Paul Finebaum is the preeminent sports journalist ’round these parts, and a sometime political commentator. I think he’s a jerk about as often as I think he’s a reasonable voice, which (naturally) isn’t necessarily a liability. I still read, after all.
He really nailed it today on Imus:
And that’s the real fallout here. Will anyone want to say anything even remotely interesting/controversial again for fear of losing their job?
Once again, a stupid remark — this time by Imus — is ultimately going to continue to chill the culture and the result will be more banal answers from everyone and anyone.
Last week it was Don Imus. Next week it may be someone else. And inevitably, some nitwit will open his cakehole about how important it is that the perpetrator understand “why his words were hurtful,” and eventually he’ll spill that sugar-covered chestnut of mushy-togetherness types everywhere: “closure.”
Well, that’s nice. If most of the world’s jerks were operating from true ignorance, it might even be effective. But they aren’t, and it isn’t. On balance, I don’t care whether Don Imus ever understands why what he said is hurtful. It’s not interesting. He may even be genuinely contrite, but in the context of the larger problem, it’s not interesting. Tomorrow it will be someone else. Perhaps his motivation will be to agitate. Perhaps it will be to malign. Who cares? It’s not interesting.
Folks, a jerk is a jerk. Sometimes it’s helpful to try to understand a jerk’s motivation, such as when you have a daily interest in getting along, for example. But some gasbag with a microphone? Why bother? How does “getting in his head” change your course? How is that worth the energy expended?
It’s much easier (and ultimately, more damaging) to “chill the culture,” as Finebaum put it, than it is to try to persuade people to think differently about how to react when insulted or hurt (or, in the case of the young, instill the values in the first place). This sort of political correctness has traction with the media, with so-called “community leaders,” and with people in general largely because it’s easy. It’s a veneer of action over a long, wide, deep wall of nothing.
Teaching true self-reliance is hard. It’s much easier to run a bitter old coot off and pat ourselves on the back for doing something. Then we’ll sit down and explain to our children that no one has any right to ever make them feel bad, and if they ever do feel bad, then someone’s going to pay.
Know how my parents’ generation handled all this just 30 short years ago?
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
Guess which way we’ll go with our boys?
Since the incident and firing, I’ve been encouraged by the amount of commentary (with a much larger audience than mine) that extols productive values in this arena. It gives me hope that I was indeed being overdramatic last week.
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