Role Models Don’t Exist

Lessons from Joe Paterno

I don’t know if Joe Paterno knew about the sex abuse going on right in front of him. The evidence is mounting and definitely damaging in the public eye, but the fact remains we don’t have a clue what was really known we just have an opinion guided by circumstantial evidence and our best judgment, which definitely can lead us astray.

But the point isn’t to rail on Joe Paterno or to defend him (I definitely wouldn’t defend him), it’s just to use this situation that Paterno found himself in to speak to a broader point.

Role models do not exist. Perfection is not real.

Propping up individual people as heroes, building them into mythical fairy tale creatures, is a mistake. The reality is that we never know the whole truth and it’s most certainly better to proceed with caution. What we can do is pick out particular traits that we can admire, but not particular people. We can like the individual components without liking the whole.

This means that bad people can have honorable traits that we can discuss and admire and good people can have bad traits that we can be critical of. There is no reasons to put people on a pedestal that we think can do no harm because we will undoubtedly be disappointed when they can’t meet unrealistic expectations. This has happened with countless individuals such as Joe Paterno, Bill Cosby, Lance Armstrong, etc. etc.

I know this will be extremely unpopular, but there’s no reason to dismiss everything these individuals have done or said just because they’ve made some really shitty, immoral, horrible acts. Condemn the actions, but don’t forget that individuals are made up of smaller characteristics and the good is still good and the bad is still bad.

If Joe Paterno knew I hope he’s in some horrible hell in which he pays for his silence and thus contributions to such terrible acts — but that does not mean that everything Joe Paterno did was bad and should be disregarded. We don’t have to like or respect the man to like and respect good things that a bad person might have been responsible for.