Boys like us

Mob justice is a blunt instrument of injustice, and there is an immense propensity for miscarriages of justice to be extreme. The greatest problem of such responses, particularly in retribution, is the difficulty for a contrary voice to be heard. There is no place for moral reflection in a mob.

And what will become of the teenage girl who was the victim of the alleged assault? No amount of indignation will ease the pain and humiliation of the intellectually impaired female victim. A compassionate response would attempt to convey our corporate sympathy to this family. Perhaps a statement expressing sorrow that people like us are capable of such stupidity is appropriate. But unfortunately nothing we can say or do will make the past undo itself.

And of the boys responsible for the alleged acts, surely society has an interest in their rehabilitation and redemption. If we can resist the urge to make an unproductive scapegoat response, perhaps we have some corporate responsibility to engage with our moral complicity in this episode. While our sins might not have been as extreme, each of us will have had cause to feel remorse.

The act of accepting responsibility for one’s actions and feeling remorse is a redemptive experience that should be extended to these young men. For such experience, and an understanding of consequences is essential to the development of moral awareness and behaviour.

The quest for our society is to find new ways for boys to explore their identity, sexuality, and their masculinity. The footy club model, while it offers a means of self-expression to many young men, it does not necessarily encourage them to consider the moral dimension of their desires.

The responsibility of education falls upon role models in families, communities, in sporting clubs and in the public sphere. Men have got to have a conversation with boys engaging the stereotypical dichotomies that are propagated in pornography and many other public institutions: To challenge the notion that masculine identity can be typified either by dominating or being dominated.

We have each got to take responsibility for the unwritten codes we have seen develop. To act in outrage is to avoid the tough questions that the alleged acts provoke. It is too easy to pin the blame on someone else. But if we are to learn from our mistakes, and those of people like us, then we must acknowledge our capacity to act immorally, and engage with the factors that make such action conceivable. Sensationalism, indignation and outrage just doesn’t cut it.