Enantiodromia
The essence of Greek tragedy is the concept of HUBRIS or pride. It is hubris that demonstrates to we humans, that the acclaimed and powerful, no matter how hard they try to do otherwise, have a fatal flaw. A fatal flaw that brings them down. So it should be no surprise that Penn State University has fallen from the pristine heights of moral probity to just another example of institutional "shucking and jiving" to maintain an image.
The image of PSU is, of course, a fine one. Only PSU and Stanford graduate the highest percentage of athletes; the football record stands alone in bowl wins; 4 undefeated seasons and 2 national championships; and its coach holds the most wins ever in Division I; its research reputation in agriculture, its engineering school and its business school has recruiters streaming to its campus; PSU is one of only a handful of public universities that approach Public Ivy status. Their plain uniforms with no stars on helmets, no names on jerseys, and black shoes all bask in the adulation of its fans. "We Are Penn State" reeks of self aggrandizement and hubris.
There are those who grieve "the fall from grace" of PSU; others can barely hide their glee behind moral outrage, that borders on the sanctimonious. I am one who also grieves as a PSU rabid fan for at least as many years as Joe Pa has been coach (I got married 22 years ago at 11:00 am on a Saturday morning and watched Penn State on television at 1:00 pm that same afternoon). But why are we so shocked? Child abuse is by all expert accounts, rampant and increasing, and we don't even have laws that require reporting to the police here in Pennsylvania except for certain professionals including therapists like myself.
Furthermore, why are we shocked when it is apparent when the goal of any self conscious institution is to survive? Survival is largely dependent on PR and image, an open invitation to "cover up." Cover ups are the unspoken and non documented goals of any institution. We can talk about the decades of cover ups by the Catholic Church, or the cover ups of the US Military (most of whom are rightly called heroes), by releasing information that a former NFL player was killed in heroic action, only to discover he was killed by friendly fire. Or, the scripted rescue of a West Virginia private from an insurgent capture, the government - national, state and local is rife with cover ups. Insider trading tips, good ol' boy networks, money from God knows where, are only the tip of the cover ups that permeate institutions. Political cover ups need not even be mentioned, they are so common. "I never had anything to do with that woman." Or, what about Lay, the CEO of Enron, or Bernie Madoff, or the Savings and Loan scandal. Did they ruin lives? Or Wall Street shenanigans covering up the real work of hedge fund manipulators.
Carl Jung, the great Swiss co founder of psychoanalysis said that we all have a persona -- or mask (persona is Latin for the masks worn by actors) that we wear before the world. The problem, is that when we believe we are our own mask, then that is the fertile ground for neurosis, not to mention tragedy. When institutions -- political, financial, athletic, military or religious, have as their goal, survival, it is easy to see why persons do not count -- only the institution. In the case of PSU, the boys didn't count. Boys from disadvantaged circumstances, needing guidance, nurture and love, and so hungry for that it made them an easy target for a father figure who was revered, admired and apparently wore a mask of caring deeply for them. And if he did what the grand jury says (I'm saying if, because due process is not only a constitutional right, but is deeply embedded in our value system), he perpetrated a violent betrayal of trust that has the potential to impact one for life. These boys, the most vulnerable ones, without power, are at the bottom of the hierarchical set up that defines our institutional driven culture. The people in the institution do not matter. Only the institution, and if the institutional image is threatened, it folds in on itself and circles the wagons, and does away with people, which is just a variation of keeping the image intact.
Institutions are not going away, and I am not arguing for their demise. They constitute the structure and fabric of our culture. I am making the point that money and image driven value systems dominated by males who honor "winning is not everything, it is the only thing" or to paraphrase, "image is not everything, it is the only thing." As for the boys, Jesus said, "even as you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me." I believe that what he meant was not just to be human, as we all are in our gifts and flaws all mixed together, but that he meant that to be truly human, one must be humanely human. I also believe that humane humans remain a minority and a meaningful goal in life is to increase this number by insisting on becoming part of the minority.
Finally, I must point out that I am sad -- especially for those boys -- who's ability to trust may be permanently impaired. But I am also sad and disappointed in myself. I bought the lie. People would ask, when they saw my Penn State enthusiasm, if I had attended college there. I didn't. Over the years, I had developed a "tongue in cheek" rationale for my Penn State cheerleading. I usually said that PSU symbolically represents the classic clash of good and evil. So the good guys, dressed in blue and white (the color of the sky) operating out of Happy Valley in the beautiful Nittany mountains of central Pennsylvania, my home region and coached by "Saint Joe Paterno" fought valiantly against the likes of the "Crimson Tide, " the "Boilermakers," the "Wolverines," the "Badgers," not to mention the "Cornhuskers." I bought the image that I created. I fell for it hook, line and sinker. So I was stunned when it turned out I had been mistaken about who was good and who was evil in my metaphor of the great cosmic clash. Perhaps my petty regional hubris was a flaw; not necessarily a fatal one, but one that reminds me that I should know better.
Addendum
Enantiodromia -- a term coined by Carl Jung, borrowing from the Greek, meaning simply -- anything pushed to its extreme becomes its opposite.
