In Ancient Greek Mythology Aidos was the goddess of shame, modesty, and humility. She was the embodiment of the feeling of reverence or shame which restrained people from doing wrong. A recent CNN article by Professor Ron Avi Astor titled “Ask the right question about gang rape” (Referencing the October 24th gang rape of a 15 year old girl at a high school in CA) raised several interesting questions. One of his questions caught my eye: ” What can we do to prevent such heinous acts from happening?” It is painfully obvious that these young boys lacked aidos. Equally painful is the fact that the numerous bystanders, voyeurs every one, felt no shame, modesty, or social responsibility.

Professor Astor claims training can prepare students to alert police and avert violence. Perhaps this suggestion implies a kind of training one would get in taking a CPR course, and it assumes that once trained, the students will respond correctly. He cites several examples where students have prevented incidents of violence. Prevention of that nature, as valuable as it is, misses the real problem; a problem I believe goes much deeper than a lack of training. Much deeper!

Despite Dr. Astor’s claim that morality is not the issue, I firmly believe that it is. A moral person would not stand by and watch such a brutal act as that gang rape. A moral person would not have participated in that gang rape. Moral instruction does not have to present a religiosity.

Shakespeare may be right when he wrote “O shame, where is thy blush?” A lamentation, if there ever was one.

Norman W Wilson, PhD.