Moral Emptiness, Sexual Offending, and Neutrality in Mediation: Reflections from Theatre and Practice

This essay examines the intersection of sexual offending, moral absence, and professional neutrality through the lens of both theatrical performance and real-world mediation. Drawing on personal experience as an actor portraying an accused child sexual offender and later as a professional mediator working with a convicted offender, the essay explores the concept of evil as the absence of a moral core, the limits of empathy, and the ethical demands placed on mediators operating within child welfare and family law contexts.

Background: Representation of Sexual Offending in Theatre

In October 1984, while working as an actor in London, I was cast in the lead role of Clark Davis in a production of Miguel Piñero’s Short Eyes, staged at the Man in the Moon Theatre on the King’s Road. Short Eyes is a landmark American prison drama set in a holding cell, focusing on incarcerated men awaiting trial.

The character I portrayed had been accused of sexually molesting a young girl.

From a performance standpoint, the role was exceptionally demanding. Piñero’s text confronts audiences with the raw social dynamics of incarceration, moral judgment, and violence. At the time, I believed my portrayal was technically sound and emotionally rigorous. What I did not yet recognize was that my performance lacked an essential psychological dimension: an understanding of moral vacancy rather than emotional motivation.

Transition to Mediation Practice

I left the acting profession in 2002 and now work as a mediator through my company, Magnum Mediation, and as a volunteer for court-adjacent and community agencies. Recently, I was assigned to mediate a case involving a convicted sexual offender whose children had been removed by the court and placed into the adoption system. The other parent was absent and unlocatable.

Prior to the mediation, I reviewed extensive court documentation detailing the offenses. Despite prior experience mediating high-conflict cases—including individuals displaying traits associated with malignant narcissism—this case produced an unusual degree of professional apprehension.

Observations from the Mediation Process

The mediation was conducted online. The individual presented as physically unremarkable and non-threatening, a sharp contrast to the severity of their criminal conduct. This incongruence between appearance and behavior is well-documented in both forensic psychology and family court proceedings involving sexual offenders.

As the session began, the participant engaged in predictable defensive strategies:

• Externalization of blame
• Minimization of responsibility
• Excessive politeness and compliance signaling
• Deference to perceived authority figures

Although explicitly informed that the mediation was not conducted on behalf of the court, the individual appeared to treat the process as quasi-judicial, suggesting a performative rather than reflective engagement.

Ethical Neutrality and Clinical Detachment

The professional obligation of a mediator is neutrality—not empathy, absolution, or moral correction. Together with my co-mediator, I maintained procedural fairness while redirecting the participant away from grievance narratives and toward the legally constrained reality of supervised parental contact.

The mediation lasted approximately five hours. The outcome was narrow, controlled, and consistent with child safety standards.

Psychological Absence and the Concept of Evil

Throughout the mediation, one feature stood out with unsettling clarity: the absence of expressed parental attachment or emotional language. The word love was never used. Nor was there evidence of remorse, concern for the children’s emotional well-being, or acknowledgment of harm.

What was present instead was imitation—an attempt to reproduce what the individual believed a parent should sound like. This aligns with clinical descriptions of affective emptiness, where social scripts are replicated without internal emotional resonance.

From both a psychological and ethical perspective, I define evil here not as aggression or hostility, but as the absence of an internal moral core—a void from which harmful behavior emerges without the restraining force of conscience or relational attachment.

Legal and Ethical Resolution

The mediation concluded with limited outcomes for the participant, consistent with statutory requirements and child welfare priorities. Despite mild protestations, the individual left with little substantive gain.

Shakespeare’s King Lear captures this reality succinctly:
“Nothing will come of nothing.”

In both theatre and mediation, I have come to understand that some individuals are not driven by distorted love or misplaced passion, but by a profound absence—one that resists both rehabilitation narratives and emotional interpretation.

Implications for Law, Mediation, and Mental Health Professionals

For professionals working in family law, mediation, psychology, and child protection, this case underscores critical considerations:

• The limits of empathy in cases involving affective absence
• The necessity of structured neutrality over emotional engagement
• The importance of outcome realism in court-adjacent mediation
• The psychological distinction between remorse and performance

What I failed to grasp as a young actor, I now recognize as a mediator:
some cases are not about conflict resolution or emotional repair—but about managing risk, setting boundaries, and accepting the ethical limits of intervention.

Ron Berglas

I was born in NYC. After moving to London, I became a professional actor for 25 years in the UK, Europe, and the US. Upon returning to the States, and after a short stint driving 18-wheelers in NY, and then moving to southern California, I became a high school teacher… MORE