The Cynic Express(ed) 1.11: Barbarians at the Gates

     A couple of weeks ago, Latrell Sprewell, a basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, tried to throttle his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, after Carlesimo "dissed" the star by telling him to put a little more mustard on his passes. The resultant suspension from the league for a year, termination of his contract with the Warriors, and cancellation of his endorsement deal with Converse have made headlines and have clogged the airwaves for two weeks. It is not the purpose of this column to go off on Sprewell's assault itself, or to criticize him for being an overgrown and highly overpaid brat. We, which means I in the context of this column, hold these truths to be self-evident.

     What bothers me more is a little bit of subtext offered by Elijah Anderson, a sociology professor at University of Pennsylvania and author of The Code of the Streets. In two quotes in an article in the December 15 issue of Newsweek, Anderson offers these two points: "The new generation has no patience for anything they think isn't fair. They won't take it." And furthermore: "There may be a need for all coaches, black or white, to learn to have better insight into this new generation, or we may see more of this."

     With a little dash of academic discourse, Anderson has steered blame away from this new generation he speaks of and has placed it squarely on the shoulders of the coaches and the authorities of the older generation. Not only that, but the new generation of aggressors are justified in their attacks, as they were victims of perceived unfairness. The course of action we must pursue is clear: We must have better insight into this newer generation, and take greater steps to accommodate them. Or else we face more of these "justified" assaults.

     Which strikes this particular cynic as extra-special-ducky. We have already taken steps to adjust (lower) academic bars and intellectual bars for the new generation of adult adolescents to leap over. Why shouldn't we lower the standards for behaviour as well?

     In another time, the recourse to grievances was civilized discourse, or legal sanction for grievances too harsh for words. Those times, it would seem, are over. The passage is unmourned, even welcomed, it would seem, by academics like Anderson, who use the backgrounds of the aggressor, in this case Sprewell, to not only explain the aggression, but to give it a moral high ground of sorts. Such aggressors deserve whatever they can take from authority.

     If civilized discourse is dead, the empire of our rational common identity as men, Americans, and/or sportsmen breaks down into the squabbling mass of tribes shoving for attention and supremacy.

     I refuse to play into the hands of the younger players in the NBA or the newer professors of sociology and psychology who would relinquish the standards for civilized public behaviour. One should not put a hammerlock on another person simply because the first did not like what the second said. Or how the second looked. Society should ostracize and /or incarcerate violent aggressors. Not shake its head, mumble something about the second deserved it, or rationalize for the aggressor who does not even have the capacity nor desire to rationalize for himself.

     Sprewell, and others like him in professional sports and in the rest of the world, deserve to be judged harshly and sanctioned for their actions. Or we can simply strike up the fiddle as the new generation crosses the Tiber.