Harry Targ : Higher Education, Capitalism, and the 'Paterno Effect'

Virtual Penn State Nittany Lion by Avatar Sculptor Cheen Pitney / Cheen Pitney's Peacefools.
The 'Paterno effect':
Thinking about capitalism,
higher education, and moral repugnance

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / November 21, 2011

“And when I think of all the talent and energy which daily go into devising ways and means of making their torment worse, all in the name of efficiency and productivity but really for the greater glory of the great god Capital, my wonder at humanity’s ability to create such a monstrous system is surpassed only by amazement at its willingness to tolerate the continuance of an arrangement so obviously destructive of the well-being and happiness of human beings.”

-- Paul Sweezy in Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, 1974, xii-xiii.

The scurrilous news about Penn State University has led me to reflect upon the context in which higher education, sports, popular culture more broadly, and political, economic, and cultural institutions are created, flower and grow, and in Paul Sweezy’s view destroy “the well-being and happiness of human beings.”

Numerous political economists have described capitalism as an economic system that has its roots in global trade, enslavement, and expropriating commodities produced in the “new world” and then processed in Europe into finished goods that were traded on the world stage.

Capitalism emerged out of rudimentary trade and production into the most productive, innovative, and technologically creative economic system in the world. The 500 year journey, from an early capitalist stage in which the transport of natural resources and commodities took months or years to a transnational global system that has obliterated differences in space and time, has truly transformed what it means to be human.

The positive features of capitalist development that Paul Sweezy and others recount also are grounded in analyses of the pain and suffering that has been caused by the unbridled pursuit of profit and capital accumulation.

The growth, development, transcendence of natural barriers (again ultimately space and time) has come with a price, as millions were enslaved and slaughtered. In addition, capitalism brought wars, starvation, the tearing up of the natural environment and the perpetuation of human misery on a massive scale.

This is a story about the political economy of world history that came to mind while observing the evolving scandal at a major university in November 2011. The rape and molestation of numerous boys over many years on the campus of Penn State University has been discussed in the context of sociopathic coaches, iconic sports figures, negligent university administrators, bought-off government officials, thoughtless students, and the exigencies of public relations.

Are there connections between the “political economy of world history” and rape on one college campus? I think so. And these connections that have inspired my thinking I am calling “the Paterno effect.”

First, reflections on the capitalist system must include an historical sense of the 500 year struggle to overcome any and all barriers to the pursuit of profit. Words like genocide, massacre, plunder, while not used in polite and proper academic company, are important to jar the conscience of humankind.

Second, the rise of capitalism necessitated the construction of political, economic, cultural, social, and religious institutions that supported it. These institutions stimulated scientific discovery, the organization of production, the facilitation of consumption, the creation of entertainment and culture, and the invention of political/spiritual systems of myths, symbols, and rituals that legitimized the global pursuit of profit.

Third, systems of education have played vital roles in training workers, organizing discovery, and convincing the young of the virtues of the system in which they live. In short, education at all levels is the institution that links the “needs” of the system to the generation of talent and the legitimating of its perpetuation.

Fourth, since the industrial revolution institutions of higher education have served the capitalist system in important ways. Early universities trained clerics or lawyers. By the dawn of the twentieth century, the modern university was constructed to meet the needs of capitalism: for inventors, accountants, engineers, and those who would transmit sanitized histories and cultural artifacts from generation to generation.

Fifth, as the “golden age” of U.S. capitalism developed, 1945 to the 1970s, higher education expanded. Whole university systems were constructed in states such as New York and California. Growing percentages of young people entered college. Job credentials increasingly required college degrees.

Sixth, university campuses began to reflect more the characteristics of parallel institutions and evolved even more directly into instrumentalities of corporations, banks, and the state. Major universities became businesses in their own right.

Today universities produce the human resources for the capitalist system. They collaborate with monopolies in agribusiness, technology, food service, and tourist industries, and every other industrial and financial sector of the society. It has been suggested that former President Eisenhower was considering addressing the “military/industrial/academic complex” in his famous farewell address. Although he did not include the “academic,” the connection is clear.

Universities are also big businesses themselves. They regard their students as “customers” and their corporate friends as their “investors.” On campuses and in host communities they sell products. University administrations and campus towns are beholden to corporate and government dollars. The university systems of modern America parallel the quest for profit and capital accumulation characteristic of the corporate and finance institutions of the society at large.

Therefore, a reading of the political economy of world history would lead the observer of higher education to realize that the cover-up of grotesque violence against young boys in one major university occurred in the context of a capitalist institution that craves profit and funding, investors, the celebration of star power in athletics, and the creation of icons in the sports and/or “educational” spaces of the college campus. Scandals that reduce the legitimacy, and hence the profitability, of the total institution must be ignored, explained away, or excused.

Perhaps the Paterno effect can encourage a progressive turn in higher education. There exists a principle of academic freedom that is solemnly defended by most academic administrators and faculty. There is also a legacy of debate and discovery in the history and mythology of higher education.

And, finally, in various places in the academy there exist traditions of advocacy research and teaching that engage students and communities in discussions of alternatives to the brutalities of the present order. Advocacy research and teaching is based on the proposition that the validity of ideas comes in part from whether they improve or harm “the well-being and happiness of human beings.”

The tragedy of Penn State University should stimulate a reexamination of the purposes, functions, goals of the modern university that addresses how it can participate in the dramatic changes humankind desperately needs.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his new book which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Thomas McKelvey Cleaver : It's 'How You Play the Game'

Vince Lombardi was famous for saying, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Image from Great American Things.
Did winning become everything
for Penn State's Joe Paterno?

By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver / The Rag Blog / November 16, 2011

Forty-eight years ago, Vince Lombardi was quoted as saying, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" (words that were first uttered by UCLA coach Red Sanders). That -- to me and a lot of other people at the time -- was in complete opposition to what we had learned as members of sports teams: that how you win, how you play the game, is equally as important as what you win.

In the years since, Lombardi's bastardization of morality has become the guiding philosophy of the entire society, not just in sports, and the result is the moral catastrophe of Wall Street we all now live with.

One of the things Joe Paterno was famous for saying was that he didn't think winning was everything, if his teams didn't learn to be better people as part of the process. And then, when it came down to the most important decision of his life, he chose to do the minimum, to not follow up, to not care what the outcome was, to not rock the boat. And everyone above him at Penn State put money and power and prestige above doing the right thing, also.

And then when it came out, Paterno's arrogant response was to offer to resign when his contract expired. The man had no clue. His indifference, his complicity in Jerry Sandusky's crimes, is going to overshadow everything else in his life. The fact that Paterno has now hired a criminal defense attorney demonstrates he has some idea of what he faces.

I don't know why I am really surprised, sports hasn't been about building better people for a long time. Robert Redford got it right in his 1969 movie, Downhill Racer, where his character was the precedent for the kind of worthless "sports heroes" we have today, guys with no understanding of "it's how you play the game that counts." (The movie is available on DVD and I highly recommend it; it has only gotten more timely in the passing years)

Professor Henry Giroux, whose books include the recently-released Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? and The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, has what I think is the best commentary, as published in Truthout:

There is a lot of talk about the culture of silence as if it is simply an offshoot of the need to protect the wealth and power of those in control of Penn State’s football empire, but the fact of the matter is the real issue is that higher education has been corrupted by big money, big sports, corporate power, and the search for profits for some time, except that in the age of unabashed free market fundamentalism, it has gotten worse.

The issue here is not simply about a morally depraved culture of silence, it is about a university surrendering its mission as a democratic public sphere where students learn to think critically, hold power accountable, and connect knowledge and social relations to the social costs they enact.

A university needs real leadership for this type of task, not managerial clones who confuse education with training and engaged research with Pentagon and corporate handouts. Penn State is now a managerial model of corporate influence and power and the arrogance and bad faith this model breeds is evident in the ways in which everyone acted in the face of this crisis, from Paterno to its ethically challenged president, Graham Spanier.

What the public should be asking about this crisis is not what has happened to Penn State but how have so many universities arrived at a similar place in time and history when they are just like any other mega factory and slick shopping mall, divorced from any viable notion of learning and, as we see with Penn State University, any viable sense of ethical and moral responsibility.

[Thomas McKelvey Cleaver is an accidental native Texan, a journalist, and a produced screenwriter. He has written successful horror movies and articles about Second World War aviation, was a major fundraiser for Obama in 2008, and has been an activist on anti-war, political reform, and environmental issues for almost 50 years. Read more articles by Thomas Cleaver on The Rag Blog.]

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SPORT / Dave Zirin : The World Joe Paterno Made

Penn State fans. Image from The Big Lead.
Fan culture, rape culture,
and the world Joe Paterno made

The pain might run deeply in Happy Valley but the cancer runs deeper.

By Dave Zirin / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2011

Meet John Matko. John Matko is a 34-year-old Penn State class of 2000 alumnus, distraught by the recent revelations that legendary Coach Joe Paterno and those in charge allegedly shielded a serial child rapist, assistant Jerry Sandusky.

He was livid that students chose to riot on campus this week, more upset about Paterno's dismissal than anything else. He was disgusted that the Board of Trustees decided to go ahead as planned with Saturday's Nebraska game just days after the revelations became public. John Matko felt angry and was compelled to act.

He stood outside Saturday’s Penn State-Nebraska game in Happy Valley and held up two signs. One read, “Put abused kids first.” The other said, “Don’t be fooled, they all knew. Tom Bradley, everyone must go.” [Tom Bradley is the interim head coach.]

The response to Matko gives lie to the media portrayal of last Saturday's game. We were told the atmosphere was “somber," “sad,” and “heart-rending," as "the focus returned to the children." The crowd was swathed in blue, because, we were told, that is the color to awareness of child abuse (also the Penn State colors)

The team linked arms emerging from the tunnel. They dropped to a knee with their Nebraska opponents at midfield before the game. Once again, broadcasters told us, “the players were paying tribute to the victims of child abuse.” We were told all of this, and I wish to God it was true.

I don’t doubt the emotions in Happy Valley are genuine. I don’t doubt the searing shock and pain that must be coursing through campus. But this is the pain of self-pity, not reflection. It's the pain of the exposed not the penitent.

Let’s go back to John Matko. Matko stood with his signs behind a pair of sunglasses. He wasn’t soapboxing, or preaching: just bearing silent witness. It was an admirable act but no one bought him a beer. Instead, beer was poured on his head. His midsection was slapped with an open hand. Expletives were rained upon him. His signs were also kicked to the ground and stomped.

As The Washington Times wrote, "Abuse flew at Matko from young and old, students and alumni, men and women. No one intervened. No one spoke out against the abuse."

One disapproving student said, “Not now, man. This is about the football players.”

And with those nine words, we see the truth about Saturday’s enterprise. It was about the football program, not the children. It was morbid theater where people were mourning the death of a jock culture that somewhere along the line mutated into malignancy. It’s a malignancy that deprioritized rape victims in the name of big-time football.

The signs of this malignancy did not emerge overnight. Looking backward, there are moments that speak of the scandals to come. In 2003, less than one year after Paterno was told that Sandusky was raping children, he allowed a player accused of rape to suit up and play in a bowl game. Widespread criticism of this move was ignored.

In 2006, Penn State's Orange Bowl opponent Florida State sent home linebacker A.J. Nicholson, after accusations of sexual assault. Paterno’s response, in light of recent events, is jaw-dropping. He said,

There's so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do? Geez. I hope -- thank God they don't knock on my door because I'd refer them to a couple of other rooms.

Joanne Tosti-Vasey, president of Pennsylvania's National Organization for Women in Pennsylvania, was not amused. With chilling unintentional prescience, Tosti-Vasey responded, "Allegations of sexual assault should never be taken lightly. Making light of sexual assault sends the message that rape is something to be expected and accepted."

They called for Paterno’s resignation and short of that, asked to dialogue with Paterno and the team. Neither Paterno nor anyone in the power at Penn State accepted the invitation.

This is the world Joe Pa made. It’s a world where libraries, buildings, and statues bear his name It’s a world where the school endowment now stands at over $1 billion dollars. It’s a company town where moral posturing acted as a substitute for actual morality. In such an atmosphere, seeing the players and fans gather to bow their heads and mourn Saturday wasn’t “touching” or “somber” or anything of the sort. It was just sad. It was sad because they still don’t get it.

One PSU student named Emily wrote the following to si.com’s Peter King,

Truth is, if not for Paterno's philanthropy and moral code (until his fatal lapse of judgment), I and thousands of others wouldn't be here right now. If not for Paterno… Pennsylvania State might still be an agriculture school and State College might be lucky if there were a Wal-Mart within a 30-mile radius. Paterno made a huge mistake, but that doesn't mean he's not a good man.

Bullshit. Emily’s words ring as false as the apologists for the Vatican, Wall Street, the military command at Abu Ghraib, and any industry deemed "too big to fail." The same moral code that Emily praises just can’t be the same moral code that covers up child rape. To do so is to make the very notion of morality meaningless.

Emily's gratitiude that her school isn't "30 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart" can't justify defending Paterno. To do so, makes you complicit in the crimes and the cover-up. It also ensures that such a thing could happen again.

On Saturday, while Matko endured the physical and verbal rage of the PSU faithful, hundreds gathered around the Paterno statue outside the stadium, laying down flowers and gifts. To really move forward, the malignancy must be removed. Fire everyone. Shut down Happy Valley football for a year. Do whatever you have to do to make sure that the world Joe Paterno made has seen its last day.

[Dave Zirin is the author of The John Carlos Story (Haymarket) and just made the new documentary Not Just a Game. Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Read more articles by Dave Zirin on The Rag Blog.]

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