How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive? In regards to the Penn State child-raping scandal, we continue to see these actions. People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. Most of the people who had the authority at Penn State to stop the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky proved themselves to be worthless. Despite the status of many individuals, we as a society should eliminate the camouflaging of crimes. In order to seek justice and moral responsibility; motivated blindness, normalcy bias, and bystander effect must all be eliminated. First off, the world today has negative pre-determined imagery of change. This case in relation to other readings previously discussed in class, shows how many deceive change as horrifying. Mike McQueary, for example, an eye witness of the alleged attacks, was so blinded by the negative consequences he couldn’t bring himself to make known. When people find themselves in unsettling circumstances, they shut down and pretend everything is normal. McQueary’s failure to fulfill his moral responsibilities abruptly could have had an effect in why Joe Paterno, or the Penn State athletic director failed as well. Change in the Penn State program created a sense of normalcy bias, weighing more important to McQueary and Paterno than the little boys. In other words, “Nobody wants to damage the brand.” Today our major institutions lie because of a culture in which loyalty to “the company,” and protection of “the brand” – that noxious business-school shibboleth that turns employees into brain locked elements of sales and marketing campaigns – trumps conventional morality, traditional ethics, civil liberties, and even adherence to the rule of law. Society today and especially this case demonstrates the behavior that it is better to protect “the brand” than it is to protect free speech, the right to privacy, or even to protect children (The Brutal Truth About Penn State). Secondly, some people suffer from Motivated Blindness; they don’t see what is not in their interest to see (Let’s All Feel Superior). Some don’t look at things that may make them feel uncomfortable. Eye witnesses of Sandusky’s attacks may have also felt uncomfortable when looking the fate of their program in the eye. Pretending like the attacks didn’t really happen may have enticed McQueary or Paterno into not telling. If no one saw it, no one would find out. These attacks could have been an unspoken topic that no one talked about. They knew it was wrong but couldn’t bring themselves to face the consequences Penn State may have to suffer. If speaking about these crimes takes a chunk from the endowment, something else could have been done to get the money. Penn State as a whole could have potentially grown as a school from speaking about the attacks rather than holding them from everyone. The school as a whole would have been more positively affected by speaking when it first occurred because everyone would have wanted to pitch in. “We are Penn State” would have been a more powerful slogan if it wasn’t shadowed by lies that were held for over 10 years. In connection to A Doll House, for example, the staff members at Penn State were attempting to uphold an image similar to Torvalds that they knew wasn’t there. In A Doll House Torvald was attempting to portray the perfect cookie cutter family, but in reality his family was falling apart due to negative happenings much like the coaching staff of Penn State.