SALON

Wednesday, Sep 19, 2012 3:26 PM UTC

Malcolm Gladwell defends child abuse theory

Sports blog Deadspin isn't buying the pop sociologist's take. The author responded in the comments section

By

Topics: Sexual abuse, Penn State, Jerry Sandusky, deadspin,

Malcolm Gladwell defends child abuse theory (Credit: AP)

Deadspin‘s Dom Cosentino has challenged Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on “How child molesters get away with it.” Gladwell suggests  that child molesters are professional people-pleasers, expert at insinuating themselves in trusted places in the lives of their victims and their victims’ circle.  This is all more or less true at the 5,000-foot level, but in an effort to build a cohesive theory around the case of Jerry Sandusky, Cosentino says Gladwell misrepresents aspects of the case. This type of criticism is not foreign to Gladwell, the buzzword-neologizing journalist who can make you think you’re thinking without thinking at all.

Cosentino writes:

Gladwell is right that Jerry Sandusky had a public persona that could fool anyone. He was a successful defensive coordinator, the man who made Penn State into Linebacker U. He was the trusted lieutenant of Joe Paterno, famous for his own rectitude. And Sandusky had founded a charity to help underprivileged youth. Why would anyone suspect he was a monster?

But Penn State officials were dealing with more than first impressions. And to try to fit the Sandusky case into his story of how regular people are manipulated by molesters, Gladwell leaves out a number of facts that indicated that Penn State officials seemed to understand what they were dealing with.

Cosentino then demonstrates how Gladwell is overstating the confusion or naivete of several people — a police detective, a child psychologist and an assistant coach who knew Sandusky —  by using case files and court testimony to show otherwise. In the end, Cosentino restates the obvious rather than the counterintuitive: Child molesters are creepy and hard to identify, yes, but there was also a major institutional and individual failing on many levels, which included covering up heinous crimes.

Gladwell responded in the comments section:

Thanks for the piece Dom. (This is Malcolm Gladwell, by the way). I guess my response is that I have a lot less faith than you in the credibility of things people say to grand juries, when their reputations are on the line. McCreary, for example, says now that he witnessed something sexual. But what he told his family friend Dranov, at the time, was something a lot more vague. Schreffler says now that he thought there was enough evidence to press charges. But he would say that—wouldn’t he? Do you honestly believe he would stand up in front of a grand jury investigating Sandusky for child molestation and admit that he was confused in 1998? And Lauro says today he would certainly have suspected Sandusky, had he seen the Chambers report. Really? You mean — he would have happily jettisoned his own independent analysis of Sandusky the minute he heard that someone else had a different opinion? I’m not familiar with psychologists who behave that way. There is an awful lot of after-the-fact rationalization going on here, in other words, and I think we have to be careful in how we interpret these kinds of self-serving memories — which goes to the point of my piece. Child molestation cases are really really hard. They bring out the worse in all of us. Nobody wants to see the truth. Everyone is looking for a less damning way to explain away the facts. I suspect you and I are in agreement on that.

Cosentino fires back with the testimony, and concludes “That, to me, isn’t an indication these men were confused. It tells me they intended to deceive.”

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com. More Prachi Gupta.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 12 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations