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November 23, 2004

Stern, Ashcroft & Saturated Awareness

I thought I might get away with only talking peripherally about the Detroit melee, but I have actually found interesting in the matter worth talking about directly.

First of all, my opinion. No punch in the face is worth 5 million bucks. There is absolutely no way in hell it is acceptable for Artest to be suspended for a season. This is nothing more than a pure excess in moral outrage. The punishment is outsized. In the ideal situation I would have done this as Artest; have the culprit identified and setup a special legal situation. On the condition that I don't sue your family into starvation, you will drop your gaurd and I will deliver a crisp combination to your face. I will then spit in your face. The beating will be videotaped and delivered to the internet. OR I will sue you into bankruptcy. That's justice.

But there is no justice being dealt in this matter. Almost immediately I've noticed how quickly folks have fallen into a pattern which is almost identical to that of the immediate wake of nine-eleven.

The thing to keep in mind is that something changes when you get media saturation of this sort. It happens fairly often in America. At least three or four times a year there is an event that is so prominent that you get the effect of 100 million minds thinking about the same thing at the same time. This is what I'm calling Saturated Awareness. It is a powerful force that is not being appropriately considered.

The standard sets of analyses about who knows what and when is certainly appropriate, but the problem is that very little use is made of the strength of public ethics. In November of 2001, all of us found 'anthrax' somewhere, and we tested the ability of our phone systems and police departments to respond to our concerns. They couldn't of course. Our new diligence overwhelmed authorities, and it always will. In these situations, there are winning and losing leaders. The winning leaders, like Rudy Giuliani are the ones who respond by the reassurance of directing our concern into actions we can take. The losing leaders like John Ashcroft are the ones who respond by promising to lead a regime of change so we don't have to do anything. In other words those who promise to take care of us fail. Those who show us how to take care of ourselves win.

In the meantime a portion of the new elevated consciousness should rightly fuel greater scrutiny on whomever was asleep at the switch. It's enough that a few heads should roll, but generally there is already somebody who already knows what should have done, but simply didn't have the focus or resources to do their job. Common sense dictates that some security guards doing their jobs could have maintained a bright line between fans and players and avoided the conflict at the Palace. Now that everyone knows it, it would be trivial for 100 million of us to pitch in a penny each to fund such an organization. Instead, the Commissioner is out to make an example of Artest. Why? To attempt to satisfy our needs and do something for us. But that something cannot be done for us. We have to do it ourselves, we need to be better fans, and the Commish needs to show us how. If he did so, we'd immediately see the difference.

Americans are like that. It's why we like singing God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch. It's our part. It's a fairly useless and almost ridiculous part, but it was what we were asked to do and we always want to do our part. That says a lot about the quality of our leadership doesn't it? You bet.

What is mind-bending is that so much of this is Saturated Awareness is forgotten. Only the experts retain the kind of institutional memory required. That's why leadership is still as important as ever. The last time something like this happened, it involved none other than Latrell Sprewell choking his coach. In my opinion this was a much more egregious act by a player than going after some drunk who hit you in the face with a thrown beer. And yet I heard nobody draw the parallel between last Friday's brawl and that incident, or to Roberto Alomar's spitting incident in baseball. If they did, then they'd have to confess how stupid million dollar fines would seem, now that the public outrage has died down. Most of us would still be breaking our necks to pay for that gob of slob or glancing punch both of which happened over 6 years ago.

It comes down to the acts of individuals but when they are so deeply analyzed and so broadly covered, it is human nature to try and draw parallels. When the act is shocking and despicable it's our instinct to punish severely and then try to set up a zero-tolerance policy. It's almost like clockwork, we can expect somebody to demand some change 'so that this will never happen again'. This is the beginning of error.

But things like this do happen, it's just that we're not paying attention. So it wasn't surprising to find that within a few days a similar incident was reported. The reality hasn't changed, we've just been made painfully aware of it. That painful awareness gives insightful leaders an opportunity to treat us like the adults we are and assist us in making intelligent contributions to society. Instead the temptation to make outsized gestures and overwroght proclamations seizes leaders by the throat and chokes the brains out of them. So it has been in Basketball and Justice.

Posted by mbowen at November 23, 2004 07:34 AM

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Posted by: Froman at November 29, 2004 05:06 PM