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So I've been hearing a lot lately about some scandal involving Joe Paterno, football coach for Penn State. I finally look it up today, it turns out he's in trouble for just reporting an assistant coach who was caught violating a ten-year-old boy, instead of sacking him.
My first reaction, once I understood the allegations, was: "So, will Penn State Creamery be renaming their 'Peachy Paterno' ice cream flavor?" My second was to scroll down and see if Wiki categorized Paterno under "American Roman Catholics" (it did). My third was to think, "Seriously? I read about little kids getting bum-raped and I'm immediately curious about ice cream?"
On further reflection, however, this is a natural reaction, because having heard about pederasty scandals at an average rate of one per year since I was about twelve, the idea no longer has any power to shock me. Stalin would say, "a million horribly violated children are a statistic." Evil just becomes generic, passe, BOOOO-RING.
Another example: there's an image circulating around Facebook, with a shot of two dudes about to kiss on the left, some obviously starving African children on the right, and at the bottom a snarky text that says "if the picture on the left shocks you more than the picture on the right, your sense of morality needs fixing. End homophobia on Facebook." I looked at it and thought, "Wait, there was a picture on the right?" Yes, yes there was! Little kids whose ribs stuck out like flagpoles. Now, the picture on the left was much brighter and thus more eye-catching, but I can't say the picture on the right shocked me at all. Because I've seen pictures like that on TV, in books and magazines, and on street ads at least a hundred times. And so I suspect my brain has simply taught itself to ignore images like that as extraneous background noise.
Does anyone else catch himself thinking like that?
My first reaction, once I understood the allegations, was: "So, will Penn State Creamery be renaming their 'Peachy Paterno' ice cream flavor?" My second was to scroll down and see if Wiki categorized Paterno under "American Roman Catholics" (it did). My third was to think, "Seriously? I read about little kids getting bum-raped and I'm immediately curious about ice cream?"
On further reflection, however, this is a natural reaction, because having heard about pederasty scandals at an average rate of one per year since I was about twelve, the idea no longer has any power to shock me. Stalin would say, "a million horribly violated children are a statistic." Evil just becomes generic, passe, BOOOO-RING.
Another example: there's an image circulating around Facebook, with a shot of two dudes about to kiss on the left, some obviously starving African children on the right, and at the bottom a snarky text that says "if the picture on the left shocks you more than the picture on the right, your sense of morality needs fixing. End homophobia on Facebook." I looked at it and thought, "Wait, there was a picture on the right?" Yes, yes there was! Little kids whose ribs stuck out like flagpoles. Now, the picture on the left was much brighter and thus more eye-catching, but I can't say the picture on the right shocked me at all. Because I've seen pictures like that on TV, in books and magazines, and on street ads at least a hundred times. And so I suspect my brain has simply taught itself to ignore images like that as extraneous background noise.
Does anyone else catch himself thinking like that?
I hadn't thought of it that way (obviously). I suppose the makers of that picture, like myself, tend to think of starving people in far-off countries as the ordinary state of things. Unfortunate, like graffitti, but whaddayagonnado?
), but whenever I hear of Heifer International, regardless of the good they do indeed do, I think of a really fat woman.
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