Mythology

There have always been athletes who believed their job is to hit baseballs or run fast, not be interviewed about it, or be an inspiration, or get along with teammates, management, media, or fans. ”What you do on the field, that’s what matters.  All that other stuff is nobody else’s business but mine.”  I think it was Charles Barkley who created some controversy over a decade ago by declaring “I’m not a role model.  Your parents should be your role model. Your minister, your teacher, somebody in your community.” It’s something of a convenient value, brought out when needed, buried when it flows the other way.  That’s entirely reasonable, because it is both true and not true.  The rules and skill set of sports are rather arbitrary, so the whole point is the mythology we create around the games. On the other hand, once the rules are in place and we are keeping score, the athlete’s job is to maximise the number of yards gained or shots blocked within that arbitrary framework.  Paradoxically the silent hero, the Charlie Gehringer or Steve Carlton, is a legitimate variant.

It comes up within each sport as well, whether someone leads by example or by getting in teammates’ faces; whether someone is disruptive to team chemistry; whether a player is creating a distraction with too much visibility versus not being available to the fans and media. Emotion matters, even myth matters, to the actual players.  They have all been exposed to guys who are complete jerks, but have to be put up with because of their talent; they have all known guys who bring something extra to a team in motivation or inspiration.

The sports shows this morning just couldn’t get off the topic of the New England Patriots signing a third-string quarterback.  A television programmer two years ago noted that while people complained about the wall-to-wall coverage, no one changed the channel.  “I could put on a show called Two Guys Argue About Tim Tebow and run it every night.” The emotion and the type of argument, at least from the callers, is fascinating.  People will stay on hold for an hour to be able to say. “Tim Tebow is not an NFL quarterback.  Period.  No further discussion. Everyone should just shut up about Tim Tebow.” Meanwhile, the next guy, who has also been on hold an hour just wants to say. “He’s a winner.  He’s got determination. This kid has a drive to succeed.” 

This is the whole athlete-as-myth, athlete-as-player divide played out in extreme. Or not quite an extreme.  Tebow is apparently good enough on overall skill set alone to at least not be laughable.  He passes worse than a quarteback should and runs better than a quarterback needs to.  Reading defenses, he is apparently off to a reasonable start.  There is argument about the aggregate of that.  As for his embodying an athletic myth, that is also not entirely clean.  He is a recognisable type of Chip Hilton hero, and among people who actually have the talent to play his game, rather an extreme of that type.  But that extremity includes his faith, which complicates things.  If he were just one of the players, it would be no issue.  But he’s the quarterback, so he has to be a leader, and people want their leaders to come from a short list of hero-types.  If he is seen as polarising, then that detracts from his intangibles, as they say.

An additional complication: if a lot of his value is in those harder-to-define winner/leadership/inspirational qualities, then that mostly works only when you are the starting quarterback.  A team doesn’t get much of that benefit, certainly not at first, from their second- or third-string quarterback.

He is not intrusive about his faith, but millions of other people – for or against - are intrusive about his faith.  He doesn’t seek to be a distraction, but millions of other people get distracted by him.  People want to make statements about their beliefs by talking about his.  These also often take similar form to the guys waiting on hold for the sports call-in.  Declarations, not analysis.

So.  My declarations, then.

Part of Belichick’s motivation may be to show in yet another way that he is a better coach than Ryan, or anyone else.  Supposedly, no one can figure out how to make use of this talented player.  Bill wants to show he can.

If he can’t, Tebow’s career is over.

Tebow has practice value when the Patriots are playing a read-option quarterback.

I don’t know what Tebow’s special-play, trick-play, change-of-pace value is.  Presumably Belichick thinks he does. If Tom Brady gets hurt, you want Mallet to replace him. But then all that special, change-of-pace stuff from Tebow becomes more important for the Patriots. The concept of a Relief QB doesn’t make much sense with Brady.  But it might with Mallet.  High-risk, high-payoff stategies look better as the score gap widens.

The Tim Tebow Effect in Current Politics

Bethany calls it the Tim Tebow Fallacy, and she has a point. “The tendency to increase the strength of a belief based on an incorrect perception that your viewpoint is underrepresented in the public discourse.” I am using Effect instead because I tend to think of the larger spectrum of people digging in against the tide, not all of which rises to the level of fallacy. Yet as a practical matter, it absolutely can get to that level, and quickly. (She also has a Forrest Gump Fallacy, if you want to amuse yourself with that. She’s still young, and may develop a whole stable of named fallacies by the time she’s finished.) It sprang from a Chuck Klosterman comment about the Tebow discussion.

both groups perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion

We often hear it in our political discourse. We certainly hear it about Trump now. A great part of his swing vote was giving voice to people who felt had been routinely not listened to. Boomers considered themselves to still be fighting against The Man even after they had been The Man for twenty years and were on their way out. He, and they, still carry that chip now. Understandable, I suppose, as these attitudes take a long while to develop and won’t disappear overnight. Yet really, you won. You can’t say that no one’s listening to you anymore. It’s your hand on the ship’s wheel at present. Okay, the last guys won’t let go of the wheel and people are trying to disengage it from the rudder and pummel you every chance, but that’s what always happens. Much worse than usual this time, but normal. You can’t just stick it to the man anymore, because now you are the man.

The opposition is sending the same wails into the night. “No one is listening to us!” It’s absurd, of course, because these are the elites who the general populace, from the Trump side, the Johnson side, and the Sanders side all decided have too much control.* The 60’s counterculture disguised itself and become The Man, but they still think of themselves as young warriors battling against the old establishment, now turned away at the gates. The Clintons are such a stereotypically good example of this that one almost suspects the whole game is fixed, like pro wrestling.

The reality is that any reduction in their power is a Narcissistic Injury . It is quite obviously painful, but that does not imply that they are oppressed. Actually, that is trending over to a related fallacy, that suffering is proof of oppression, which proves one is being treated unfairly, which proves one’s perspective is the true one.

This is where I wanted to go. It is not just an ever-increasing paranoia of being progressively convinced that one’s POV is being shut out, which is proof, PROOF, that someone is suppressing it. Why would someone suppress it? Because they know it’s true. SEE? That’s where it gets to fallacy level. We need not go that far. In milder form we might think that people are ignoring our point because it is uncomfortable. As all of us do that sort of ignoring at times, and intellectual history seems to record little else, it is certainly plausible to think that others are doing this now.

Also, sometimes we take something of a contrary stand just to prevent our own group from going too far. A young acquaintance of mine, editor of the local arts-and-event newspaper The Hippo, used the phrase, “balancing the room.” I get that. Even if you think they’re right, they aren’t going to be 100% right. Particularly in the area of attribution of motive to what the opposition is doing, even the most right of us can be badly wrong. Bethany also mentions a certain positioning effect within groups, of needing to both belong but also stand out. Lastly, political declaration is something of a positional good. 

There is another aspect to the Tim Tebow Effect which must be deeply related, though I can’t identify the precise cause and effect. People can talk for hours, adding nothing to the conversation, unable to stop. There is always one more thing that needs to be said, or some greater-than-usual need to have the last word. A TV executive at the height of the Tebow controversy said he could put up nothing but two guys arguing about Tim Tebow for all of his programming, and no one would turn it off. People would call the station to complain, tweet insulting things about the network and its banal pointless, shows, email everyone in the industry they could think of to Just stop. No more. I can’t take it. Yet they wouldn’t switch channels. Everyone knows this about politics in general and doubly so in the age of Trump – nothing is being added, yet we are drawn back in repeatedly, fish to lures, moths to flames.

This need for the last word, or perhaps even need to have extracted at least some concession, is not true for everything we do in our lives. All of us let most things go, with little difficulty. I don’t know what makes something a hobbyhorse for each of us, needing to be ridden endlessly, and even less do I know what makes a particular topic a more universal hobby horse. We know we are affecting nothing, yet somehow a great deal seems to be at stake.

*Here is the next level of irony. Those who support traditional culture in one of its many forms have been doing the same thing for years but are sneered at for having such an ignorant attitude now. WASP culture was dominant from the start of America (and in Northern Europe before that) and did give itself privileges and advantages. They signed on to an aggressive form of egalitarianism that they didn’t project would result in such a loss of power, but there it is, and they have gone along with it, however sullenly. (This will be a subsequent post.) A different group, largely secular but still drawing on religious ideals, used that system effectively in order to get power for themselves. Now that the latter group is having its power taken it is reacting similarly. I’m not commenting on which powers should be lost or gained by which groups, I’m just noting the irony.

A Poll About Polls...

NHPR's "The Exchange" has a pollster on, discussing polling difficulties and methods.  Which is fine.  The show host(ess), however, is conducting "an unscientific poll about polls and pollsters (giggle)," to get people to call in.

Of what earthly use is people's opinion about polls?  How does this advance human knowledge?  Polls are clearly an inconvenience with some potential use.  How we each value the inconvenience and the use varies.  What else can be said?  It is rather like people's estimates of whether hurricanes or earthquakes are increasing or decreasing.  The estimates tell us nothing (unless, perhaps, you are doing research about perceptions.  But disasters are not prompted or prevented by public opinion.)

I am reminded of a recent heated controversy about what is discussed on sports media. Some middle-management programming-deciding guy was being interviewed.  An irate caller came on to complain that he was sick and tired of hearing about Tim Tebow, and then went on to explain - quite emphatically, I should note - how Tebow wasn't very good and isn't a legitimate NFL quarterback and we should just stop talking about him.  The programming guy laughed.  "That's what we get, all the time.  People complaining that we're talking too much about Tebow, but then going on to give their opinion.  It's like they can't stop themselves.  If we put on a show Two Guys Arguing About Tebow, everyone complains, but no one changes the channel.  People say they are tired of hearing about Tim Tebow, but they're really just tired of hearing the opposing opinion about him."

It does seem that way.  People want to make a pronouncement, have that be the final word, and then have everyone else shut up.  Well wouldn't we all?  But I couldn't even get that out of my kids after about thirteen years old.  Even though they tend to agree with me.

I have said in the past that conservatives like to make pronouncements, almost daring you to argue, and liberals like to condescend, almost daring you to risk being thought a yahoo.  As the election approaches, both groups do both.  It doesn't seem designed to provoke an actual exchange of thought, does it?

I'm sure you all agree.

The Tim Tebow Effect

In honor of it being the eve of an election, it is good to remember The Tim Tebow Effect, which I have written on many times. I anticipated it in 2013, and as late as 2018 was illustrating how it affected people's opinions of Donald Trump.  Still does.

Bethany also weighed in on the topic in 2016 over at Graph Paper Diaries. She had discovered it, she thinks from Chuck Klosterman, and passed it along to me. The Tim Tebow Fallacy

Her attempt at a formal definition is probably the best summary:

The tendency to increase the strength of a belief based on an incorrect perception that your viewpoint is underrepresented in the public discourse

My favorite anecdote is still the guys calling in on sports radio, staying on hold for 45 minutes in order to be able to spill their furious opinion "Tim. Tebow.  Is not. An NFL quarterback! PERIOD!"  and then hang up.

The Tim Tebow C19 Effect

You remember the Tim Tebow Effect?  It was pushed here for years and also at bsking's statistics site Graph Paper Diaries. It sprang from a Chuck Klosterman comment that

both groups perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion

...which is precisely what we see today.  If you go to some sites, you will see angry comments, and links to lots of people they agree with that everyone, I SAID EVERYONE is ignoring the very obvious truths that this disease is dangerous.  At other sites, you can find equally irritated people who are just sure that the really important information about how economically devastating this is ARE BEING IGNORED. A lot of energy is being expended showing how someone-or-other on the "other" side is just plain wrong.  And the next day, more links how wrong they were.  And the day after that, more wrong.

We are going to reopen.  The questions are all in the territory of how, how soon, and in what order.  Everyone wants it.  Some want it more quickly, with a higher risk profile because they think it all has been shown to be less than advertised.  Others want it more cautiously, because the risks are not as low as critics are claiming, not in the context of previous pandemics. The links mount up. 

You are not a minority whose opinion is not being heard.  Given that, everyone should focus on putting their best persuasive arguments forward, not the complaints of how stupid, or fascist, or immoral those other guys have been. Those who want to reopen quickly go looking for the worst examples of what some other state - that they don't live in - is doing that is completely insane, while those who think the long-term danger is underrated seek for the most stupid placard and quote they can find from the protests.

Not that those accusations are untrue. There have been plenty of stupid, immoral, or fascist arguments put forward.   You're right.  There they are.  Some people actually haven't given Tim Tebow credit for being a stunningly great college player and an equally great pro intangibles leader, while others really haven't noticed that Hillary Clinton is being held to different standards because she's a woman.

I have long liked Arnold Kling, and I really liked his recent essay. It does not advocate a position, it states what he thinks is the best understanding of the data.  I think he does show a leaning in how he presents it - and he may be wrong. Some people are trying very hard to listen.  Talk to them, not the others.

"No One Is Listening To Us"

Bethany just brought up the Tim Tebow Effect over at her site, which refreshed my memory and relates to a few subjects I have had floating around since vacation. There was a man with a clerical collar next to city hall in Saratoga Springs with a sign that read "Palestinians are God's Children, Too." Well, of course thy are, but out of a thousand good causes in the world, picking that one seems...hmmm, I was going to say dishonest, but in a big world I suppose God has called someone to care about it.  It's just that the other 99% have called themselves to this ministry. It is nearly always less-than-honest. It trikes me that it fits the Tim Tebow effect.  No one cares about the poor Palestinians.  Dunno.  Sure seems like a lot to me.

Similarly, the was a yard sign in Skaneateles that read "Hate Has No Home Here." My first reaction was Sure it does. A person might well think that thought quite innocently, and even admirably. And if someone had put that out 25 years ago, or 50, or 75, it might have had some edge to it, but most likely was put there by some nice person who was perhaps a little lecturing, but basically a good influence on us all. Yet in our current climate, pounding a sign into your lawn out by the road is rather pointed. It is accusing, and we're all pretty sure which way that accusation runs, aren't we?

Might it possibly be close to innocent, some kindly person who thinks fuzzily but means well, worried that it really is the other side which is descending into hate? Certainly. But we get into a continuum there of how much humility, self-criticism, and open-mindedness can be removed before we have to say "Y'know Gladys, this is evil." Nonviolent people who smile and speak in soft tones and are genuinely polite can still be evil.  It's all very Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. When you put up the sign, or even if you are starting to bring it up early in every conversation, you are moving into different territory.

The Methodists are going to split over gay marriage. Maybe next year. Those who believe in traditional marriage are now starting to push for it, seeing the writing on the wall, perhaps. It will be that or be forced to put up with practices they find unscriptural. For more congregational polities, this might be less of a problem, but Methodists historically try to keep doctrinally unified, everyone in the same boat. There is a natural "conservatism" that says don't change things, don't rock the boat, we can put up with things as they are, stick with the devil we know. This is now in tension with the "conservatism" of orthodox Christian teaching.

Both sides believe that one is listening to them. I could take a side on that, but I think I would be an intruder.

The Tim Tebow Effect and Trump

I have been trying to avoid current events, and especially Trump events in my reading lately, focusing on more 30,000-ft and long-term analysis.  Really, it's what we all should be doing most of the time.  While there are actions with long-term consequences happening in real time before our eyes - SCOTUS nominees and decisions come to mind - most of what we are getting exercised about now will recede.  Trends in technology, demography, and philosophy will have greater importance, while we were chasing squirrels.

I find I cannot easily get away. I keep coming back to the Tim Tebow Effect, but let me tie it directly to Trump.  We have a large number of Trump haters, The Resistance*, who believe that no one is listening to them when they tell us how terrible Trump is and how can we not see it; we have another large number of Trump supporters who believe that no one is listening to them, because things are going great yet he is still criticised. There are conservatives who disapprove of Trump who believe they are not being listened to.  There are liberals who believe they can work with anyone and strike bargains who believe they are not being listened to.  My own group is "there's plenty to dislike about Trump without having to make stuff up, but the more you make stuff up the more I am determined to discredit everything you say."  I feel like no one is listening to that POV.

Except that's pretty much the view of National Review Online, which is still a major player among conservatives.  Plenty of folks at other sites I frequent would say the same.  So I really don't need to pound the table insisting that everyone just listen to my few simple sentences about Trump.

*Every time I see someone referring to themselves that way it irritates me. Wearing the clothing of the actually brave, with no courage of their own, like children dressing up.

The Tim Tebow Effect Again

You can look at earlier discussions of the phenomenon here, or here, or frankly, there are so many in the last ten years that you could just put "Tebow" in my search bar if you are that interested.  Which I can't imagine you being. Essentially it is the situation in which both sides of a discussion are certain that no one is listening to them, and so get louder and angrier. It comes from a Chuck Klosterman quote that "both groups perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion."

We are told that the whole country is increasingly this way, and even that the church is becoming that way, with everyone sure that they have the important things that the church should be focusing on, but Everyone Else in the church isn't getting it. Sometimes I stand back and wonder if this is true at all. Could it not be that 80% of the church is not that concerned about the divisive arguments of the day - and even for good reasons? They might have opinions about these matters, but not consider them the focus of their day?

Here's an interesting twist:  Is it different among the people with and without children, or even perhaps married vs unmarried?

The Tim Tebow Effect and Israel-Palestine

I have written about the Tim Tebow Effect many times, those situations in which everyone in the argument believes that they are not being listened to and their view is being suppressed. It comes from a Chuck Klosterman comment

...both groups perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion

I don't mean to belittle or make light of the argument - people are dying, after all - but it does seem that this is happening WRT Israel and Palestine. I have confidence I could articulate the general position of all sides here, and I'm not even paying that much attention. I can't be the only one. 

I have an opinion which of those sides is nearer the right, but see no point in adding to the noise.

Reflections On Tim Tebow

He's a professional football player.

Not Fighting Fair?

One of my clues as to figuring out who is fighting fair in an argument is to check who is changing the subject. It is often a motte-and-bailey fallacy, sometimes applied intentionally and deceptively. Or it might be a hobby horse, as noted in my previous post - a topic that someone just keeps wanting to get back to. They see the world though a particular prism and don't really want to listen to what you have to say. Let me tell you about the aspect of this topic that I think everyone should pay more attention to.  

I don't often credit the idea that perhaps more people are just fuzzier in their thinking than I expect. Maybe they are doing the best they can, but that just isn't very good.

As Colin Kaepernick came back into the sports spotlight briefly, he is a good example. Discussions about Kaep were not as bad as the Tim Tebow Effect, but close, and similar. To my mind there were only a limited number of logical discussions that might be had, which we avoided and had the illogical ones instead. Does he have the right to protest?  On his own time, absolutely. On his employer's time, only with permission. (Is the team or the NFL his employer?) Does the current practice of other athletes using their employer's time to make public statements change this?  Probably, though it shouldn't. 

My temptation would always be to point out that what he was protesting, that the police are targeting young black men, is not accurate, and also rather convenient for a young black man who has many young black friends. But that is seldom relevant to the actual discussion of whether young Colin is being blackballed and treated unfairly. Others would want to stress how very, very insulting the protest was, which is irrelevant, or how very, very important the topic is, also irrelevant.

Some would try to declare the question moot because he's not good enough to be an NFL quarterback anyway. That gets tricky, because it is a change of subject from the pure rights issue, but it does have a legitimate practical aspect. The whole debate likely came up because he did occupy that middle ground.  If he were much better, he would just get away with it.  If he were much worse, no one would listen to him. My non-expert evaluation that he was good enough to at least be a credible backup, but only for a limited number of teams, and he hurt himself by being a jerk who teams might hesitate over anyway, puts him squarely in the "maybe" category. There were less-talented QBs who still had jobs. However, many of them brought less-obvious advantages that he did not, such as being similar in style to the guy they were backing up, or being very good analysts in the film room, or being encouragers and teachers of teammates.

Yet the discussion would not just stand still and be examined one point at a time. I have focused on the unfairness of the disputations, but perhaps that comes from expecting more logic out of people than they can manage. They may be reciting cliches because cliches are all they've got. Or maybe it's just no fun to slow down and think about things precisely.

Greg Landry

This era that is highly suspicious of running quarterbacks, also has some of the best running quarterbacks in NFL history. Cam Newton, Tim Tebow, and Michael Vick are the source of ongoing barroom arguments: Can they win consistently? Will their bodies hold up under the collisions? Does that much running interfere with passing discipline? Are there more wildcat, single wing, or halfback option surprises being developed, waiting for their perfect moment?

As recently as 2008 a sports columnist could write

When the Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans announced that Tarvaris Jackson and Vince Young, respectively, would no longer start under center, it became clear that the running quarterback era was officially coming to a close. Make no mistake; the mobile quarterback is still alive. Many of today's top players in the position have proven that they can hold composure in the pocket, but also run for a first down when protection breaks down. The running quarterback, however, has officially died.

Moral: don't make pronouncements.

Most of the great running QB's have actually been effective scramblers who could run well in a pinch in order to get out of trouble. They were mobile quarterbacks, not generally runners. Yet a few were, and they seem to concentrate in the same 70's era: Steve Grogan of the Patriots, Bobby Douglass of the Bears, and Greg Landry of the Detroit Lions.

I first learned of Landry on the local sports pages. The Union Leader was excited that Landry had been a first-round draft pick out of UMass, because Greg had starred for the Nashua Panthers 1961-64. It was an era of Beach Boys "Be True To Your School," which strikes me as more than ordinarily stupid now, but made perfect sense at the time. I went to Manchester Central, and Nashua was a football rival - I would not be rooting for any other school's players, thank you very much. Plus, he was going to the hated Detroit Lions, who had ruined my Green Bay Packers' perfect season on Thanksgiving Day in 1962. Just a few years later, after reading Paper Lion, I relented in my Detroit hatred, and as highschool progressed and I got a sense for how few pro athletes, especially football players, came out of New Hampshire I developed some pride in Landry.

He was actually picked for a Pro Bowl, and was not a bad throwing quarterback at all. But his reputation throughout his career was as a quarterback who ran intentionally, either on draw plays or roll-out options. In the modern era, coaches would insist that he stay put more, and the word on him would be that he had diminished a fine passing career by bailing and running too quickly. That strategy worked well with quick-to-elope throwers like John Elway and Steve Young. Either could have been excellent running quarterbacks in the pros, as they had been in college. And then maybe not have gone to the Hall of Fame.
Or the game could be changing again...

Listening

Sometimes I give readers a heads-up on a topic, priming the pump by suggesting an idea just to have it rattling around in their heads before I tackle a subject that may have a good deal of introduction necessary, which is tedious for all of us.

So I will draw you attention, Watson, to the fact that the Tim Tebow Effect (many, many entries - choose one or two) is in play yet again. I would like to tell Chuck Klosterman how often I have used this observation of his, but he only seems reachable if you tweet back at him, which I have neither the ability nor inclination to do.

So the whole idea that we have to listen, even humbly listen, is coming up again, and I would like to give you something you can't get other places.

Basket of Resentment

 I was back at work last week, all in one place rather than bouncing around in coverage, and so got dragged in to the controversies that part-timers usually get to ignore. Two of these are among the most dreaded at psych hospitals: a pathological parent who is guardian over their adult child whose behavior carries legal implications.  This usually takes the form of refusing treatment on behalf of their child which the man desperately needs. I also had a male with borderline personality disorder, which is uncommon and generally more intense. Such cases can split staff into opposing camps, demonstrating the Tim Tebow Effect, in which everyone is certain that their point-of-view is not being heard.

I had been largely spared this for the last eighteen months, and largely for the last three years. It was not fun to re-enter the world of conflicting orders and meaningful irritated comments from coworkers. I had felt comfortable being the bearer of bad news in such situations for years, as I believed it bothered me less than it bothers others to be disliked. Suddenly re-experiencing that after being away from it was a surprise.

I am not as immune I had thought. Not only did I find myself thinking Wow, I had forgotten how uncomfortable this is, I also had anxieties and resentments that I had largely put in the past start occurring to me again.  These were unrelated to work.  How, then, were they popping back into my head again?

I had a  combination of frustration, resentment, and the front edges of helplessness in trying to resolve one contradiction without having to kick it back to administration pointing out the conflicting orders they were giving (because that runs a risk of escalating everything rather than fixing it). I found myself arguing in my head about a conflict at a church I left thirty years ago, and another with my late stepfather in the 1990's, my uncle in the 2000's, plus a couple of more recent online or email arguments. None of these bore any relation of content to my current controversies.  What they had in common was the feeling. I found myself counting my steps when on a walk, an OCD (which is an anxiety disorder) calming response that had become rare the last three years. There was a subplot of people trying to condescend and make me feel small.

There is emotional memory as well as content memory, at least in my head. I think this is true for depression and anxiety as well. Our emotions are rather generic, made subtly different by the more sophisticated parts of our brains but still essentially the same chemicals flowing about in our brains. From the neck down, we're mostly just rats, a psychiatrist friend used to say.  Big rats, but not all that different. When one gets depressed about something, the emotion tickles any number of memories, offering them up as possible explanations before.  Here is the basket of things that have made you feel this way in the past.  It's probably one of these now.

The bad result of this is fairly consistent for me. Now I get upset over those other things all over again. Old guy metaphor alert: It is like a skip in a vinyl record. The more times this happens the deeper the gouge becomes and more likely the needle will follow the skip instead of the track. Dragging the song out of it often involves playing it over at a different speed many times - there were other techniques - until the proper track was the dominant one again.  Or sometimes, just not playing that song at all.

This is not a brand-new idea to me.  I have mentioned it here before.  Yet it came home to me with particular force this week because it had become less-common. I assume this occurs with positive emotions as well, but I don't pay attention then, because I have no motivation to fix it.

Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz.

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Oh yeah, I went there on my road trip.  I should mention it just in case you plan to go.  It’s fine.  Like many museums, in its effort to get everything in and unwillingness to offend by calling one part more important than the others, it would probably be best to do this in two bites, or more. It is complete, as it should be.  It can get tedious in the third hour. But it has lots of video, nice displays from many eras, and an opportunity to see career summaries with videos of inductees.  There is a hall of busts of inductees which is designed to look impressive, but really, not that that gripping to look at.  The touch screens that allow you to see all the San Diego Chargers who are in the Hall, with statistics and videos is more interesting. There are old uniforms and equipment, and reports from the early years that are fascinating in their oddness, such as the Duluth Eskimos, or the Pottsville Maroons being disciplined for infringing on the territorial rights of the Rock Island Independents. It was a narrower football world in 1920.

I did learn things.  Because of a paperback about Great NFL Quarterbacks given to me when I was  quite young, I have always been interested in Slingin' Sammy Baugh and it was fun to read up on him.  He came out of Sweetwater Texas, adopted football fairly late, and excelled because he was among the first to really work at the forward pass.  The game was changing, he was an athlete, and no one quite knew how to defend it.  Something similar happened in his great defeat, the 73-0 loss to the Chicago Bears for the championship. They ran a man-in-motion, which was completely undefensible when sprung on a team by surprise.  Before there was film to study, you could still show up and run a scheme that no one had an answer for.  

Only two original teams remain.  The (Racine) Chicago Cardinals, now of Arizona, and the Decatur Staleys, now the Chicago Bears.

And yes, Tim Tebow is in the Hall and likely to hold his spot, for the quickest playoff overtime victory, in 2012 against the Steelers.  11 seconds. As the OT drives are started on the 20-yard line, that’s not likely to be beaten.

Ireland Plans

I put up the link to the surprisingly dangerous places because friends just returned from Ireland and said that they felt unsafe in Belfast and Londonderry and recommended against staying there. Well, those were the two places we were going to stay the most nights on our counter-clockwise tour from Dublin to Aran/Limerick in May. (You can make suggestions what we should see, but the itinerary is already overcrowded and we are at the point of cutting back ruthlessly before making sleeping reservations.  We would be more interested in what you found overrated than in "overlooked gems of Ireland."  We are swimming in those, frankly. Which provokes another line of thought...) The amount of barriers and camera surveillance bothered them, but there was also a sense of ancient hatreds still being nursed rather than strangled. Even reading the tourist information I had the sense that the museums and the public displays were still Troubles-focused, as if nothing else of importance had every occurred there. (Yay, prehistory!  Yay, geology! Yay, landscapes! Some things force their way through our resentments.) 

I recalled something similar from the other side when I was in Shannon airport over a decade ago, and the bookstore had an unusual preponderance of memoirs of oppression and biographies of IRA martyrs. Can you just DROP it? I kept muttering. And now I have the same feeling in Northern Ireland Can you just drop it? Neither will, because the other won't. Yet underneath it is a phenomenon we have seen in America as well, which Chuck Klosterman, Bethany, and I have related to the Tim Tebow Effect.  Everyone believes that their side of the issue has not been heard. 

It is easy to find repeated evidence for this if you are on the scene and care about these things.  Tourists come in and don't know about the basic layout of British rule, the Scots-Irish, property ownership, jobs, and the like. Worse, they get things backwards, vaguely thinking that Michael Collins was an Ulster martyr or that Derry and Londonderry are different cities. Tourists get everyone's history everywhere wrong.  You're not special in this.  Get over it.  I saw the same thing in Romania and Hungary, where whenever I mentioned Oradea to a Hungarian they would say "Nagyvarad.  We used to own that." Just drop it, will you? Robert Kaplan mentions that every intellectual in the Balkans seems to have alternate maps in a drawer of their studies, showing the boundaries of Greater Serbia or whatever. Wars attract historical memories, so that Americans are more focused on 1770-1790 or 1850-1870 than other years. But y'know, the people who lived in 1740 or 1920 were just as important. War isn't the only thing that ever happened.

So these are in some sense low-crime areas, yet one still feels nervous. Add in the apparently growing problem of antisocial drunks and perhaps the evening especially are not the carefree times we would think.

I was a touched surprised at the other entries on the list, the northern European cities we think of as safe. Well, the nations are largely safe. Amsterdam and Rotterdam may have crime pouring in, but it's pretty quiet outside the cities.  Part of that is shear numbers. With identical crime rates, a million people are going to have a thousand times more crimes than a thousand people. But there is also the issue of who lives in these places.  People go to cities to make money, and the criminals go there to make money as well.  Going to rural places might be a great place to go to avoid the law, but you aren't going there to make your fortune breaking the law. So too in America. Grim is fond of pointing out that there are large areas in America that have zero homicide rates. Part of that is the numbers of density, sure, but some of it is who is there. 

Immigrants come to make money, and they start out in cities, unless they are specifically agricultural. The social contract is different for them.  Many become hyper-American, distancing themselves from the places they left as thoroughly as possible.  Others still retain ties to other countries to an extent that their loyalty could fairly be questioned.  The people bringing all those drugs into Rotterdam who were born in other places and still go their frequently?  What does "being Dutch" mean to them, exactly? Are they going to care about the schools, or took take a Grim favorite again, join the volunteer fire department? 

So we're figuring there won't be a lot of crime or intimidation at the Hill of Tara or Craggaunowen folk park and are doubling down on those places at the expense of the cities. Bangor has a castle, the Dark Hedges, and a museum that look like fun. We may give the Bogside Murals a glance, but the Sky Road and the Aran Islands are likely worth more of a look.  We'll catch CS Lewis Square in Belfast on the fly.  Photo op.

Chesterton, Paradox, Life Lessons From Sports

Chesterton was a cricketer, and as a thinker was likely to step back and look at the big picture that others missed.  I therefore fancy that he would have been fond of such sports observers as the baseball statistical analyst Bill James or the crew at 538. He looked at the conventional wisdom of a hundred things and asked "Is it true?" In asking, he often discovered that not only was the accepted cliche not true, but its opposite was truer. A madman was not one who had lost his reason, but one who had lost everything but his reason: proportion, generosity, insight, humility. Father Brown was not sheltered from the seamy side of life - he had heard confessions for thirty years.  James looked at  cliches such at "pitching is 90% of baseball" and followed that through.  Does any team pay it's players as if that were true?  Does the team with the best pitchers win more championships than the team with the best hitters or fielders? Do the best hitters or the best pitchers create more variation in an individual at bat, a game, a series, or a season?  Do teams fall apart more losing their best pitcher or their best hitter?

Bill James insisted, taking one thing with another, that not only was pitching not 90% of baseball, it was 35% of baseball. I insist that Chesterton would have loved this. Not what is supposed to be true, but what is true.

Politics is built on suspect cliches.  This is even more true of sports. Right now we are in the midst of discussing the draft of both the NFL and the NBA. There is no reason for any of you to be interested in my opinion about any individual player or any team's overall strategy.  There are ten thousand people who know more about such things than I do. However, sometimes in listening to a dozen sports guys I can pick up a consistent mistake that many of them are making. If a player is loved by some evaluators and disliked by others, sports analysts are likely to split the difference.  That is unlikely to be how it plays out.  Those who are not sports fans may nonetheless find the more general lesson interesting. If 4-5 teams, spread over the 30 in the league, think a player is one of the top ten in the draft, while the other 25 teams think he is overrated and not willing to draft him until the second round, he is not actually going to be around in the second round, even though most teams think he should be. Some team that likes him is going to take him way before that.

Think about it.  If 80% of women think a particular man is irritating and unattractive, but 20% find him charming and attractive, he will not languish, even though most women will think he should.  Some woman who rates him highly will scoop him up. Cars, recipes, employees, religions, dogs, or musicians: if most people hate them but a few love them, they will get chosen.  Yet if any one of those is only everyone's fourth choice, they might get chosen in due time, or they might sit on the shelf endlessly. Even if almost everyone likes them better than  some more controversial choice.

The elephant in the room.  I would expect that a sports figure like Bob Kraft, entering a political discussion, could be counted on to apply cliches at double the rate of ordinary knuckleheads.  Bob Kraft is a nice man.  He seems very intelligent in many ways.  But when he goes to an NFL owners meeting and complains that "no one is talking about the elephant in the room," you can count on two things: it's not an elephant, and virtually everyone is already talking about it.  The supposed elephant is players taking a knee during the national anthem in protest before NFL games. Gee, I think I have actually heard some people talk about that, haven't you? Everyone, in fact.  It is one of those Tim Tebow issues where everyone believes they have not been heard, and so keep talking endlessly.

There is an elephant in the room, but the kneeling is not it. Elephants are big things, and quiet NFL protests are small ones. Yes, the protests are irritating and inappropriate to some people, and that gets them upset, which gets other people upset at them, which gets other other people upset at the second group, and so on indefinitely. But it got large because the first group is ignoring the actual elephant in the room (which is what torqued the second group off so much). In protesting the police treatment of black people, the NFL players are ignoring 3 large creatures in the room.  Whether you think they are elephants, rhinos, or wapiti elk is largely a matter of taste. First, some police officers treat a lot of citizens badly, regardless of race, and those don't really count in the racism question.  They're just pricks. Second, the rate of serious violence is ten times great among African-Americans.  Not 10% more, 10x more, and overwhelmingly against other AA's.  So that's a much higher percentage of black mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins and neighbors and teachers going to funerals. And you accuse me of not caring? Thirdly, the general group that very likely does get hassled by the police disproportionately more for small things is - golleee, the group that athletes, black, white, hispanic, are drawn from.  And their friends. How convenient to want the police to lay off you and your pals, while all those aunties go to funerals. How noble of ya.

When you hear a sports cliche applied to the rest of life's lessons, ask immediately if the opposite is true.

Fun From Grim's site.

Glenn Greenwald, of all people, notices the obvious, despite the number of others who haven't.
  
"... the remarkable courage required to publicly defend someone as marginalized and besieged as the former first lady, two-term New York senator, secretary of state, and current establishment-backed multimillionaire presidential front-runner. Krugman — in a tweet proclamation that has now been re-tweeted more than 10,000 times — heralded himself this way: “I was reluctant to write today’s column because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty.”
As my colleague Zaid Jilani remarked “I can imagine Paul Krugman standing in front of the mirror saying, ‘This is *your Tahrir Square* big guy.’” Nate Silver, early yesterday morning, even suggested that Krugman’s Clinton-defending column was so edgy and threatening that the New York Times — which published the column — was effectively suppressing Krugman’s brave stance by refusing to promote it on Twitter (the NYT tweeted Krugman’s column a few hours later, early in the afternoon). Thankfully, it appears that Krugman — at least thus far — has suffered no governmental recriminations or legal threats, nor any career penalties, for his intrepid, highly risky defense of Hillary Clinton."

Gotta love it.  It's something like the Tim Tebow Effect, where Hillary's supporters really do perceive her as a beleaguered, unfairly picked-on person, who has only persevered by her remarkable strength of character.

Tim Keller on Social Justice - Part I

A frequent reader sent along Tim Keller's A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory. First up, it's good. Because I tend to immediately gravitate to the parts I disagree with or think someone is missing a trick when I comment, I know that I come across as too negative about essays and books that deserve better from me. But that fits with my "let me adjust this just a bit" mentality. If I am passing something along too you, I think it valuable unless i specifically say otherwise. But sometimes I like to comb its hair and straighten its tie before I send it out. So read it or browse it first, so the remainder of this makes sense.

Keller has to thread the needle with regards to popular discussion, and likely wants to anyway. This essay is part of a series I have only glanced at, but focuses on the racial aspects of justice more than I think necessary.  I get it that this is the current conversation and can be used as a jumping off point for more general discussion. But I think race is a much weaker driver of injustice than is currently credited, and focusing on it distracts us from deeper issues.  Do I sound like a Marxist, harping that it's really all about class and race disguises the real struggle?  A bit.  They do have good points from time-to-time, though they run aground trying to fit their own explanations to whatever data shows up.  There is a great deal of unfairness and even oppression in the world, so focusing on any bit of it necessarily obscures the rest. We can and should put serious attention into each of them, yet always with the recognition that we are working on a single bit, not the whole.

Two advantages result

1. We become more alert to noticing when the drivers of injustice change around us. More on this in a later post. I think Keller missed some of this, because the idea of "generations" steers us down a particular road.

2. It becomes easier to admit that sometimes we benefit from unfairness, and sometimes we are harmed by it. This is related to my 100%-0% theme. For all the buffetings and unfairness that has come upon me in my life, I have been dealt a very good hand, starting with being born in the 20th in America. Pretty much everyone in purgatory from the millions of times and places isn't going to credit my whining very much. (Those in heaven will be kinder, and I'll be better myself.) In America we are currently locked in yet another episode of the Tim Tebow Effect, in which both sides perceive themselves as an oppressed minority that no one is listening to. 

In Keller's Essay, under the section "The Problem of Foundations," there is a comment from an atheist who was challenged on a podcast what the foundations of his ideas of justice were. 

Christian Smith:..I’m not saying atheists can’t choose to be good, but when they do so it is an arbitrary subjective preference, not a rationally grounded view that has persuasive power over others.

Atheist: That does not make sense to me. I just figure that because people are human beings that they should be treated fairly. I know what it feels like to be treated with kindness and with meanness. I know that others feel the same way, so I want to treat them with dignity and respect because that is what I would want. I don’t have an objective source for the dignity of people—it is based on the fact that I would want to be treated in this way. Why isn’t that compelling to a reasonable skeptic? Why do I need more reason/justification than that? It seems common sense.

This particular atheist did not state the case as well as he might have, but if you dig down into other atheist/humanist/etc arguments you will find they are at root not much better, however much cultural history and neuroscience they put it. The foundation of my theory of justice is that we all just basically know what it is.  It's just obvious and good for everyone. My counter would be that this is one thing that nearly every society in history has demonstrated the opposite. It has not seemed obvious to anyone that the people across the way deserve to be treated well.  Our people deserve to be treated well, and even of those, only the ones who are in charge. What happens to slaves and peasants is of little concern. That is the "common sense" that most of humanity operates on. To put that other idea forward only reveals that you come from one of those few nice times and places in history. 

So we need more, and I think Keller does a good job of providing a Biblical foundation Christians can work from. Pay particular attention to his critique of Critical Theory, as I think he does better than just saying bad things about it and pointing out its abuses.  I think he hits solid points.

If you want to brush up in advance on Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, I will be bringing that in in Keller's discussion of the "spectrum" of justice theories. Spoiler: I don't think it's a spectrum.

Colin Kaepernick

Okay, now I have two long drafts of posts about gun issues, both of them not as focused as would be hoped for.  What is happening is that I am deeply irritated by some public comments which come my way even though I try to avoid them,and I am trying to fit that into more measured and helpful observations. Prediction: you probably won't get measured and helpful observations here.

In the meantime, Colin Kaepernick has gotten a workout with the Raiders, and everyone is all atwitter about that. I try to reduce messy-looking controversies to simpler formulations in hopes of ignoring the distractions and seeing clearly what is happening.

Kaepernick believes that he was, and still is, a very good quarterback that did not fit the traditional pro football mold but proved himself when given a chance to play. He has a very good point there. He was a running QB when that was still considered the wrong way to do things.  Teams wanted Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, to stay in the pocket and just pass accurately.  Running was only a surprise move, almost a trick play. Cam Newton came out of college the same year and despite being the first pick, had many doubters because of his running style. Both did well on the field, Newton much better. Newton came out of Auburn, Kaep Nevada, so that gave him less cachet, and benefit of the doubt as well. But Kaep was just a bit ahead of his time. He was Josh Allen before Josh Allen. So his road was harder, and that's an unfairness in his life. If 2011 Kaepernick were coming up now, he would be more desirable.  Not his fault.  But not anything racist or anyone else's fault either.  The game changes.  He was early. Life is unfair sometimes.

He was pretty good, but streaky.  He did win a playoff game against the Packers and Aaron Rodgers - that's worth something - but also went 1-10 his last year as a starter. He moved into that borderland between being a legit starter, maybe more in the right situation, versus being a top backup. Lots of top backups resent their lot, not unreasonably, knowing that they are better than at least a few of the starters for some team or another. But there are only a few ways of being a backup, and if you aren't one of those, your market is depressed. You can be the new young QB who is being prepared to be the starter.  That has evolved over the years, but it's a recognisable slot. Or you can be a guy who is very similar in style to the starter to cover if he gets injured. Or you can be someone of recognisable talent, perhaps a veteran at the end of his career, who can come in if everything is falling apart.  With all three of those possibilities, you can make yourself more valuable by being a good guy in the QB room or with the clipboard on the sideline, trying to help the team even if it temporarily makes your case worse. Mentoring the third-string QB. Making suggestions during film sessions. Encouraging the guys whose job you are competing for anyway. While those are not absolute requirements for the job of backup, they are important.

Colin Kaepernick does not bring that extra, never has. He's not the clipboard guy, not the QB room guy. This got even worse when he decided to become politically controversial. He thought his cause more important than helping the team - well, he is free to think that and we all have a cause we think the same about somewhere - but teams don't want extra controversy.  It's a distraction. Some teams will put up with it.  I thought he might be a good backup for Russell Wilson having similar style and a Seattle team not uncomfortable with his politics. But I can't think of too many other places that would want him. Controversy is expensive, and he brought no extras.

His girlfriend has convinced him that this is all because of racism. I won't say that is impossible, but think a distinction between "racism" and "approach to racial politics" is much clearer. He was already on the edge, he undermined his own value. I hear he is still pretty good, but no one is oohing and aahing. You listen to him and know he will go to his grave believing he was blackballed because of his political beliefs. It's an entertainment business, he likely has a point. But it's only 10% of the point he thinks it is. A few NFL players are politically controversial and it doesn't seem to cost them their jobs. No team wants a celebrity backup. Think Tim Tebow, Johnny Manziel, now Baker Mayfield, Cam Newton. 

There.  Solved it for ya.