Institutional Enablers, Part 2
In continuing to interpret the constant scandals at USC involving doctors, administrators, and the institutional cover-ups of their behaviors, I coined the term Institutional Enablers, comparing institutions to enabling families of addicts. The miscreant doctors are the “addicts,” the identified patients, the university president, and the Board of Trustees are the family. The shared dynamics are denial and deception, unwittingly encouraging the progression of the disease. The goal is the same, protection of the image and reputation of the enabling parties, avoidance of confrontation, and pretense of perfection.
I just read the lead story in the October 15 Los Angeles Times: unlikely Union of supervisor, son, USC Dean, and was struck by the confluence of an enabling father, Mark Ridley Thomas, and the desperate Dean of the USC School of Social Work, Marilyn Flynn. Seen through a legal lens they are alleged to be guilty of bribery and corruption. Seen through a human lens they are all victims of the societal pressure to succeed. The article states: “the bribery and corruption charges offer further testament to how USC’s aspirations to prominence fueled an obsession with fundraising and money and a lack of oversight that has led repeatedly to scandal.”
Yes, this is a story about a prominent Councilman, his errant son, and a USC Dean, but I am seeing the vulnerable people occupying those positions and I am seeing them through the eyes of an addiction specialist with 35 years of experience treating addicted/broken families. I see Mark Ridley Thomas, an enabling father, desperate to rescues his son and secure his son’s future. This is the same desperation that fueled the college admissions scandal…powerful men, willing to cheat the system, risking everything they had earned, to “guarantee” the successful futures of their children, Sadly we have created a culture that commodifies our youth, particularly among the privileged, resulting in their failure to launch due to fear of failure. I call this The Trauma of Privilege, children who have been indulged, enabled, and rescued from the consequences of their choices.
I see Sebastian, the son, growing up in the shadow of a successful father, unable to measure up to expectations who was struggling with debt and a sexual harassment investigation. His father, desperate to rescue his son and his family’s reputation, used his connections withUSCand, Marilyn Flynn, to secure Sebastian’s future.
I see Marilyn Flynn, an older woman, only the second female to hold the position of Dean of the School of Social Work in 100 years, desperate to save her career and solve her budgetary problems, grabbing the lifeline Mark Ridley Thomas offered her. She could save herself and help save Sebastian by offering him a scholarship and faculty position.
This story is a modern-day tragedy, the confluence of each of the character’s fatal/tragic flaws, their hamartia leading to a chain of events causing their downfall.
It is a sad story, deserving of mercy and compassion; a lesson to all of us to discover our own tragic flaws and to shore up our resistance to the seduction of money, property, power, and prestige.