David CookThree days after the mass shooting at the “Dark Knight Rises” premiere in Colorado, the NCAA ruled against Penn State for the years of pedophiliac violence committed by an assistant coach in the football program.
The two events are not unrelated.
Both are forms of violence, and violence is not mysterious. Not unknowable. The worst we can do is pretend it is.
We may never know the inner psychology of James Holmes – the man arrested in the Colorado shootings – or Jerry Sandusky, the coach who could be sentenced to more than 370 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually abusing 10 boys.
But each story is a small part in the larger machine of violence. Slowing down this machine means we must begin to understand the way violence works, its effect on us and its antidote.