In America, the saying, “winners never quit, and quitters never win,” has been taken to a new level. Some people have taken on the attitude that it doesn’t matter what you do to succeed: as long as you do succeed. In short, failure is not an option – even if there are factors outside your control.
Over the weekend, Michelle Kwan, had to make the biggest decision of her life, Kwan had withdrawn from the Games. Although this has nothing to do with politics, it does, however, show a glimpese of today’s society emphasis on achievement and winning.
After Kwan cut short her first practice at the games on Saturday because she aggravated her groin injury, she decided to withdraw. But soon after her decision to withdraw the feeding frenzy began, which happens to be an American past time – we accept athletes as our own when they win, while disowning them when they lose. You see, the fear I have is that sensible people might start taking this type of attitude to heart.
One of the first half-assed and completely disingenuous column came from MSNBC’s Filip Bondy Kwan’s great, but never as an Olympian. It displays one of the wingnuts idiot moral relativism – vendictiveness. This column argues winners are worthy of their greatness, and losers, well, should be forgotten like yesterday’s news.
Michelle Kwan was undone by a botched triple flip at her first Olympic practice, a lousy way for the five-time world champion to exit the biggest of all arenas. She’d marched in the Opening Ceremony, brought her family all this way to watch her skate, and now they wouldn’t witness a single double axel.
…
The world doesn.t concern itself much with Kwan,… And it is not hard to think of a many other U.S. Olympians who have surpassed Kwan’s achievements inside the five-ring circus. You can start with Jesse Owens, Mark Spitz, Eric Heiden, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Michael Phelps, Mary Lou Retton, the 1980 hockey team.You can keep naming names, all you want, because the U.S. had captured 69 gold medals in the Winter Olympics before Turin, and Kwan won none of them.
Although it is easy not to pay any attention to crap like this, but it is troublesome how heros can be demonized despite the many accomplishment that were made before making the decision that ended their fame. Regardless of Kawn’s many accolades – winning 9 U.S. championships, 5 world championships, and 2 Olympic medals, she is condemed to be demonized as a quitter. Would she have received the same fate if she didn’t withdraw and did not place?
But the real question is why does everyone have to win at all costs? It gone beyond the “ole college try” to nobody wants to be a loser, and most do whatever it takes to not become one. Worse, the perception of American society has changed from “the land of opportunity,” to “failure is not an option.”
But this is not just about sports, this is the same mentality that wingnuts take to heart. It was evident that Karl Rove undoubtedly played a role in this win at all costs mentality during the last Presidntial election and will most likely do it again this year. This type of thinking is pointed out in David Callahan’s book, The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead, Callahan writes:
Everybody loves a winner, the saying goes, and nowhere is that more true than in America. Winners are seen as virtuous, as people to admire and emulate. Losers get the opposite treatment — for their own good, mind you. As Marvin Olasky, an adviser to President George W. Bush, has said: “An emphasis on freedom should also include a willingness to step away for a time and let those who have dug their own hole ‘suffer the consequences of their misconduct’.”
It is this type of mentality that is becoming inescapable. There are countless news stories about insane parents going ballistic on sports coaches because their kids didn’t get to play time or how members of the Republican party suppressed voters so could win.
Undeniably having the belief that you can achieve something great if you try hard enough is very empowering. And in fact, having both a positive and winning attitude will take a person very far. But it should also be noted, this belief can also be cruel. If we continue to view success by measuring a person’s determination of “wanting it bad enough” and the only way of achieving it is by any means necessary – then it becomes natural to view a person’s failure of attaining their full goal as a lack on drive for reaching their goal.
And this is where the wingnuts use the power of the media to con people into thinking this is an illogical argument. Not to long ago, Chris Matthews was quick to point how hard work and owning a small business equal success.
When I think of people who have come to this country from other countries where they speak Spanish – Puerto Rico is not another country, but it’s the commonwealth – hardest-working people, they are extremely entrepreneurial. If it’s just owning a flower shop, it’s owning a small business, a bodega, right? Puerto Ricans come to this country to start business. Cubans certainly come here to start businesses. The hardest-working people in the United States are people who just got here from Mexico, the first day they get here. Everybody knows – they don’t want a big social democracy. They want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism, don’t they?
One must keep in mind that the essence of propaganda is not what the propagandist says, but what they leave out. The simple fact is Mathews never mentioned success or achieving the “American Dream.” The truth is he doesn’t have to because each of his viewers has their own idea of success and idea “American Dream,” but everybody associates “hard work” with success. This association has been taught to us in school and been instilled by our parents.
The sad truth, denial of reality doesn’t take any great rhetorical skill. All it requires is completely disregarding the law of identity (A=A), the denial that something is what it is.
So let’s take their argument and say everyone did have the same natural talents, the same drive to succeed, and worked just as hard, however the outright facts are – NOT everyone is admitted to the same colleges, NOT everyone win get the Gold Medal, and NOT everyone will get the same jobs. It’s not logically possible, yet this is what the right wing fringe would have us believe.
Even if someone wanted something bad enough and does work hard enough, there are many factors beyond their control which prevent them from achieving their goals. For Kawn, there were many factors going against her from reaching her Olympic dream of a Gold medal. For minorities, it is the outright dismantling of our civil liberties.
The other big question is how can we possibly ascribe moral qualities to such failure? According to Callahan a lot, as he point out:
All of this has troubling implications for our society’s ethics. Americans reflexively cut slack for those who are successful. We may admire winners whatever their sins. As sociologist Robert Merton wrote fifty years ago, the “sacrosanct goal” of wealth “virtually consecrates the means” — any means. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby is an iconic figure in this regard — he was irresistibly appealing despite the sordid origins of his fortune.
Real-life America as been filled with similar characters, ranging from Joseph P. Kennedy, who made much of his fortune illegally, to Michael Milken, who easily rehabilitated his image following his conviction for insider trading in the late 1980s. Even very nasty people who prevail in ugly mudslinging or backstabbing contests can win grudging respect — as Richard Hatch did when he triumphed on the reality television show Survivor.
The connection is indirect, obviously, however, as Americans, we have the tendency to deny the obvious. This attitude is infecting the some people in Democratic party. In fact, a book recently came out advocating to the idea of letting go of our “single issue” idea so we can “win” again.
Is it really necessary to put up a Republican-lite Johnny-Come-Lately to represent the Democratic Party so we can say we won? If so, then we have to wonder what it really means being a Democrat. But in the end, the question will forever haunt the Democratic Party: Was it all worth it?