Last year my six year old grandson signed up for tee ball. It wasn’t as fun as he thought it might be; a lot of practice, paying attention, and learning stuff; you know, the kind of things boys usually try to avoid. About half way through the season the little guy kind of figured out that he wasn’t going to be the next Alex Rodriguez (thank God!), and wanted to quit. His father, seeking to instill in him the understanding of keeping commitments and finishing what you start, insisted that he complete the season. Upon finishing the schdule, each of the children received a trophy just for participating, and that was of course pretty cool to a six year old. This year when my grandson was asked if he wanted to do tee ball again, his immediate response was “No!”, but upon further reflection he asked if he would get another trophy. When assured by his dad that he would, he proposed that he could join up but not participate in the games or practices, only going the last day when the trophies were given out!
I guess if you’re going to give out awards for participation, six year olds would be a reasonable population to give them to, seeing that simply showing up is kind of an accomplishment for them. Somewhere though, between the age of six and what we optimistically refer to as “adulthood”, should come a time when rewards are tied to something more than just being present. Increasingly though, we are becoming a society that treats adults as though they were six year old children.
Somewhere between the presidency of Richard Nixon and that of Bill Clinton, we became a nation that no longer has high expectations for our elected officials. We not only elect people who cannot govern, we re-elect them. If polls are to be believed it is not that having been fooled by them we are stupid enough to be fooled again; often enough, it seems, we acknowledge their incompetence, inadequacy, and failure, but allow them to keep their jobs anyway. Hope springs eternal!
Forgive another sports analogy, but throughout the history of professional basketball, there have been superstars. Wilt Chamberlin, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, LeBron James. Now every player in the NBA isn’t Michael Jordan, but it’s a very good job, and they are all quite good at it… better than you and me. There has never been a time when the NBA couldn’t put together an all-star game for lack of talent. There has never been a time when the NBA had to recruit fat middle aged men without skills to play because they couldn’t find enough qualified players. While the salaries of our senators, representatives, and executives might be dwarfed by those of professional athletes, the position of “public servant” at the federal level, and by this I mean elected officials, is a very, very good job. Now the art of governing might be a slightly more difficult skill to develop than shooting a three-pointer or perfecting the cross-over dribble, but this is the big leagues. Out of over 300 million people should we not be able to find five or six hundred stars? Or at least that many who are fundamentally capable? Watching the State of the Union circus, how is it that the elite group of what are supposed to be the most qualified people we could come up with are more reminiscent of the bar scene from Star Wars, or the ward from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? It would seem that we are electing people not by their qualifications to govern, life experience, or proven track record; but by their celebrity, ability to campaign, and the image they project. It would be as if the NBA drafted players on their ability to talk trash instead of how good they actually were at playing ball. We are buying the sizzle instead of the steak, and bewildered as to why we are still hungry.
It’s not just in politics that this toleration of inferiority exists. We have made tolerance such an idol that the only thing left that we won’t tolerate is intolerance! We have come to the place where we have gone beyond where we consider it intolerant to make moral judgements regarding personal behavior; it is now considered too much to ask that people adequately perform the jobs for which they are paid, work hard to achieve a living wage, or that they do something more than just show up to qualify for a trophy. We have so protected people from honest criticism that we can no longer spell correctly, make change, or converse coherently. In world standings the only place we still excel is in self-esteem. We may not be very competent at anything, but we feel good about ourselves just the same! It is not as though truly qualified people do not exist, they walk unrecognized among us; but we have made so taboo the judgement and condemnation of personal and professional failure that we have self induced blindness. If we refuse to look upon incompetence we won’t see excellence; you miss a lot when you close your eyes.
IMHO: Thankfully, the examples of Anthony Weiner, Elliot Spitzer, and Trey Radel demonstrate that while we may have lowered our standards we have not done away with them altogether. Nonetheless we need to ask ourselves how it is that we seem to end up with so many really problematic people, when the positions should attract a better sort from which to choose. It’s one thing to not be too harsh with the teenager at McDonalds who puts mayonnaise on your burger despite your instructions, it’s another to ignore the failings of those at the helm of government. These are big jobs, important jobs, and we should expect those who take them to work very hard, keep their act in line, and be pretty close to blameless. Why would we expect less from those charged with the course of our nation than we would from our pastors, teachers, or accountants? Sometimes the standards we set for others have a lot to do with the standards we set for ourselves. We like the idea of getting a trophy just for showing up, we won’t judge others if it in turn means that we won’t be judged, or that we won’t have to judge ourselves. Unfortunately that kind of thinking puts us firmly on the road to mediocrity, where everyone gets a trophy, but no one deserves one.
