Have you been paying attention to the disgusting story about the sexual abuse of 1,400 children, mostly working class white girls, in Rotherham, England? I have. It hasn’t gotten the press that it deserves, during this summer of evil news stories.

There are two elements to this evil story. First, the grooming and the abuse itself. Horrific. Then there was incredible stupidity and incompetence of the police in handling these cases. They either the girl’s stories, discounting them as stories from loose girls. They lost evidence. They let these cases get mired in bureaucracy. Race and political correctness may have been a factor.

Ross Douthat writes about this story today. Whatever you think about his politics, he gets a shitload of credit for talking about these rapes. Where are the other pundits on this topic?

Douthat writes,

And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt.

The point is that as a society changes, as what’s held sacred and who’s empowered shifts, so do the paths through which evil enters in, the prejudices and blind spots it exploits.

So don’t expect tomorrow’s predators to look like yesterday’s. Don’t expect them to look like the figures your ideology or philosophy or faith would lead you to associate with exploitation.

Expect them, instead, to look like the people whom you yourself would be most likely to respect, most afraid to challenge publicly, or least eager to vilify and hate.

Because your assumptions and pieties are evil’s best opportunity, and your conventional wisdom is what’s most likely to condemn victims to their fate.