Alumna suggests compassion instead of scapegoating
Please, let’s take a minute of your time to address some difficult material. In the wake of some heavy news, I’ve been thinking a lot about humanity, responsibility, and forgiveness.
Professor, colleague, distinguished Allegheny faculty member, friend, dog lover, artist, author, and frontman of a band….. and now felon? Child pornography connoisseur? It’s hard to believe. It’s shocking, staggering, unbelievable. Unbelievable. As we as a family, a community of Alleghenians, we must try to process this information as best we can. If you are anything like me, you are wrestling with this news. What is so difficult is that we are being asked to acknowledge something that is inherent in all of our natures, as human beings, and that is the darkness that lies within. The possibility that we all carry around to choose to do something “wrong” everyday. No one has a pure soul, we all have corners of darkness and tarnished surfaces. Just like an addict never means to end up on the streets, a person who has sexually deviant thoughts and desires doesn’t necessarily mean to hurt anyone. Were his choices poor? Absolutely. Are charges appropriate? Indeed. But I can assure that this man, human like the rest of us, is experiencing silence that is deafening and a loneliness that can only be found in death. And the guilt and shame that he is piling on himself is far worse than the condemnation of others.
Let me be perfectly clear: I, in no way, condone the exploitation of children, sexual, or otherwise. I have two children of my own and I have spent a decade working in early childhood education. The protection of children is something I hold near and dear to my heart both personally and professionally. I find the charges against Professor Nesset vile and difficult to even consider but I have to decide if this news should change my feelings towards him, negate the work that I have done with him and rewrite the history we have together. People come into our lives and we create meaningful relationships with them. We can go a week, a year or a whole lifetime and still find out something about them that makes you feel that you never knew them at all. But do the charges erase the fact that he was my professor? Does it make his literature any less compelling? Does it make his humanity any less gentle or loyal? Does it make his teaching any less valuable? No, I don’t think it does. In fact, it makes it harder for me to believe he was capable of such depravity, and even as I write this, I am keeping in mind the key concepts of storytelling, the power of persuasion and imagery, all invaluable lessons Nesset taught me in class.
And so I find myself swinging back and forth between pity and condemnation, between sorrow and anger. I think what makes this so difficult for those who were close to him is that it isn’t black and white. It isn’t about his guilt or innocence. It’s about the man that we know him to be and the obvious fires of uncontrollable desires that he unfortunately chose to stoke. It is easy to say “guilty- he’s a terrible person” and write him off. It’s much harder for those of us who cannot come down on one side of the argument or the other 100%, because we are still able to see that good part of him. To brand him one way or the other is simple.
To wrestle with the totality of human nature, the good and the bad, to allow compassion to creep in, if even just a little bit, that’s the difficult stuff.
— Siobhan Peterson-Walsh,'09
If Allegheny has taught me anything, it has been to question everything, assume nothing, seek out facts, and never stop seeking the truth. Truth, as it turns out, is not always pretty, not always wrapped up with a bow. Au contraire, truth can be very ugly, can be that pill that’s hard to swallow. We all wake up everyday and face choices, easy choices, difficult choices and choices that change our lives and those of the people around us. Professor Nesset made some reprehensible choices, ones that that will also affect all those people around him. Now, we can’t control the choices that he made, but we can control how we react to them.
And so I ask you, fellow Allegheny community members, what choice will you make? Will you choose to perpetuate the ugly and the pain, or will you choose to set an example of empathy for your fellow man? It can be easy to climb up on our soap box, shake our fingers, and look down our noses in disdain, but let me remind you we don’t walk on water or part the seas. And I’m not asking you to excuse his actions or even forgive him. I’m asking you to condemn the act while finding some amount of compassion for the individual we still know and once loved. I’m asking you to step back and consider your personal and professional relationships, your work together and any other influence there might have been, and not to be so quick (as some have been) to cleave all remnants of him from your life. It isn’t when times are good and everyone gets along that defines a community, it’s when times are difficult, when what is right and wrong is murky and the truth lies somewhere in the gray area that we strengthen and our resolve, redefine ourselves and do what is right.
Siobhan Peterson-Walsh
Class of 2009
Hope • Oct 6, 2014 at 4:13 pm
If the Meadville professor has already committed a pedophile crime, as the FBI recently charged, it is too late for private psychiatry. He deserves to go to prison and get his psychiatry there. My comments suggest compassion be directed to those pedophiles *who have not yet committed a crime.*
Walter Bjorkman • Oct 6, 2014 at 12:21 pm
Compassion & absolution comes with a price, continued abuse. Let his friends get him help & not abandon him, but meanwhile lock him away so he will not continue to perpetrate the abuse of children.
Hope • Oct 6, 2014 at 11:52 am
Acquiring pictures of child pornography supports a lucrative market for videos and pictures showing the crime of child molestation. It’s insupportable. I agree with everyone who says it is a terrible crime, making each voyeur accessory to the admittedly worse crime of actually committing the horrible acts depicted.
American law recognizes this and deals with people who own and distribute such pictures and videos very, very harshly. If proven guilty, it is highly likely that the Meadville professor will be continuing his career in prison teaching English to his fellow inmates, in an environment where he can do much good, and harm no child. As part of his detention, he will receive psychiatric treatment.
Early access to psychiatric treatment for all pedophiles just makes sense. Let’s treat pedophiles rather than multiple victims. Why do self-identified pedophiles have to commit the crime before they can receive private psychiatric treatment?
Effective treatment is not possible without compassion. Treatment depends upon identifying and expanding the positive, while learning to compartmentalize the negative. Compassion is particularly due to those pedophiles who have not yet expressed their attractions with action.
I urge everyone to read and consider the editorial on this subject in today’s New York Times. I am completely intolerant of pedophile crimes, however I believe it is possible that there could be a better way of handling these things.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-disorder-not-a-crime.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
Helen Vitoria • Oct 5, 2014 at 5:32 pm
Your passion and compassion would be better severed as an advocate for victims, for the children who have been sexually exploited. Start with the 550,000 your professor did indeed exploit by downloading and sharing images and videos. True compassion is felt outside of our circle of family and friends, and those who we directly come into contact with. Your lack of emotional maturity and life experience is evident in this piece of writing. If one of those images was your child, your sister, your brother or cousin, would you still be writing this, in this exact tone?
John • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:03 pm
Professor **** didn’t exploit anybody, although he did happen to download the images of their exploitation. It’s a pity that college students are apparently unable to discern the difference.
Ryan the Pomeranian • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:33 pm
Downloading and distributing is by definition exploitation.
Helen Vitoria • Oct 6, 2014 at 9:12 am
John – It is you who is not discerning the difference. He didn’t just ‘happen’ to download, you make it sound like an accident. He actively sought out, downloaded and shared child pornography, which is engaging in and encouraging that exploitation.
Hope • Oct 5, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Pedophilia is a psychiatric condition some people are born with. Treatment opportunities for those at the pre-expression stage are regrettably few and far between. A fuller discussion is in this excellent article.
https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb
Matt Kelley • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:01 am
“Thus sex gradually became an object of great suspicion; the general and disquieting meaning that pervades our conduct and our existence, in spite of ourselves; the point of weakness where evil portents reach through to us; the fragment of darkness that we each carry within us; a general signification, a universal secret, an omnipresent cause, a fear that never ends. … we demand that sex speak the truth (but, since it is the secret and is oblivious to its own nature, we reserve for ourselves the function of telling the truth of its truth, revealed and deciphered at last), and we demand that it tell us our truth, or rather, the deeply buried truth of that truth about ourselves which we think we possess in our immediate consciousness.” -Michel Foucault, “The History of Sexuality”
Melissa Muenz • Oct 4, 2014 at 11:56 pm
One of the colleagues who runs in Nesset’s writing circle wrote a decent blog post in reaction to the news here: http://sbeasley.blogspot.com/2014/10/at-loss.html
I think it’s pretty spot on in capturing the shock and grief that comes with this kind of news about someone with whom you were on friendly terms and with whom you shared a tight-knit community. But it also stands firm on the correct side of things morally.
Allegheny as a community is facing a hard truth. A person can be many things. Professor Nesset played a big role at Allegheny. I will remember him as the professor who was in Rocky Horror, who had a goth radio show on WARC called “Dead Air,” who played in a fun cover band.
But now, going forward from here, I will also have to remember him as a felon. And this isn’t just a criminal act that you can couch by saying, “Everyone has vices. Everyone has darkness in them. All humans have good and bad.” This isn’t saying something hurtful to a loved one because you are jealous or hitting a cat with your car and not stopping. This isn’t something comparable to “everyone.” Because not everyone possess and distributes child pornography. Fortunately, most people don’t. I don’t want to speculate too much on the situation, because I’ve never been there, and I don’t think it’s helpful, but sure, yes, I assume that dealing with those kinds of urges is a personal hell. I can have sympathy for that. But that hell is nothing compared to the hell experienced by the hundreds of thousands of kids exploited in the photos and videos on that hard drive.
I hope a lot of things. I hope that eventually, those children can find a way to heal as they grow up. I hope that Nesset, if convicted, serves the full and appropriate sentence that is coming to him. I hope that the sentence includes psychiatric help. I hope that eventually we can live in a culture where people with his kinds of urges are able to seek and find help before they commit a crime. The hard truth is that you can’t control your feelings and urges, but you can control your actions. Nesset’s actions were heinous. And they weren’t just, “Nobody is perfect” heinous. They were “children were raped” heinous.
It’s really hard to reconcile the affection you feel for a beloved community member with such an ugly act. But both aspects of this person are real, and we have to find a way to move forward with that reality.
TL;DR: Reality is hard. Read some existential literature.
Ryan the Pomeranian • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:18 am
Finally, sense is spoken. Thank you.
John • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:01 pm
But let’s remember that while not everybody possess and or distributes child pornography, they do just as heinous things. Children are always raped regardless of whether or not people download child pornography. Child pornographers don’t make it for money, they make it because they themselves are deviants in the same category. Child pornography is nothing like mainstream pornography and the reason behind it is nothing like mainstream pornography. But you know who views it? People like him. Normal people. That’s the issue that is the problem, not that this particular vice happened to be his, but that everybody happens to have one or the other.
Former Alleghenynian • Oct 4, 2014 at 11:24 pm
As one of the students Nesset attempted to get drunk and sleep with, despite knowing full well I was underage-No. No I will not feel compassion. This is a man who held a position of authority and used it. He remained in a building attached to a daycare center. He wrote about young, too young, girls in his writing online. Because he was a talented writer do we make him a martyr? Just a poor, tortured soul? A tormented genius? I strongly advise against it. There are a host of children out there whose exploitation was assisted due to this professor’s choices. Anger and pain is justified and is warranted until action is taken. This was too long in coming.
Kaitlyn • Oct 4, 2014 at 9:50 pm
I spent a fair amount of time in Oddfellows during my stay at Allegheny, and I can honestly say that I remember my interactions with Ryan (Nesset’s Pomeranian) more than I remember my interactions with Kirk Nesset. I understand that he was a mentor to many and that his writings have reached many corners of the world, which make this all the more troubling for some to grasp and cope with. However, there is a difference between experiencing the throes of mental illness and being fully cognizant of your own behavior and it’s consequences. Who are we to know, and judge, if Kirk Nesset was a troubled man who was too ashamed to seek help, or a man who just enjoyed viewing child pornography because it brought him some form of pleasure that many of us cannot, and actively choose not, to understand? I work with individuals with mental illness everyday and there are some who have experienced abuse and exposure to pornography from a young age. They struggle, due to symptoms of intellectual disabilities and mental illness, to understand how watching child pornography is wrong and cannot break the cycle of this sometimes compulsive behavior. If this was the case when it comes to Kirk Nesset, then I can empathize with him, but I cannot forgive him and simply remove all blame. This let’s me know that our work as mental health professionals is not done, we need to reach out to individuals in many communities, not just the communities that we are accustomed to working with. However, I cannot say if this was the case with him. I cannot “fault the action”, when the man has actively given in to these urges. I cannot say what was on his mind everyday when he made the choice to continue this cycle… none of us can! I do not have children of my own, but I hope to some day, and I cannot help but to think of the many parents who took their children to the daycare in Oddfellows when Kirk Nesset was just up the stairs. I will not dehumanize him, because I cannot speak to his motivations. However, we can all agree that his actions are reprehensible. I do agree that it only takes learning one thing about someone we have known and trusted to completely shatter what we thought to be the truth. Sometimes the real truth is not pretty and it hurts: thousands of children and their families, a student body, colleagues, an institution of higher education, a community, a reputation, and everyone who has an opinion on this matter. It is true, we all do “bad” things. But, this is not a bad thing! This is a HORRIBLE thing that definitely reflects upon his character more so than telling a lie, writing a bad check, or smoking marijuana. This does not erase anyone’s positive interactions with Nesset, or the many good things that have come from his teachings, or the greatness of his writings. What it does is force everyone who has come in contact with him to rethink their interactions and question his character, and rightly so! While he was writing, and mentoring young adults, and traveling to other countries to promote his writing and mentor others, he was also viewing and sharing thousands of media files that involved the exploitation of young girls between the ages of “10 to 13”. We cannot forget that.
Alum • Oct 4, 2014 at 8:26 pm
I abhor comments sections, as it just seems to be an unfortunate platform for launching personal attacks, bully, harass, and insult people who have a different opinion or view than you, and I don’t like to take part. I felt the urge though to leave a remark as I feel for Alyssa above (especially because the Mike responder personally insulted her and essentially any person who thinks like her).
Alyssa – If there were ‘like’ buttons, I would support you (and want to believe many people would). You are clearly are enraged and upset by the situation and this article, and there is no reason you shouldn’t be allowed to be angry or frustrated. You certainly shouldn’t be devalued or insulted for your opinion. This author does exhibit some positive, but naive and innocent views that all humans are still good on some level. I can understand and see where she is trying to come from, but unfortunately, that is not always true. Sadly, some people don’t possess the capacity to feel empathy or guilt for wrongdoing (cue psych lesson on antisocial personality disorder (sociopaths) and narcissistic personality disorder … if you don’t know about these conditions fully, consult the library or psych profs, get out a DSM V). Maybe there were more eloquent or diplomatic ways you could have got your points across, but either way, I get you, I hear you. You have valid points in your comments. I hope no one else personally attacks you for having a viewpoint.
Anyway – one a different note – My first concern with this article started before I even read it. The headline alone is rather absurd, showing a lack of the very basic definition of scapegoat. Was this author an English major? If so, it is quite concerning. If the Campus titled it, not the author, also quite concerning. Allegheny students and grads should know basic vocabulary.
“Alumna Suggest Compassion Instead of Scapegoating’
Merriam Webster:
scape·goat -noun \ˈskāp-ˌgōt\
: a person who is unfairly blamed for something that others have done
FULL DEFINITION
a : one that bears the blame for others
b : one that is the object of irrational hostility
No one is ‘scapegoating’ – or that is – unfairly blaming this professor for something others have done. He admitted to what HE did, and now he alone has to bear the blame for this own actions. Further, if there is hostility towards him, I imagine many would not dub it ‘irrational’ at all. Again, he’s not a scapegoat (and it is really concerning if anyone things he is). Poor title for a odd article.
Melissa Muenz • Oct 5, 2014 at 12:03 pm
Almost certainly the editor wrote it, not the author. Bad choice for sure; not appropriate to this situation at all.
Mike Song • Oct 4, 2014 at 3:43 pm
I strongly agree with this article. It is easy to just sit back and judge the guy rather than trying to fully understand the problem. I’ve never met Nesset but have known other troubled people in the past who are drawn to unfortunate habits and simply not in control of their actions or understand what they are doing. I understand that this may be difficult for the Allegheny student body to empathize with given their (typically) highly sheltered nature. However, I think we can all agree that it is human to have both virtue and vices, and of course these will be more extreme in some more than others. So unless you are a perfect human being, do not demonize the man — fault the action. I’m sick of seeing clueless people (e.g. Alyssa) giving their self-righteous rants about how this guy is the scum of the earth.
alyssa aronow • Oct 4, 2014 at 4:07 pm
I am a better human being than someone who exploits more than half a million children, thanks
John • Oct 5, 2014 at 4:10 am
He didn’t exploit anybody. He only watched it happen. Feel free to justify yourself further if you feel the need, but ultimately none of us can be sure you’re not worse than him. Fortunately, I don’t know you and so I couldn’t care less what type of person you are.
And the author does have every right to compare you to him, just as I do. I’ll gladly compare you to whoever I like. I hope his sentence is as light as possible.
Ryan the Pomeranian • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:15 am
Downloading and sharing these images and videos is by definition exploitation.
Ari • Oct 5, 2014 at 4:59 am
No, Alyssa, actually you aren’t. The fact that you can’t see past him as “someone who exploits half a million children” means you are just the opposite of a better human being –and it means you did not understand the meaning of this article whatsoever. I hope your voice never becomes an influential one because it is dark and heartless. I’ve known Professor Nesset for three years. This news just tells me he had a weird and troubling addiction and needed or needs help. To me, he is still the kind and compassionate man I have known him to be. I am a believer of the benefit of the doubt and a second chance. That takes compassion–what this article calls for and apparently something you lack.
Ryan the Pomeranian • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:16 am
“benefit of the doubt”
What doubt do you have in this case?
alyssa aronow • Oct 4, 2014 at 2:12 pm
This article lost me at the repetitive use of “unbelievable.” Was that for shock factor? Anyone who did not live under a rock at Allegheny was not surprised by this. You’re a better person than I, because it is very easy for me to take what he taught me and run. Those who are teaching and guiding me and who are not downloading an average of 750 files of exploited children a day (given he was truthful about the habit being over a span of 2years) are the onew who deserve my admiration and pity and emotion.
“And the guilt and shame that he is piling on himself is far worse than the condemnation of others.”
How dare you speak for him and assume his guilt and shame. Reports say in court he was smiling and relaxed…which leads me to believe his self confidence, leaning on the side of arrogance, is still alive and well. Most of the news article says “prize winning author” or something along those lines..he is still being glorified and I’m sure in the back of his head that he thinks after he serves his 15 years, there’s a chance he’ll be welcomed right back into the writing community because he worked so hard to create an image and social network.
“But I can assure that this man, human like the rest of us, is experiencing silence that is deafening and a loneliness that can only be found in death.”
Do not compare this man to me and assume his reaction is the same I would have just because we are humans. No man who exploits children, let alone to the degree he did, is like us other human beings.
Your inclination to stick up for him is absolutely disgusting
Scott Cairns • Oct 5, 2014 at 9:33 am
Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others.
Be crucified, but do not crucify others.
Be slandered, but do not slander others.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep:
such is the sign of purity.
Suffer with the sick.
Be afflicted with sinners.
Exult with those who repent.
Be the friend of all, but in your spirit remain alone.
Be a partaker of the sufferings of all, but keep
your body distant from all.
Rebuke no one, revile no one, not even those
who live very wickedly.
Spread your cloak over those who fall into sin,
each and every one, and shield them.
And if you cannot take the fault on yourself
and accept punishment in their place,
do not destroy their character.
—Saint Isaak of Syria
Ryan the Pomeranian • Oct 5, 2014 at 11:14 am
“…….except in cases of child pornography.” – Saint Isaak of Syria
John • Oct 5, 2014 at 10:58 pm
Actually, downloading images is not exploitation in any way imaginable. If that were they case, you’d be exploiting women any time you copied from your camera any photo that you took of yourself and your family.