The Frightening Power of Empathy

I've been captivated today with the FBI's report on Penn State and its handling of the Sandusky offenses.  I read the full grand jury brief when it came out, and I was captivated by that too because of the consistency in the events outlined in the brief and in the invisible power that was underscoring all of it.  

The problem with invisible power is, as you may guess, its invisibility.  Everyone knows it's there, but it is really hard to put your finger on it, clearly identify it, and what's worse, it is really hard to contain it and singularly point it out.  Because invisible power permeates our thinking, feeling, and acting.  It is often identifiable in hindsight, like we are able to see so painfully clearly in this report, but the problem is that it is really hard to see it at work as it is happening.  And when someone sees it, it is often a lonely place to be because people think you might be over exaggerating or misunderstanding/mischaracterizing a situation in some other way.  

This article outlines the role of empathy as a negative force that allowed people to minimize the violence that Sandusky was committing: "The Freeh Report, Jerry Sandusky, Empathy and Penn State."  

I have an example of how fiction can help us understand things about our world through their narratives that provide some objective distance from personal experience.  Octavia Butler's Parable series was a compelling focus for my thesis because she confronts empathy as a force that makes us act and react in ways that limit people's capacity to make fully-informed decisions because they are held in the grips of empathy and are forced into a mode of reaction rather than response.  

I wonder what it is that allowed these power players to react to Sandusky with empathy instead of reacting with horror?  Is it because they knew Sandusky as a person and they didn't know these young boys who they likely never met or even saw in person?  It seems to me that it has something to do with the relative anonymity of these young boys that allowed people to see them as abstract victims rather than real suffering beings.

Invisible does not only mean to not be seen, but also means to not be taken into consideration.  A person who sees and witnesses violence is far more likely to take that moment into consideration than someone who hears the witness tell the story of violence.  It is a complicated dilemma because, as we see very clearly in hindsight in this case, the most heinous actions needing justice are done in a space (like an empty locker room) and within a system (like a large bureaucracy) that ensures these acts will NOT be seen by anyone and that the few who do see it are not in a position to do a thing about it.