#866 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday February 27)
Good morning,
BASEBALL IS COMING
Spring Training is here and the start of baseball season is the last week of March. So, it’s time for a few random observations in anticipation of this annual “Rite of Spring”:
Free Pete Rose! Come on now, he gambled as a manager. He didn’t throw a game. He didn’t take steroids. He is one of the greatest players of all time. Let him in the Hall of Fame. A Hall without him is incomplete. Free Pete Rose!
The Dodgers have a batting order with strength not seen in years. Freeman, Ohtani, Betts. Yikes. If their pitching is merely above the league median, they should run away with the National League West. But they again will be challenged in the playoffs, when strong outings from one’s top three starters contributes more than any other factor in controlling one’s destiny.
The Las Vegas Athletics (nee the Oakland Athletics) may be playing games next year in Salt Lake City or Sacramento, while their stadium is being readied. Or maybe it will be a minor league park. Or, at this rate, maybe at Encino Little League. Talk about a well-traveled team—the Athletics started in Philadelphia, making stops in Kansas City and Oakland before settling in Las Vegas…
Shohei Ohtani is the holder of the most lucrative contract in the history of baseball, largely due to his “two-way” abilities as a hitter and pitcher. But he will be recovering from Tommy John elbow surgery this season, so he won’t be able to showcase his pitching. The result is that he will be, in my humble opinion, overpaid as a hitter. And even when he comes back from surgery next Sprint, it will be tough for him to keep up his pace of performance over the past few years.
Can Atlanta Brave Ronald Acuna beat his stellar season last year, with 41 homers and stole 73 bases? And will Mookie Betts continue to be as good as he’s been, bolstered by the much-improved Dodger offense around him?
Will the Mets go anywhere?
A more exciting game. Thank goodness for the pitch clock and all that baseball did last year to speed up the games. I’m looking for an exciting season of great baseball!
THE DECLINE OF COMMUNITY
I’ve been very concerned with the fabric of our society disappearing before our eyes. The traditional places of community engagement—scout troops, public schools, service organizations, adult sports leagues, and most importantly, religious institutions—have all experienced declines in participation. Gone are the bustling downtown streets, the corner drug store, or the Thrifty Drug ice cream counters. The first definitive commentary on this phenomenon is the seminal essay “Bowling Alone,” by Robert D. Putnam. This dissembling of communal civic engagement and what he calls “social capital” has accelerated over the nearly 30 years since this 1995 essay. Here is an excellent summary of the essay, which later was expanded into book form: https://www.beyondintractability.org/bksum/putnam-bowling. The decline of our social capital has been exacerbated by the ubiquity of social media, as delivered on phones that demand the attention of the consumer, at the expense of eye contact or engagement with “real” human beings in their midst. Plus, these platforms are expressly designed to maximize the attention of the user, separating them from more social, in-person engagements of the type highlighted by Putnam. The idea that Facebook and its progeny are creating some sort of “web-based community” belies the fact that it creates a false sense of community that crowds our more meaningful interactions.
RELIGION—IT’S IMPORTANT, YET COMPLICATED
I have been beating the drum that “real” communities need to be revived, reimagined, and reinvigorated. Religious institutions, regardless of the depth or intensity of one’s personal religious beliefs or engagement in ritual, provide an important focus of community building and community engagement—a place for book clubs, scout troops, community service, psychological and moral support, and exploring “big ideas” through bible and text study. Religious institutions and their congregants are the bedrock of many important nonprofit community service organizations. Not only do the participants help the less fortunate but the very act of providing that help creates a sense of spiritual fulfillment and sense of community to the participants.
Religious institutions also create and nurture lifetime friendships, often beginning with Mommy & Me or early childhood programs. They provide support when people need it most—in times of natural or manmade calamity or personal loss. They provide context, nuance, and perspective on events in a challenging world and in our busy, complicated lives. We turn away from the important role of these institutions in our lives and the lives of our communities at our peril.
That said, religion is having an upsurge in other—more dangerous—contexts. With deep-seated beliefs often comes a certainty about the world and a messianic/evangelical/obsessiveness with that certainty. It will cause some adherents to view nonbelievers as lost heathens or, worse, enemies to be destroyed. In the Muslim world, radical Islam, often taught at madrasas tolerated by host governments, has captured the support of many disaffected youth and has led to ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Houthi Rebels, Al Qaeda and others. Going back in history, the Catholic Church, now one of the more ecumenical and tolerant churches, furthered the spread of blood libel against the Jews, giving comfort to the Inquisition and antisemitic laws of discrimination and exclusion. In Israel, many radical observant settlers, motivated by their interpretation of religious imperatives, believe that the West Bank, promised to the Jews in the Torah, should be incorporated into a “Greater Israel,” often calling for the deportation of Arab residents. Some of these settlers have relied on their religious certainty to justify the commission of acts of violence against Palestinians who are viewed as an inconvenient impediment to their views. And here in America, a right-wing evangelical Christianity is pushing a social agenda against abortion rights, and is decidedly anti-Gay, anti-immigrant, and seemingly pro-authoritarian.
Religion, practiced as Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus, speaks of love, inclusion, and caring for the “other.” As practiced by many of the more strident adherents, it often becomes justification for intolerance, exclusion, and violence.
Time to bring back all that is good in religion and bail on the bad stuff.
Have a great day,
Glenn