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December 20, 2004
All Right
A softball game in Berkeley, California comes to a climax in the 9th inning – the Tofu Turkeys runner slides into home plate and the umpire shouts “he’s safe”. The Soy Knuts team burst into pandemonium and the coach storms out onto the filed. “He’s OUT” shouts the Soy Knuts coach, and the Tofu Turkeys coach runs out onto the field shouting “SAFE, SAFE SAFE!”. As the melee continues a peaceful looking gentlemen strolls out to the two arguing coaches, and walking up to them, he drapes his arms over both their shoulders and says “Boys, boys, relax. This is Berkeley – you can both be right…”.
The reason that never really happens is that it’s a total let down – no clear winner, no resolution, two teams still wondering who has won and lost. It’s the reason Berkeley (as an icon of the progressive lifestyle) is the butt of the joke – it’s a crazy place where people can live any way they want. The “real world” doesn’t work that way.
But the joke touches us because in some way we want life to be like that – to have a contest, to test ourselves, to strive, but in the end to be OK with who we are, and not carry the burden of winning or loosing.
Softball and politics can, at it’s best, be like that joke – allow us to strive, test ourselves and others, and in the end be OK as who we are, no matter if it’s winning or loosing. But at it’s worse, it can be destructive – demeaning for the losers as outsiders, not included, and for the winners, setting up an obsessive need for not loosing, becoming a winning machine, abandoning humility and humanity for the sake of not loosing.
I’m probably the last blogger on the planet to say it: The political dialog has become destructive. The conservatives have adopted the metaphor and reality of war (both religious and secular) to frame our national dialog. The conservatives won’t be in power forever – there is no safety where they are trying to go. The only thing guaranteed is pain.
We can be “all right” – but it will take a radical reframing of the dialog in our country.
Posted by pgutwin at December 20, 2004 8:43 PM