Since my younger days, much has changed in our world. We now have more computing power in our cell phones than the military did in their “sophisticated” computers. Travel is easy and fast with jet power rather than with the old piston-pounding planes of the past. Health care has benefited us with innovating procedures; I know, for I am the beneficiary of a cochlear implant to help reverse severe hearing loss.
But my musings on change turned to my youthful adventures in sports. Baseball was and is my first love, but when I began my high school athletic “career” it was but an afterthought for most young men. (And in my small high school, girls did not have a team; they could become cheerleaders or chased boys — or both!)
My knowledge of basketball was virtually nonexistent when I became a freshman. Learning to bounce a ball and throw it into the basket was a frustrating task, but I stuck with it, mostly so the coach would remember me come baseball season.
What has changed since then are some of the rules. One example is the center jump at the beginning of each quarter of the game. That was advantageous for us, for one of my cohorts was a six-foot seven-inch farm boy. He became the tallest player in our conference, and immediately started on the varsity team, despite any true athletic ability. He couldn’t jump more than an inch or two off the floor, but since he began with a decided height advantage, we controlled the tip more than 90% of the time.
But another rule change I remember well is the protocol when a player fouled an opponent. Play stopped, and the ref pointed to the offender, turned to the official scorer and gave the number of the unfortunate fouler for the record books. And the person who committed the foul was required to raise his hand to acknowledge his sporting crime. There, in the sight of the assembled crowd, which included his parents, classmates, assorted girlfriends, he had to publicly admit to violating one of the cardinal rules of the game. If he did not do so, the ref reminded him of this unpleasant duty. If a foul shot was called for, it was taken; if not, the other team got possession of the basketball.
This was not just emphasized by the referee; we were told emphatically by our coach it was our duty to admit we were the culprit. We were not to argue the call by the official; to do so was to invite time on the bench. Even if we were “innocent” of the foul, we followed the prescribed ritual. Looking back on this practice, it was the equivalent of taking responsibility for our actions and that was a good practice for later life.
But over the years, that has gone by the wayside, along with the center jump at the beginning of each quarter of the game. We now see the alternating possession in place of the jump, and increasing arguments over a ref’s decision. To control players most games now feature three officials; we were lucky to have one on the floor! (Okay, that is hyperbole, but memory sometimes plays tricks on me.)
However, the idea of taking personal responsibility for our actions is an idea rooted in social intercourse and holy writ in each major religion. Job, who was more innocent than most in the Christian’s Bible, admitted that when he sinned, it was his own to bear and to suffer the consequences of that sin. We are told that when the Judgment Day arrives, we will give account of our actions before the righteous Judge.
But where has this gone? Do each of us “raise our hands” when we fall short of our moral and legal duties? Husbands and wives become at odds because neither will admit to a faux pas, and sometimes a split will ensue. Brothers and sisters become estranged when an incident goes unresolved with either or neither admitting to being the cause of the grievance. Churches have broken apart when parishioners become adversaries instead of coming together in an effort to repair the shattered relationships. So much grief has been caused because people will not “raise their hands” to admit their wrongs.
We can see this inability or unwillingness to do this in our public life. A losing candidate for office, instead of admitting they failed, will blame anyone and everyone except themselves. Examples include Hillary Clinton; her list of why she lost to Donald Trump includes the kitchen sink, but not herself. Stacey Abrams still does not concede she lost the Georgia governor’s race, but claims “voter suppression” kept her out of the state house in Atlanta. Just this week, three losing Senators in the 2018 election blamed the resignation of a Supreme Court Justice for causing them to lose in their states. The list goes on!
For years, the so-called Main Stream Media (MSM) claimed that Russian collusion put Trump in the White House. When this was debunked by the two-year investigation by Robert Mueller, guess how many of these media giants “raised their hands” and admitted they blew it? Any guess less than one is correct!
Adam Schiff, congressman from California, claimed for two years he had proof that Trump colluded with the Russians to win in 2016. When this was debunked by the Mueller report, do you remember him “raising his hand” to admit his error? Only in our utopian dreams did that happen!
A California congresswoman, Katie Hill, engaged in a throuple (for the uninformed, this is a threesome in a sexual relationship involving Katie, her husband and a female staffer in her office), and was forced to resign. Now, she is refusing to “raise her hand”, blaming sexism, her abusive husband and a double standard for her losing her place in Congress.
This column could be endless with tales of those who refused to take responsibility for their own foibles, but that is not the point of my screed. When we need to do is to make sure our elected officials play by the rules, and admit when they are wrong. But the larger lesson, or point, is to live by that standard ourselves.
In Julius Caesar, Cassius told Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. William Ernest Henley, in the poem Invictus, wrote, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”. Both these quotes tells us we need, in each part of our life, to take responsibility for our failures. We rightly adjudge those who do not do so to be somewhat lacking in moral uprightness, but we should make such judgments out of a life where we “raise our hands” when we commit fouls. A good reading would be Matthew 7:1-5 where Jesus tells His listeners to not make judgment when we are worse than those we judge.
Let us hold those who are in positions of power and authority to account, hold their feet to the fire. We need to urge all, starting with ourselves, to “raise our hands” and when we do, we will return civility and comity to our personal, professional and national lives.