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Posted

Okay, so the Pennsylvania catholic church deal has blown wide open, and it's just another in a long list of these stories.

There have always been pervs, abusers, rapists, etc., and always will be.  And every act of assault and abuse is a crime and an incredible violation of another person.  But what we're seeing is not one-off cases, but rather systemic abuse/assaults that go on for YEARS (decades, even).  Just a list of the RECENT highest-profile cases:

Catholic church

Penn State

Baylor

USA Gymnastics

Miramax (Harvey Weinstein)

In each of these cases, there were bad actors, but the abuse was allowed to continue, and become systemic and chronic, by the failure of an INSTITUTION.  Institutions who denied, covered up, swept under the rug, etc., so Sandusky could abuse boys for years, so Nassar could abuse gymnasts for decades, so Baylor could shelter rapists for years, so Weinstein could take advantage of women for years, so abusive priests could keep on victimizing people, etc. ad nauseum (and ad nauseous, for that matter).

Why in the HELL do institutions fail like this?  And why can they so rarely do what they must -- the only thing that can fix things going forward, and allow the institution to survive with integrity: fully investigate what happened, lay bare the truth, name those responsible, and accept full and unreserved responsibility?  It's the ONLY path that washes away the sin.  Ironically, watching the Catholic Church, this is exactly that path that is preached via the sacrament of reconciliation, yet  it's a path the church has, thus far, steadfastly resisted.  Own it.  Own it all.  Confess ALL of your sins to the world.  Accept the consequences.  THAT is true contrition.  THAT is how you keep from repeating the mistake.

But none of them do it.  Instead, we have the Penn State cultists.  We have the Catholic Church doing all it can to keep hiding the extent of the abuse.  We have Baylor fans insisting that Baylor got a raw deal.  None of these institutions accept their responsibility. Instead, they fallaciously lay the blame at the feet of the bad actor.  Which is only partially true.  Yes, it's a priest's fault that he raped altar boy #1.  But it's the CHURCH'S fault that, knowing what happened with altar boy #1, they put him in a position to rape altar boy #2, and #3, and #37.  When the fire starts, it's the fault of the arsonist.  When you know of the fire, but actively prevent anyone from putting that fire out, the resulting conflagration is on YOU.

Now, in fairness, perhaps we don't know about the "sex abuse scandal at XYZ State U" because that institution did the right thing -- a report of abuse came forward, they investigated and terminated the abuser, he was prosecuted, and that's that.  There's no big story because it wasn't systemic.  I'm genuinely curious as to how many cases like that exist, versus the bigger problem.

I don't know what it will take for the institutions -- both the ones that have been already exposed, and the ones to come -- to learn the RIGHT path: when abuse/assault is reported, nobody is sacred, nobody is protected.  Instead, do a full and fair investigation, and then act according to what it finds.  A little scandal is always better than a big one.

So, summary of thesis: we have a crisis of our institutions, and of institutional failure, and in many ways, I think the wrong committed by these institutions is even worse than the wrong committed by the abuser himself. 

 

Posted
  On 8/20/2018 at 3:30 PM, Brisketexan said:

Why in the HELL do institutions fail like this? 

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Failures in leadership.  

 

Would interesting to develop a list of organizations that handled these sorts of situations in a manner that we can look back in hindsight and say "man, they handled that really well" to compare and contrast.  Wonder if we can flush out aspects related to org structure or leadership that makes certain organization more or less prone to these failures. 

Posted
  On 8/20/2018 at 3:41 PM, Anastasis said:

Failures in leadership.  

 

Would interesting to develop a list of organizations that handled these sorts of situations in a manner that we can look back in hindsight and say "man, they handled that really well" to compare and contrast.  Wonder if we can flush out aspects related to org structure or leadership that makes certain organization more or less prone to these failures. 

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I really would be interested in seeing something like that.  There could be some real work done on the dynamics of leadership and organizational structures that respond well vs. those that respond poorly, and I think we (and all institutions) could benefit from the findings.  

Posted

In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

-Tony Montana

 

Seriously, though. When's the last time you knew your boss was doing something stupid, but you knew if you criticized him/her, you'd get shitcanned? 

Power is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)

Because ‘what’s important’ changes to something that isn’t.

 

The Maryland case is driven by what the leadership wants the school to be.  They also have a very prominent and public tragedy in Len Bias in their history( not institutional, but at least partially resulting from environment that they vowed to change.)

Edited by slorch
Posted

The Boy Scouts of America had a similar issue back in the day that was severe enough that they made institutional changes in how they operate.  They (eventually) responded to the problem in a responsible manner.

Of the institutions listed, the Church is the one that stands out in my mind as the one that should have the least concern about publicly handling the issue impacting business cash flow.  It's baffling to me why they weren't proactive in rooting out the evil from within.  I can only surmise that the entire leadership is morally bankrupt.

For the other (academic) institutions, it's pretty easy to make a case that money or success in a vertical (limited) market was a primary consideration.  The issue festered in darkness until some sunshine brought the issue to light outside of the primary actors and their leadership was forced to act. 

The Mirimax/Weinstein case is the only one that apparently happened very publicly with an actor that didn't answer to another boss and it's really a testament to the perverse nature of the industry that no one felt they could speak up without fear of losing their career.

Posted
  On 8/20/2018 at 3:30 PM, Brisketexan said:

Just a list of the RECENT highest-profile cases:

Catholic church

Penn State

Baylor

USA Gymnastics/Michigan State University

Miramax (Harvey Weinstein)

So, summary of thesis: we have a crisis of our institutions, and of institutional failure, and in many ways, I think the wrong committed by these institutions is even worse than the wrong committed by the abuser himself. 

 

Expand  

Power and money are the problems, or maybe the fear of the loss of both of those. It creates a system in which anyone who accuses is subject to intense scrutiny and has to be ready to make a stand to call out those who are abusers and those who protect or fail to stop them - those people need to be strong enough to face the pressure, Rachel Denhollendar, Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.

I believe that institutions have had these problems for centuries (looking at the Church), but that recently the media has stop protecting them because nothing can protect from social media.

Posted
  On 8/20/2018 at 3:30 PM, Brisketexan said:

But what we're seeing is not one-off cases, but rather systemic abuse/assaults that go on for YEARS (decades, even). 

Expand  

 

Decades?  It's been systematic as long as humans and pre-humans have been dealing with hormones/survival instincts, etc.  It's who we are.  It's what we do.  Covering it up is also who we are.  It's an interesting observation wondering why we can't just stop the cycle of abuse and denial.  Might as well wonder why we can't stop crying or farting.  

Posted (edited)
  On 8/20/2018 at 4:01 PM, Wally Fairway said:

Power and money are the problems, or maybe the fear of the loss of both of those. It creates a system in which anyone who accuses is subject to intense scrutiny and has to be ready to make a stand to call out those who are abusers and those who protect or fail to stop them - those people need to be strong enough to face the pressure, Rachel Denhollendar, Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.

I believe that institutions have had these problems for centuries (looking at the Church), but that recently the media has stop protecting them because nothing can protect from social media.

Expand  

I lived in a town that was over 90% Catholic.  Being the good protestant i was, we still made jokes about altar boys getting molested.  " Hey you had duty at Mass before school today?  What's up with the gimp?"

That was the 70's/ 80's.

 

Social media doesn't have shit to do with it. IMHO.  Not with regard to discovery.

Edited by slorch
Posted

I'd highly recommend reading the report Australia put out (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse). From their executive summary:

  Quote

Many institutions we examined did not have a culture where the best interests of children were the priority. Some leaders did not take responsibility for their institution’s failure to
protect children. Some leaders felt their primary responsibility was to protect the institution’s reputation, and the accused person. Many did not recognise the impact this had on children. Poor practices, inadequate governance structures, failures to record and report complaints, or understating the seriousness of complaints, have been frequent. 

...

In past generations, the trust placed by some parents and the broader community in institutions and their members meant that abusers were enabled and children’s interests were compromised. The prevailing culture that ‘children should be seen and not heard’ resonated throughout residential care, religious institutions, schools and some family homes. Their complaints of abuse ignored and rejected, many children lost faith in adults and society’s institutions.

Expand  

 

Posted

I am going to have to guess that the leadership failure is the prioritization of the material over the moral.  Everyone has something they think they need to protect and are willing, to a greater or lesser degree, to compromise morals to do so.

 

More and more, as a society, we have lost sight of what's right in favor of what garners us more material stuff.  At first it was little things, now it's bigger things; some of the biggest, in fact.

Posted (edited)

I think a lot of it has to do with self preservation beyond money. If I’m an administrator of some sort and discover there has been some abuse going on underneath me, I know that there is good chance that I will go down with the ship if I blow the lid off of it. There will always be the assumption that “I should have known”. It’s also hard (but obviously right) to basically throw your institution into a media circus when your job is to do the exact opposite. 

We need to make the leaders that have the courage to do so our examples that get talked about in a positive light. They should keep their jobs and be considered the best in their profession for taking the hard road. They are the ones the protect kids, often to their own detriment in the current “system”. 

Edited by Larry T. Spider
  • Like 1
Posted
  On 8/21/2018 at 12:50 AM, TwiceHorn said:
I am going to have to guess that the leadership failure is the prioritization of the material over the moral.  Everyone has something they think they need to protect and are willing, to a greater or lesser degree, to compromise morals to do so.
 
More and more, as a society, we have lost sight of what's right in favor of what garners us more material stuff.  At first it was little things, now it's bigger things; some of the biggest, in fact.

Summary: a thesis I’ve shared before. Me over we, to the extreme. There is no common good, or care for others - just self.
  • Like 1
Posted

I'd challenge the idea that it's "more and more." This PA stuff goes so far back and I'd bet that it goes back even longer. I'm inclined to see it as a part of the human condition. I think there's definitely been a cultural rot in many ways, but our evil tendencies are baked in.

I'm curious about organizations that have handled it well. 

https://www.livescience.com/17031-penn-state-child-abuse-eyewitness-psychology.html

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Posted

http://stopbaptistpredators.org/index.htm

While the Catholic abuse is more widespread, I'm not sure that the Baptists don't do their share of covering up the sins of their leaders as well.  The ongoing and continual revelations from so many churches, institutions, etc. leaves little doubt that this has been a centuries old problem that only in the last twenty years has been brought out in the open--with little impact change wise, sadly.

Posted

Yeah, it's everywhere and anywhere someone can gain from covering it up, it might get covered up.

https://newrepublic.com/article/142999/silence-lambs-protestants-concealing-catholic-size-sexual-abuse-scandal

When I checked out the baptist predator site, I only clicked on one person randomly. In that case, it looks like the church had done everything well. There are organizations that do the right thing, I'm just not sure I'm willing to trust organizations to do the right thing for my family.

Posted

Why anyone would ever step foot in a Catholic Church again is beyond me. Centuries of covering up priests buttfucking little boys. I know it. You know it. We all know it.

 

Do what you want with your faith, but that organization needs to implode.

 

  • Like 2
Posted
  On 8/21/2018 at 1:32 AM, Larry T. Spider said:

I think a lot of it has to do with self preservation beyond money. If I’m an administrator of some sort and discover there has been some abuse going on underneath me, I know that there is good chance that I will go down with the ship if I blow the lid off of it. There will always be the assumption that “I should have known”. It’s also hard (but obviously right) to basically throw your institution into a media circus when your job is to do the exact opposite. 

We need to make the leaders that have the courage to do so our examples that get talked about in a positive light. They should keep their jobs and be considered the best in their profession for taking the hard road. They are the ones the protect kids, often to their own detriment in the current “system”. 

Expand  

Yes, I did not mean to confine "material" to money.  In my mind, it has a much broader definition.

Posted

link to an article published as a discussion between Rachel Denhollander (Nassar's first public accuser) and Marisa Kwiatkowski (investigative reporter for the Indianapolis Star, the paper the started the investigation into USA Gymnastics & MSU and Nassar)

https://www.bustle.com/p/rachael-denhollander-the-indy-stars-marisa-kwiatkowski-talk-to-each-other-about-bringing-down-larry-nassar-10181498

This gives a glimpse into the background of start of the events that it took to stop Nassar

Posted

And one of the big differences between Baptist Churches and the Catholic Church is that for most Baptist Churches the highest level of institution is the local church itself. They do not have to answer to any higher authority (on Earth at least), so there is no other organisational structure to cover it up. If one Baptist Church covers up sexual abuse, the Baptist Church down the road is about as related to them as the Catholic Church is from an institutional level.

Posted
  On 8/22/2018 at 10:24 PM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

And one of the big differences between Baptist Churches and the Catholic Church is that for most Baptist Churches the highest level of institution is the local church itself. They do not have to answer to any higher authority (on Earth at least), so there is no other organisational structure to cover it up. If one Baptist Church covers up sexual abuse, the Baptist Church down the road is about as related to them as the Catholic Church is from an institutional level.

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Nothing Baptists love more than breaking apart from one another. Somebody on the old board said that he was surprised there weren't First and Second Baylor Universities by now. Maybe there isn't because they all like rape, so there was no need to break up over a little thing like that. 

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