A Human Tragedy

There is a famous saying that, "only the dead have seen the end of war." 

This statement's power and truthfulness has never become more pertinent in popular culture than now, at least in my opinion. It is sad to see  an unfortunate, yet human, phenomenon occur in such a savage way to one man. Joe Paterno has died today and I have never seen such hysteria and disorientation. His life is now being labelled as scarring or contradiction; people, after such a short time, our painting the easy picture of him saying we must remember his rights and wrongs, and that's it. It seems frighteningly systematic and dehumanizing that such a life can be fittingly outlined in several basic phrases and passed on. That is the culture of the mass media, of ESPN, of the internet.

I made a Facebook post that linked Paterno's first, and last, interview after he was fired from Penn State, saying that, through the internet, it was easy to make such rash and definitive judgments about one man's life and his actions. Sometimes I hate the fact that this observation is so true, undermining any sense of emotional capacity and deep thought, which people almost instinctively forgo when making a comment about the scandal on a website or posting a status of it on Facebook...Twitter as well with its hash tags of one or two words as if we can describe numerous experiences and events in our life with so few words. Anyways, with this, people have made terrible opinions out of such a serious case. It is through this celebrity culture that we thrive on such controversy. Jerry Sandusky, though he is the main perpetrator, comes out as boring because he is just that. Joe Paterno is much more complicated; he has the legacy, the ferociousness, the wins, the competition, the school. Yet, by the end of it, we still reduce things to a few sentences and move on...might as well not say anything in the first place. I hate to see an individual and their life treated in such a hysterical manner.

Some say he is just a football coach who covered up child molestation.

This comes off quite saddening to me for a number of reasons. Joe Paterno coached at Penn State for around fifty years. He is synonymous with the college. Disregarding his position denies a passion few people have but many people search for. In addition, it reeks of ignorance of the importance his position was towards the school and a sport that is widely popular in the USA. Saying he covered up child molestation and that's it strips away much of the actual event. Official have said that his actions were the proper ones to make, nothing less and nothing more. We can all say that he could have done more, but just think of the uncertainty and fear that an individual can go through in making huge decisions like that. Why doesn't his actions seem logical, then? Because as a celebrity we need heroics or we need villains, and he is being painted both ways, nothing in between. I'm not saying he is free from fault, but I will say that such a position he was placed in is not an easy thing to describe or act upon.

We can see how passionate and connected he was to his football, he died three months after his firing. He had a place in life and he loved it, now in chaos because of one meeting that happened so many years ago. I don't know how he will be remembered in the coming month or years, but I will be curious as to what stance people take on him, if they are willing to forgive Paterno in some way, shape, or form. Forgiveness can be a beautiful thing, but just as it is easy to make conclusions on Paterno's actions, forgiveness on the internet may be just as bare-bones. I hope his death will inspire thought...then again, I wish it never took his death to inspire it.

I also wish such mass hysteria never happens to someone else ever again, that is the real tragedy. Paterno is at peace now, and he deserves it.