Penn State community should be willing to talk about the issues

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/21/penn-state-community-issues

Version 0 of 1.

Of all the gruesome details to have come out in the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the most gruesome of all was not, it strikes me, the specific allegations of abuse – the alleged back massages that turned into oral sex, the alleged rape of pubescent boys in the basement of Sandusky's home – but what was said by townspeople interviewed in Thursday's New York Times.

Reflecting on the case, locals spoke of how it had traumatised Penn State. "Folks here will be relieved when it is all over," said a sociologist at the university.

It was a "big thing that people want to have resolved", said a man in a bike shop.

"Let justice be done," said the inevitable hair stylist. "And let's get past it as soon as possible."

One understands, of course, that when asked for an opinion by journalists, people have to come up with something, and "let's move on" is a boiler-plate response to unpleasant news. One understands, too, that it doesn't denote a lack of sympathy for victims. In the instance of a child abuse scandal however – to say "undetected" in this context is practically tautological – it just isn't good enough.

If the Catholic church has taught us anything, it's that when child abuse goes undetected for years, it has usually been enabled by the culture around it. In this case, there is the apparent cover-up of a university, but it is broader than that. The passive recoil of those looking on is part of a general unwillingness to talk, think about, and above all act upon this thing that one is of course troubled by, but which, in polite society, one rather wishes would go away, along with the often chaotic young men and women who bring news of it.

I almost feel sorry for Mike McQueary in all this, the assistant coach and not a bad man by most accounts, heavily criticised for having had a completely typical reaction when confronted with evidence of child abuse. If he had caught Sandusky stealing, he might well have come under similar internal pressure to downplay it, but it probably wouldn't have rendered him actually aphasic.

That this man – "not easily shaken", as a witness testified – was incapable of finding words to say what he'd seen in the university showers, beyond a quivering indication that he "heard some sexual sounds", but avoiding "rape", "abuse" or anything not couched in morally neutral terms, is exactly the kind of avoidance that makes victims feel a sense of contributory guilt.

And of course, shame. As the trial exposed, it takes years for abused children to come forward, if they ever do, sometimes long after the statutory limit has expired. It is why, if they do go public, their names are withheld. And it is why those already manipulated to feel complicit in their own misfortune, are vulnerable to a lingering sense they have done something wrong. Many of these children became alleged victims precisely because their word would be doubted if it ever came out, coming as they did from marginal backgrounds.

The alleged abuse itself increased the likelihood they would become dysfunctional adults and lead lives which, under the scrutiny of a trial, made them less reliable witnesses. Meanwhile, people continue to voice shock that such things can happen in the world of college sports – so admirable an environment, bar the occasional death by hazing and subordination of pastoral care to the profit motive.

So yes, let's move swiftly on in a way these boys, now young men, presumably have not had the luxury of doing, and who, while we look away with what might feel to us like discretion, will, at some level, surely strike them as anger at what they have put us good townsfolk through.