This column is in response to a column by Roel Torres, about the firing of Toronto manager Tim Johnson. If you have not read that column, you might go read that one before you read this one. Thanks.
It is common behavior, particularly among adolescent boys, to tell Whoppers. A Whopper can be distinguished from a venal lie in this way: that whereas the purpose of a venal lie is to deny guilt or failings, the purpose of a Whopper is to inflate one’s image with imaginary attributes.
Many or perhaps all adolescent boys go through a phase where they tell Whoppers, some more and some less. Most people discover through life experience that the telling of Whoppers erodes their respect from others, and they gradually learn to live with the dreary realities of their personal history. Some people miss the memo. Those people who do not learn this lesson are generally excluded from the better jobs, which rely more on trust and decorum.
So anyway, Roel argues for forgiveness for Tim Johnson, based on his own failings, and I find this a very moving argument. I believe, in general, that one of the greatest problems of the modern world is our inability to forgive one another and move on. Our politics are composed of two parties, both of which believe that it is entirely appropriate for them to exaggerate the failings of those on the other side. The fact that they all agree about this does not make them right—nor, for that matter, is it even necessarily an effective position from a selfish standpoint. I believe in forgiveness. Who speaks for me? Who represents me on this?
Both sides of the political debate make frenzied efforts to attract my support—by exaggerating the failings of the other side. The problem is, I don’t believe in exaggerating the failings of one’s opponents, and I don’t support anybody who does.
And I’m not really unusual. Studies show that more and more people refuse to identify themselves as either Republicans or Democrats. Why? I would argue that one of the reasons that many of us will not identify ourselves as either Republican or Democrat is the sense that both Republicans and Democrats and selfish and immature, and that neither really speaks for values.
Set aside politics; try Journalism. People say stupid stuff every day, but twice a month, somebody says The Wrong Thing, and a scandal results. In sports we have had the Jimmie the Greek Scandal, and the Al Campanis Scandal, and the Marge Schott Scandal, and the Bill Singer Scandal, and. . . .I don’t know. I don’t keep a calendar. In the broader world we have them all the time. . ..Trent Lott, and Don Imus, and the guy who played Kramer.
And, because we have these Scandals, we have tempests, which we are watching to see if they will develop into Scandals, rather as one watches a wart to see whether it will develop into cancer. For every Scandal, there are 25 tempests, building toward a scandal. Joe Buck. Is it a Scandal, what he said, or will he get by with it?
Journalists, in some sense, are pretending to speak for values by pointing out the moral failings of Senators and other sinners. But my question is, who speaks for forgiveness?
And Roel has hit the nail on the head in this way: that the refusal of forgiveness is a type of self-righteousness. We don’t want to say “OK, I forgive you for lying, because I lie, too.” We don’t want to say, “I forgive you for having mean and petty and unworthy notions about other groups of people, because I have mean and petty and unworthy notions about other groups of people, too.” We want to say, “Oh, I’m better than that. I don’t have any little Nazis in my sub-conscious mind.”
Oh, you don’t?
Somehow I don’t believe you.
It takes real courage to do what Roel did, to raise your hand and say “I’m a Liar, too.” But the fact is, none of us is that different from the others. We all want other people to think that we’re a little bit bigger and a little bit grander than we really are. We want others to think that inside of us is a bottomless lake of pure compassion, without pettiness or selfishness or any inappropriate kind of lust.
I am not suggesting that it is wrong of journalists to find out that someone has lied, or to point this out. What I am questioning is what happens after that—this ritual of turning, teeth bared, on the person whose depravity has been exposed, and snarling at him and driving him out of the circle. He is unworthy of us.
What I am really trying to get to is this: that it is very difficult to organize people around the principle or compassion, because compassion requires the acknowledgement of our own guilt. It was, for centuries, the role of the church to organize the communal acknowledgement of our guilt, but as the church is driven out of public life, how do we replace that?
The journalists are organized, in a sense, in their ruthless exposure of people who betray a racist wart, but how do we organize forgiveness? The political parties are organized in their relentless exaggeration of the failings of their opponents, but how do we organize on behalf of tolerance?
We have to do what Roel did. We have to admit that we’re not any better. I’m not any better than Bill Singer, and I’m not any better than Al Campanis, and I’m not any better than Marge Schott.
That, it seems to me, is what is missing from the Barry Bonds debate: Forgiveness. I’m not any better than Barry Bonds, and I’m not any better than Mark McGwire, and I’m not any better than Roger Clemens, and I’m not any better than Pete Rose, either. You give me the opportunity to earn $22 million a year by taking steroids, I’ll shoot the pharmacist if I have to. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m not saying I shouldn’t be punished for shooting the pharmacist. I am saying it is self-righteous to pretend that I don’t have the same human failings that these guys do, and further, if you are insisting that you don’t have them, I don’t believe you. When you fire Al Campanis to show us that his failings are not your failings, I don’t believe you. When you fire the next Al Campanis to show us that you are morally superior to him, I don’t buy it. I don’t believe you are morally superior to him; you’re just a self-righteous asshole who is refusing to forgive his human failings.
Look, am I saying that Tim Johnson should not have been fired for telling some Whoppers to his players? Not exactly. Tim Johnson was not asking to be a member or the group; he was asking to be the leader of the group. It’s a little different. He did the things that adolescent boys do, well after his adolescence was over with.
Is it a sham to say, “I forgive him, but he has to be fired anyway?” I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that one. If you cheat on your wife it is not self-righteous for her to divorce you. If you cheat in the game, it is not self-righteous for the Umpire to call you out, or to throw you out. Where trust is necessary, it is necessary to speak for values.
But when it comes to Roger Clemens, for example. . .is it necessary for us to punish his failings? Or are we doing it to demonstrate to one another that we are better than he is, that we wouldn’t have taken a dollar that we couldn’t earn with the talent God gave us, and we’d have kicked Mindy McCready out of bed before she could get her shoes off.
Yeah, right, buddy. Sure you would have. It’s just a shame that God didn’t give more talent to good people like you, but that was Her decision, and we’ll just have to live with it.