Graham Spanier the person or the President of the University?  Did they have a duty as a human, or did they have a duty as the head of an organization? 


We create institutions to prevent individual error from spiraling out of control and damaging more people than a single act by a single person is worth.  Institutions - corporations, universities, cities - are beings in their own right, created as entities to hold property or be sued or take action.  They are beings with a purpose, established by charter and protected by law, set in place to protect people. 


But sometimes the damage is because the institution stops protecting humans, and turns to protecting itself.  At that time, the institutions have failed.  When the preservation of the institution trumps all the humans nearby, the institution is a destructive force.  


It is these institutions that must be utterly demolished.  To look at an institutional culture that allows child rape is to gaze in the bloody maw of a destructive organization.  It is telling that we are not actually talking about deconstructing the entire organization of the university.  We should be ready to ask how this should be destroyed, not whether.  We treat institutions reverently, even when they don't deserve it.