The United States has always been a nation of survivors. The first colonists did not survive. It matters not whether you think that this was the Vikings in Canada or the first settlement in Virginia. When the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth Rock, survival was the most important thing that they did. Part of the mythology of American life is the story of the first Thanksgiving and being thankful to have just survived the first long year in a strange land.
Reality TV has given us a new vision of ourselves as a nation of survivors. Now, it is no longer a question of our very existence, but only a game. We have winners and losers. We have rules that Jeff assigns new every week. Survivors are on teams that have their own cheering sections and even their own merchandising associations. Do you want to buy the Sook Jai tribal buff? Just log on to CBS.com, it's only $20 plus shipping and handling. Do you think that you can do better? There is even a Survivor Fantasy League for ego gratification without risk.
Survival is in this sense based more on social skills than on physical prowess or mental acuity. Alliance building, lying, manipulating and controlling others are all just part of the game. It is all for a million dollars and anything goes.
Is this now how we now conceive of life? Is it just a game, played to win in any manner? Even our political discourse is no longer about issues and deeds, but about who is winning the game. We measure our collective reactions with polls and make our decisions by deciding which view will satisfy the most “likely voters.” We lose site of the fact that polling is not a science, it is an industry unlike any other.
In California's most recent gubernatorial elections the “story” was not about what the candidates thought or said they would do. It was all about who was winning the game. Score was kept by tracking the money involved. Davis was pulling in and spending more money. Simon fired his coach. Camejo was “not really in the game.” And he was lucky. Other candidates did not even get mentioned.
Is this what we want from our political process? If the media covers the story as only a game with winners and losers, we soon become accustomed to thinking about it that way ourselves. We know what happens to a sports team when they start losing... the fans stay away. We see the same thing when the political process gives us a game between two teams best described as losers. The voters stay away.
There are those who seek to blame all corporations for the greed evidenced by Enron, WorldCom or Arthur Anderson. I don't think that it was really greed at all. They were just playing the game. Do you think that Andrew Fastow (ENRON CFO) thought of himself as the greedy, grasping crook we are prepared to lablel him? He was just playing the game of business and bending the rules was only a foul if the officials were looking.
To me, the most frightening aspect of this view of life as a game of strategy is playing itself out now in Israel. In a world where fundamentalist Islamic groups face off against fundamentalist Jewish organizations, there is a fundamentalist Christian movement that is working to escalate the conflict according to their view of the Book of Revelations. Their goal is to create the final conflict and bring about the second coming of Christ. It matters not how many die or how much others will surely suffer as long as they bring on Armageddon.
I wonder how this society can itself survive this view of life as a game. I once heard people repeat “It matters not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” I don't hear that any more. It has become all about winning with Vince Lombardi as the first prophet of our modern times. It has become about breaking accounting rules without consequence and getting your lawyer to sue if you get caught. It has become so much about winning that adults feel somehow free to physically attack the referee who dares to call their child for a foul.
When the Nobel Committee recently honored Jimmy Carter, we understood that his personal actions were guided by his deeply felt personal religious beliefs. For Carter, life is real and there is no gamesmanship involved.
Posted by at December 31, 2002 07:06 PM