Liberal Cognitive Dissonance

This post is a bit of a vent, but if you want a case study of Liberal cognitive dissonance, read Joan Walsh's piece on Barry Bonds.  Walsh is the editor of Salon, and when it comes to women's and race issues she's about as knee-jerk predictable as they come. She's aware of her biases, but that awareness doesn't seem to give her any perspective or or ability to adjust for her blind spots. If I complain all the time about Republican cognitive dissonance, Walsh is an example of the liberal kind, and it's just as irritating, even if not as harmful.

I say not as harmful because Liberal cognitive dissonance usually pertains to cultural issues regarding race and sexual inequality, which have less impact in shaping power arrangements in the political and economic spheres. Conservative cognitive dissonance enables the kinds of fiascoes and constitutional outrages perpetrated by the current administration. I am not saying that race and sexual equality issues are unimportant or that they have no connection to the economic and political spheres, but that the long-term resolution of such issues will occur in the cultural sphere because they are attitudinal. You can't (and shouldn't try to) legislate attitude changes; they evolve from generation to generation.  All you can do in the political economic spheres is insure that everyone's rights are fostered and protected.

And since sports has been one cultural arena in which there has been enormous progress in changing racial attitudes, when someone like Walsh starts blaming race for Barry Bond's having been singled for the condemnation he is receiving, it makes you want to scream. It's so formulaic, so cliche, and  in this case so far off base it's facetious. If Walsh want to feel sorry for someone affected by this steroid scandal, she should direct her pity toward all those players who stayed straight and saw their  spot on a major league roster taken by juiced players with less natural ability.

To those who challenge Walsh's argument by saying that Bond's was not singled out  because he's black but because he was a surly jerk or a cheater, Walsh retorts by saying that there are lots of white surly jerks and cheaters in baseball--why aren't they being singled out?  What about Jeff Kent?  How come nobody makes a big deal about Kent, she asks.   Kent's knuckle-dragging stupidity is well-known, but here's the difference: Kent's surliness or other white players steroid use never put them in contention to break and hold the two most hallowed records in baseball. Bonds was singled out because he now holds the record for both.  Does Walsh really believe that if Kent or someone as unlikable as Pete Rose, if either was known to be a steroid user, won either of those titles, he would be treated any differently than Bonds is being treated now?

Bonds deserves all the negative attention he has received, and jailtime if his perjury indictment results in a conviction, not because he's an African American and not because he's an unlikeable jerk, but because he is a cheater and perjurer, and as such the undeserving holder of the two most important records in baseball. And the second of those records was taken from one of the greatest and classiest African Americans in sports. 

It's pretty simple. Bonds singled himself out by taking something he doesn't deserve. 

Comments

[anon]

"Bonds deserves all the negative attention he has received, and jailtime if his perjury indictment results in a conviction, not because he's an African American and not because he's an unlikeable jerk, but because he is a cheater and perjurer, and as such the undeserving holder of the two most important records in baseball."

Your argument doesn't seem very strong to me. The relevant difference between Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds that you see in trying to knock-down Walsh's analogy is that Bonds broke two of the most hallowed records in baseball. But that doesn't seem to be morally significant because it fails to consider the fact that some players are 'naturally' better baseball players than others. As Jose Conseco used to say, steroids can make average players good and good players great; it doesn't help mediocre players too much. So if Kent and Bonds each perjured and cheated to the same degree, then why should Bonds receive selective scrutiny because he has more natural ability than Kent (I'm pretty sure you could find baseball experts to affirm this idea), which then allowed him to challenge and eventually break the records? Natural ability shouldn't be a morally significant factor in this case--it wasn't Bonds fault he was born with more natural gifts.

[Jack Whelan]

Anon--

But it was his fault that he cheated to get these records. My argument is that's why he's being singled out--not because he's black or because he's unlikable, but because he has these records and doesn't deserve them. We don't care as much about other cheaters or unlikable players because they don't have these important records. It's pretty simple. Some racists may not like Bonds because he's black or others because he's a jerk. That's irrelevant; he deserves the special negative attention he's getting because he got the two most coveted records in baseball by cheating.

If Marion Jones was stripped of her medals, Bonds should be stripped of these records. Clemens should have his Cy Youngs taken away if the evidence is conclusive that he juiced. Was Kent involved in steroid use? I don't know; but if he was, his MVP should be taken away. Baseball needs to send a message that this kind of thing will not be rewarded, and anybody caught will get more than a slap on the wrist. And if Bonds and Clemens become the posterboys for such opprobrium, so be it.

[Matt Zemek]

AMEN, JACK!

Thank you!

Here's to 2008, which will hopefully have more backbone and less stupidity than 2007 did.