Tonight I watched something that disgusted me to my core. The cameras were rolling as several hundred, maybe several thousand, Penn State students were marching in support of a man who was mostly guilty of looking the other way as a former colleague sexually abused several young boys.
Their coach, a man who until this week seemed to be a pillar of decency, did little to stop the abuse of which he was aware. I believe him when he says he is ashamed of his inaction because I myself believe him to be an honest man.
But it takes more than mere honesty to lead and teach our children. It takes guts and a sense of values that puts the welfare of those students, and any other child, ahead of everything else, including winning on an athletic field.
The students I watched tonight have been let down by their coach, their teachers, their parents and our American society at large. They have been instilled with false values, and can not see the failure of University Officials to protect young children for the outrage it is. Our failure to teach them is complete, they do not even recognize their error. All they know is they love their winning coach.
From an early age they have been taught instead that life is about winning - not about caring for and protecting others. We reward greed and avarice. Not so much do we reward honesty and caring for others welfare. Our values and, therefore, their values are false.
It's why our country is coming apart. Values and morals have fallen away from our society and have been replaced with greed and meaningless toys. A new car is more important than a charitable donation. A winning coach is more important than several preteen aged boys. I'm just as guilty, I love a winning team.
But, my God, winning is not everything.
No, it's not.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to advocate tearing capitalism down, but it used to be balanced; you worked for some guy and made money for him. But you also knew him; you both lived in the same community, had kids in the same schools. There was a community relationship, not just a business one. My mom worked in an industrial laundry; I played with her boss's kids. My dad worked skilled construction, and was buddies with many of the contractors he worked for.
Moreover, if the boss treated employees badly, people would know. He'd acquire a reputation. Certain people wouldn't work for him, or patronize him.
Now we don't have any of that. We work for and learn in vast impersonal institutions. If you are a good guy and help others, watch out for people, it won't be remembered by management. All that will be remembered was whether or not you made your numbers; whether or not you won. The big organization doesn't care about anything else.
Where winning is the only thing that protects you, winning is all that some people will care about. And they'll end up high in the big corporation with all the toys and the big house and the good health care. And other people will try to be like them. And community withers.
I am not sure that a big blowup is coming to society, but I do think that harder times are coming; and when they do, people will remember how important the people around them are; especially when they're cast off by the impersonal owners who never knew or cared about them. And it will be remembered that no man is an island, and other people are there to share with and help, not to be conquered and used.
Thanks for posting, Forrest, and saying, so eloquently, what needed to be said. Sports has become like the Catholic Church ... when it comes to things like this.
ReplyDeleteBoomer - LOS. Jim Quinn had something to say on this subject today. He is much more literate than I, and thinks much deeper. I watched the riots on the tube and ran for my computer. He thought about it for a day and a half before firing his electrons around the world. http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=24763
ReplyDelete