PUSHBACK

Brooks: Enough With Self-Righteous Penn State Columns!

Are we really more heroic than Paterno?

With commentators breathlessly one-upping each other in their quest to pen the most indignant condemnation of the Penn State villains, David Brooks has joined the inevitable backlash. The New York Times columnist writes that we shouldn’t assume we would be more heroic if we caught wind of rape allegations on our staff. From "Normalcy Bias" to "Motivated Blindness," Brooks points to various psychological ailments that often prevent good people from confronting evil. Over at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher takes issue with this rationale. Maybe we’re no better than the coaches who turned a blind eye, he argues, but that doesn’t make it any less “vile.”