Winning

by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, Hamilton

Every couple months we receive a sort of newsletter from Hillsdale College, an avowedly conservative college in Michigan. Being a sort of college type myself, I was excited at first, thinking I would have a chance to understand how some studious, smart conservatives think about things that matter to me. But every time I’ve been disappointed, because the essays start out promisingly but then devolve into using what seems to me to be un-thought-through conservative cant to support a sort of traditional closed-mindedness.

This time the essay is about how “woke ideology” is ruining the all-important “meritocracy” of sports by allowing transgender women (people who have always known themselves to be women even though they were born with male genitalia) to compete on women’s teams. The point is that “[i]n general men aspire to be bigger, stronger, and faster than they naturally are [, so] women pretending to be men” will never make it in the NBA, and “men pretending to be women” will, for example, outswim any woman competing with them. 

So people are not watching sports so much anymore, let alone joining in themselves, and sports will no longer be the unifying force they have been in America: “When the home team made a big play or won the game, the fans would celebrate as one without giving a thought to race, gender, or politics.The power of sports to unify a stadium full of diverse individuals was awesome.” 

Am I being “woke” if I point out that there are inevitably many people in that stadium who don’t feel part of that “unity”?

An American sportswriter in the early 20th century wrote: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the game.” Some of us learned it as, “It matters not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” Remember that?

Some think that at the heart of this country is the spirit of competitive individualism, which in turn is the basis of capitalism and wealth. Others believe that the United States was founded as a country where “all [people] are created equal” and where there are NOT winners and losers, but rather everyone has the general support of everyone else to do the best they can using their individual gifts and convictions.

So is winning the most important thing? Or is it fairness to the complicated, sometimes quirky individuals that make up this nation? 

Some political historians say that, starting with Richard Nixon in the early 1970s, the Republican Party began to realize that, because the meritocratic ideas it represented were not actually very popular with the general public, it would have difficulty winning elections if it didn’t cheat. Both parties gerrymander, of course, and do their best to pack the judiciary with like-minded judges, but only one party sows disinformation and conspiracy theories, often with the backing of foreign countries once regarded as enemies of the American ideal, to make their followers fearful and distract them from what is really going on in this country.

On November 5th we each have the opportunity to stand up for what we think it means to win. Please think about it. Seems to me it’s mostly about awareness that Life is not always as simple as we could wish, and kindness.