HEY, DAVID BROOKS, ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS

Quite a few people have objected to what David Brooks published in The New York Times today, which extends his remarks on Meet the Press a couple of days ago about how it's simply abnormal for people to intervene when they see cruelty or brutality -- especially ever since Woodstock turned us all into amoral, decadent savages. I don't want to go over this ground in detail again -- I addressed it yesterday -- but I do want to respond to the opening passage of today's column:

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno's shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary's shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history -- during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods -- the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don't see.

Um, the rise of Hitler and the Rwandan genocide involved masses of people armed with deadly weapons -- and backed by state power. The best-known incident of child rape at Penn State involved, um, one naked guy in a shower. Does Brooks really not see a difference here? Even a beating on a city street by a lone assailant poses a mortal danger to an adult who intervenes, because the perpetrator is clearly willing to engage in a pure act of violence. A child rapist is just trying to evade detection while getting off.

That doesn't mean denial won't kick in, but surely it would be vastly more difficult to stop Hitler than to stop a soaking-wet pervert.