Category: Social Media

Intolerance: A Public Service Announcement

Normally, I don’t make public service announcements — mainly because serving the public is a pain in the ass.  (That’s why so many public servants are in it for the money.)  I say “normally” because sometimes there’s such an overwhelming need for the public to be informed that even guys like me have to step into the breach.  That time is now.

For the last several years, our society has been throwing around the words “tolerance” and ‘intolerant” as if they were rice at a redneck wedding.  This promiscuous overuse has turned them (and their various incarnations) into the conversational equivalent of an advertising slogan’s tagline.  Everybody recognizes the words, but nobody really gives a damn what they mean.  Or as Inigo Montoya observed in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”

For the record, “tolerance” is a noun that comes from the verb “tolerate” which according to my Oxford Paperback Dictionary (1979 edition) means (without the blah, blah, blah) “to permit– without protest or interference.”  Are you with me so far?  The same dictionary defines “intolerant” as an adjective which means “unwilling to tolerate ideas or beliefs etc. that differ from one’s own.”  Are we still good?  These two are opposites.  If one does not “tolerate” another person’s viewpoint, they are, by definition, “intolerant.”  Questions?

In practical terms, this means that, as a tolerant society, we “permit — without protest or interference” other people’s points of view.  We can disagree with them all we want, but we do not swear at them or call them names or question their right to hold that point of view.  For example, there are people in our world who approve of gay marriage.  These are regular folks who put their pants on one leg at a time and don’t eat kittens for breakfast.  They may be part of the Mauve Mafia, but I doubt it — and even if they are, that’s no excuse for name calling or any other such nonsense.  As members of a tolerant society, we must respect their right to hold their stated opinion — even if we do not respect that opinion, itself.

However, tolerance is not that easy.  There’s more to it.

As another example, there are people in our world who disapprove of gay marriage.  These are regular folks who put their pants on one leg at a time and don’t eat kittens for breakfast.  They may be part of a Right Wing Conspiracy, but I doubt it — and even if they are, that’s no excuse for name calling or any other such nonsense.  As members of a tolerant society, we must respect their right to hold their stated opinion — even if we do not respect that opinion, itself.

That’s the way tolerance really works, folks: the bus goes all the way around the park.  And I’m not merely talking about gay marriage; that’s just an issue that is currently trending and screamingly obvious.  Honestly, I don’t care one way or the other.  Since I’m not getting any gay marriage proposal these days, it doesn’t affect me.

However, in the 21st century, there seems to be a quaint idea that tolerance is the exclusive property of the liberal left.  It’s the buzzword that’s code for a particular array of ideas.  The argument is that an enlightened society has certain values that are universally accepted and contradictions need not apply.  Liberal ideas like gay marriage, corporate greed, gender insensitivity and all the other usual suspects from the politically correct movement.  It’s amazing to me that reasonably intelligent people are wandering around this world, saying things like “I hate those bastards: they’re so intolerant.”  Or, my personal favourite: “We cannot allow that group to speak because they represent intolerance.”  Huh?  Of course, the great irony is, that in our society, the last batch of folks who were so arrogant about dictating the one and only path to human salvation was the Medieval Catholic Church — twenty minutes before da Vinci and his buddies turned on the Renaissance.

So this is a public service announcement:  Tolerance is a two-way street and if you don’t want history to judge you as a jackass, show a little tolerance when somebody expresses an opinion you don’t like.

Anti-Americanism: The Changing of the Guard

As the Olympic Games continue and China and the United States duke it out for world supremacy in training and nutrition (nudge-nudge/wink-wink) something amazing is going on.  Ever so slightly, ever so carefully, the world is shifting its attitude away from blatant anti-Americanism.  It’s not a tectonic shift, by any means; just a subtle hint now and again.  Make no mistake, hating America is still the world’s #1 leisure activity, but every once in a while, at these Games at least, they’re not the ad infinitum root of all evil they’ve been accused of for more than half a century.

Anti-Americanism was born in the mid 60s when an entire stratum of pampered young people (with incredible buying power) went on a five-year temper tantrum.  They were pissed because, for the first time in their lives, they couldn’t get their own way.  Unfortunately, their sheer numbers and economic impact turned what was ordinary youthful discontent into a cultural revolution.  Half-educated, they were unable to distinguish between theoretical Marxism and the real thing and thus saw capitalist America as the big bad bogeyman.  America, run by the veterans of a simpler time, never understood the situation and exacerbated it by stumbling around the rice paddies of Southeast Asia in an idiot attempt to contain communism.  By the time Vietnam’s General Giap unleashed The Tet Offensive in 1968, America had squandered most of the prestige it had accumulated from World War II.   Richard Nixon and Watergate finished it off.

Today, three generations later, anti-Americanism is a worldwide institution.  All political, spiritual and economic arguments end when America gets the blame.  They are responsible for Global Warming, Globalization and every other global godawful anything that happens to wander by, including poverty, famine and Justin Bieber.  Hell cannot hold half their nastiness, and their stupidity is beyond the ability of Charles Darwin to figure out.  American leaders are schizophrenic in their cunning, both dumb as the proverbial box of rocks and capable of creating any number of complex and nefarious conspiracies.  These plots are conducted by the shadowy and “omnipotent” CIA and are intricate in their planning, massive in their scope and have never (at the time of this writing) worked.  They are usually discovered, after the fact, by a dedicated team of sceptics, operating from the relative comfort of their parents’ basements.

Popular wisdom has it that America has both faked the moon landing and destroyed the ozone layer.  The greedy bastards have sent their corporate lackeys out into the world to destroy all indigenous cultures and to fast-food the fitness out of innocent children.  They have alien technology they won’t share and a cultural bankruptcy they’re forcing on the rest of us.  They are gun-happy cowboys who like nothing better than buggering up everything they touch.  In short, when America wakes up, Satan hides under the sofa.

The weirdest thing about anti-Americanism is, though, even in our uber-sensitive world, it’s not seen as bigotry, prejudice or even ignorance.  It is so ingrained in the world’s thinking that nobody even questions it.  Many people don’t even admit it exists.  The most common statement to that end is, “I’m not anti-American … but” and then the speaker launches into an anti-American tirade worthy of Jon Stewart and Bill Maher combined.  Like prejudice everywhere, it doesn’t matter what bigots say before they get to the “but.”  It’s what comes after the qualifier that counts.

Of course, up until recent history, America has been a catchall for a lot of people’s dissatisfaction.  They get the flak because, for the last sixty years or so, they’ve always been front and centre.  They may not be omnipotent, but they’ve certainly been omnipresent.  And that’s what’s changing in our little world.  Slowly but surely, China is reaching its fingers into the international community, and they’re discovering that there’s a whole lot more to being a world power than selling toasters to Italians.  Many people have gone from looking at China through a telescope to putting it under the microscope.  China has already played the racist card (a time-honoured tradition, pioneered by the Japanese) a couple of times to deflect criticism, but that’s not going to last forever.  As more and more people discover China — up close and personal — there will be criticism.  It’s inevitable.  After all, there is no Chinese utopia – any more than there was an American one.  However, for now, it’s interesting to watch the world tiptoeing around the coming Chinese Colossus and hearing a collective American sigh of relief as the spotlight shifts across the Pacific.

Olympics: The Straight Dope!

And it shall follow as the night the day that there will be doping allegations at the Olympics.  The most recent concerns the Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen, who, according to what I saw, could have outrun Free Willy.  The only thing faster was the accusations of “hot sauce” which started flying before the other swimmers were even dry.  The story’s all over the Internet, so I’m not going to go into here.  Suffice it to say that Ye won the 400 metre something-or-other with enough time left over to order a pizza.  Pretty well anybody who saw the race said, “Hey! Wait a minute” and the debate was on.  Olympic debates are great events in themselves.  Even though no medals are awarded the competition is fierce.

The “Hey! Wait a minute” crowd made the opening move with Ye’s time over the last fifty metres was better than American male swimmer Ryan Lochte’s over the same distance.  (A good trick, regardless of what you think.)  They went on to point out that halfway through the race, Ye was so far back she couldn’t even see the other swimmer’s bubbles.  Yet she not only managed to made up that distance but was actually pulling away from the other swimmers.  They maintain that it’s impossible to close that kind of gap in a 400 metre race — even if you could swim that fast – which you can’t.  Basically, they strongly suggested that no swimmer outside of The Little Mermaid’s big sister could accomplish what Ye did without a little chemical assistance.

The “We won the Gold” crowd immediately countered with a three-pronged defence.  First of all, they said Chinese athletes are focused and competitively superior to other athletes.  They are not distracted by things like Michael Phelps’ bong.  Secondly, they maintain that Chinese training and nutrition is far better than anything lazy Westerners can come up with on their best day.  And thirdly, they asked, why is anybody accusing the Chinese of doping; the Americans use dope all the time.  Look at Ben Johnson (not technically an American, but he’ll do) and Marion Jones.  Oh, and, by the way, you’re a bunch of snarling racists for even bringing it up in the first place.

Obviously, points were scored on both sides.

Let’s cut the crap.  There are only two things going on here.  One, Ye Shiwen is a very, very, very good swimmer or two, Ms. Ye added some dolphin growth hormones to her Wheaties.  There’s no third road.  So, what is anybody going to do about it?  Probably nothing!  The anti-doping ship of sport left the harbour many years ago.  The IOC can yip all they want about zero tolerance, but when the anthems are being played, nobody’s hearing that song.  After all, a good percentage of the athletes competing in London have either failed drug tests or have been banned at some point themselves.  Besides, as long as Barry Bonds is still in the record books and Roger Clemens is walking around a free man, nobody west of Manhattan has any moral high ground to crawl up on.  The reality is without the weight of America to back it up, the IOC is spitting into the wind.

There is only one solution to doping in sports – genuine zero tolerance.  The IOC and every other governing body in sport (professional and “amateur”) need to take the “Hot Stove” approach.  If you fail a drug test, you and your coaches are put on notice that anyone can make a mistake.  However, nobody involved can participate in any sport at any level until you’re drug free.  If you fail a second drug test, you, your coaches, your trainers and everyone else right down to the ball girl are banned from all sports, in any capacity – for life.  You get one independent appeal (just in case) but after that, it’s see you later – go sell furniture.  With the kind of cash and prestige that’s on the line these days, the athletes would insist on being clean, and the coaches would demand it.  This may sound harsh, but at this point, there are so many drugs floating around upper echelon athletes that even Keith Richards is embarrassed.  The anti-doping bandaids that various sports are applying are simply never going to work.

At the end of the day, Ye Shiwen, enjoy your Gold Medals.  You probably worked very hard to get them.  All the rest of it is just a parlour game, played out over the media.  Everybody, from the World Record holder in Underwater Gymnastics to the eight-year-old kid kicking a ball around the schoolyard and dreaming of Olympic glory, knows that the anti-doping rules in sports are just a joke.