I met my friend Sam for drinks and appetizers at Aplos on a sweltering Saturday evening this past weekend. Our conversation was stimulating and went something like this.
Sam: “Looks like it’s just the two of us. Kelley texted me a few minutes ago he can’t make it.”
Ben: “Sorry to hear that. I wanted to ask him about his article on unruly basketball fans.”
Sam: “You thought it was about basketball?”
Ben: “Didn’t you?”
Sam: “Let me put it this way. Do you think Damn Yankees was about baseball?”
Ben: “OK, I see your point. What do you think it was about then?”
Sam: “You’d have to ask the author to be sure, but it seems to me it was a commentary on society.”
Ben: “In what way?”
Sam: “The seductive and attractive power of hate, which goes way beyond sports of course. The Persians and Greeks were united by their hatred of one another, as were the Spartans and Athenians. And countless others across the ages. In our own country in more recent times, Democrats were united by their hatred of Trump in 2020, and Republicans were united in theirs for all things Clinton in 2016.”
Ben: “Ah, so he’s making a political statement.”
Sam: “I don’t think so. I’ve never known him to advocate for one party or another in his writing. Rather, I think he’s writing about human nature. And our tendency to view our own actions as justified but those of our opponents – or better, those with whom we disagree – as corrupt.”
Ben: “Hmmm. Give me a minute to contemplate that.”
At those words, Sam reached into his pocket, drew out what looked like a quarter, and casually set it on the table.
Ben: “Is that a quarter… with a little picture of Donald Trump glued to it????”
Sam: “Turn it over.”
I picked it up and did so. “Is that… Is that Maxine Waters on the other side???”
Sam: “It is.”
Ben: “So what does that tell you?”
Sam: “What does it tell you?”
Ben: “That they’re two sides of the same coin?”
Sam: “Precisely.”
At that I put my hands on either side of my head, puffed up my cheeks, and made a little exploding sound while slowly drawing my hands away.
Sam: “Remember the article and the events in the Boston Garden – the warning on the jumbotron that fans using ‘improper or offensive language’ were subject to ejection, ban, and possible arrest – and that the repeated use of same by the entire arena was then completely ignored because it was directed at an opponent, at someone on the other team.”
Ben: “Yes.”
Sam: “And from the article that hating the Yankees in the 1950s and more recently the Patriots and Blue Devils was acceptable as they were evil empires, meaning one could say whatever one pleased about their players and coaches?”
Ben: “I do. Yes.”
Sam: “Thus, whether one is disappointed in an election outcome or a Supreme Court decision, however one chooses to act on that disappointment is justified, because the other side is evil. There is not much difference between QAnon and Ruth Sent Us. One attacks one branch of government. One attacks another. And both believe they are justified.”
“And compounding, or perhaps enabling, the misconduct, those who should know better and have the ability to check the behavior look the other way when the actors are on their team. If the proscriptions on the societal jumbotron are never enforced, is it any wonder people continue to break them?”
Ben, after a heavy silence: “What happened to light dinner conversation? Now I’m depressed.”
Sam: “I don’t blame you, thinking about our current state of affairs can be depressing.” Then, “But remember, we have much for which to be thankful, and neither self-deception nor hypocrisy are unique to our time and place. And remember Joe Boyd, the protagonist in The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. It took being honest about his situation (and the sacrificial love of a good woman – read the book), but he was able to release his hate-induced ambition and recover his true self. Society is nothing but a collection of individuals. If enough of us do the same, it will change.”
Ben Clemens (aka Kelley Williams, Jr.) is a Northsider.
