Barbarians at the Gates
CynicXpres
The Cynic Express(d) 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 Latrell "The Garrote"
Sprewell's 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, nor 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 pseudo-academic soundbites, 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 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 appears, 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 pillage from authority.
If civilized discourse is dead, the empire of our rational common identity
as humans, 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 those "brash" and "hip" younger
players in the NBA who resort to violence to respond to pressure or those
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.
Copyright 1997 Brian J. Noggle. The author grants readers the right to repost
this along the Internet or to forward it as e-mail as long as this notice
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