McGwire & The Beast
“Journalists are animal-keepers who provide something for the public to talk about. In ancient days people were cast to the wild animals. Now the public devours the people – those taste- fully prepared by the journalists.”
Soren Kierkegaard
All of us are victimized at one time or another in our lives. Victimization occurs when something unplanned or unforeseen happens to you. Being a victim is when you put the responsibility of your choices on what happened to you. So, it might sound like this, “Your honor, I killed that person because they abused me. I had no other choice.”
So, when Mark McGwire says that he wanted to admit the truth before Congress five years ago but was told by council there were too many dangers in doing so. He said that being hurt made him desperate to find a way to get healthy. He is definitely being a victim, which starts the table of entitlements in motion. It is a symbiotic potluck. Some bring the sympathy and others the shame.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_posnanski/01/12/posnanski.mcgwire/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/video/2010/01/12/VI2010011201575.html
Most revealing though is the dynamic of the crowd. Like a beast following its keeper it can now talk (gossip) about Mr. McGwire after cajoling him to come clean with valiant assurances that it would be best for him and his family. Yes, the beast and its keepers have what they need, something meaningless to talk about. And why? Maybe so we can be distracted from our own sense of anxiety and despair about life. Now that is news!!! One of the Privileged has fallen.Don’t you feel better?
It seems another star has fallen from the heights of adoration; another idol toppled from the pedestal. (In this case he was an athlete, but he—or she—could just as easily be in the fields of entertainment, politics, religion, business, etc.)
Once one enters the public arena, one is fair game for scrutiny. Mark accepted (perhaps we could even say, sought after) the public’s adoration, now he must accept the flip side, that of public vilification.
Somewhere along the line he “lost the meaning,” as we all do at one time or another (and sometimes daily, as I can attest to). None of us escapes the temptations to fall away. He was tempted to pursue some other goal than that of exercising his gifts to the best of his ability. Very few escape the enticement to pursue a faux goal.
If we are willing to examine ourselves as closely as we examine Mark, we will see a close affinity to him. I find in myself the temptation to use any and all the reasons, justifications and excuses I can find or manufacture for doing what I do even though I know it is wrong, immoral or illegal. Or, conversely, for not doing what my conscience is directing me to do.
And how often, when “caught out,” do I listen to my “legal counsel,” which says, “Don’t do it; don’t fess up, the price will be too great”; as if putting off paying the price of owning up to the transgression or omission will diminish or nullify the penalty.
I believe the Greeks called it hubris, the Romans _____ and in English we find the terms pride, arrogance, egotism, haughtiness, conceit, among others.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”