The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

 

For those of you waiting patiently for life to go back to the way it was pre-COVID, I have some bad news for you.  It’s not.  Sure, we’re inching back.  Facemasks are not required everywhere.  People are drifting back into their offices.  Large gatherings like concerts are happening again.   But Europe and Australia are still imposing brutal restrictions and the specter of the Delta Variance is being held over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.  COVID ignited or uncovered other currents and, in my view, life will never quite be the same again.  It remains to be seen exactly how all this will play out, but our society has been changed permanently, and most of the effects are not positive.   Still, there are some changes that will turn out to be beneficial, although they will be vastly outweighed by the deleterious outcomes that will occur as a consequence of COVID and the drive for Wokeness.  Over the next three posts, I will outline what I think are the good, the bad and the ugly that will be permanent changes to our lives.

The Good

At first, I was disillusioned by the apparent suicide attempt by pro sports, beginning with Colin Kaepernick.  Why would a sport seem to go out of its way to offend a large part of its fan base?  It is all the more perplexing because all professional sports is, essentially, is brand management and the anti-American and anti-patriotic symbols and gestures seemed to tarnish to brand.  Yet, the NFL, NBA and MLB seemed quite willing to absorb a huge dent in their viewership to prove sufficient Wokeness.

Except for the NHL, UFC and PGA, major pro sports seem to be outdoing themselves to demonstrate their commitment to Wokeness, rather than their fan base.

The NBA went all out in its BLM messaging last year and showed more fealty to the Chinese Communist Party than  to ordinary Americans.  The NFL announced that it will play the Black National Anthem before games.   MLB moved its All-Star game out of Atlanta and changed the name of the Cleveland Indians to the bland Guardians.

All three leagues are seeing a bleed off in ratings with the NBA suffering the biggest loss.

This is all good in the long run.

Because of the anti-trust exemptions granted these leagues, the salaries of these Woke players have gone into the stratosphere.   In contrast, the retired pro athletes that I had gotten to know – Bob Asher and George Seals of the Bears, Cliff Koroll, Grant Mulvey and Reggie Fleming of the Blackhawks all played for modest salaries and had to get real jobs after their playing careers ended.

I hope the downward trend in ratings continues.

I, for one, have turned my attention to other activities such as hiking, chess, and live music.

Who needs to watch LeBron shoot free throws at the end of a basketball game?  Why watch 300 pound linemen give each other CTE?  Or watch an interminably dull baseball game with your team 8 games out in July?

Our Olympic team was even worse.  After tripping over themselves to show how much contempt they have for the nation they supposedly represent, the women’s soccer team got pasted by Sweden 3-0 and the men’s basketball team got horsewhipped by….France.  I guess this is what global “equity” is all about.

Why do I think this is good?  Because we have become a nation of spectators, rather than doers.  We have turned athletes into members of the elite, as distant from us as the political elite, and every bit as contemptuous and disdainful of the rest of us. 

The other good development is working remotely.  The progressives have made urban living unlivable.   There was always a bit of an implicit deal—you would put up with the traffic and congestion, or being herded into commuter trains like cattle.  But the city offered a robust cultural life—restaurants, music, theater and such.  But now most cities are dangerous places since the defund police movement.  My own Chicago has 50-100 shootings a weekend, carjackings and robberies galore.  Downtown looks like a scene out of The Walking Dead.   So the implicit deal is dead.  The cultural benefits of the city are no longer available as a practical matter.  

Working remotely means you can minimize your time in the city, do away with the grinding commute and have more time for yourself and your family.  We have learned how to conference via Zoom and close transactions via Docusign.

I believe this trend will continue and that we can start drifting back to small town and rural life without too much difficulty and that is a good thing for families and communities.

Finally, another positive development is Podcasts.  While Mollie Hemmingway is undoubtedly correct—that the mainstream media has been irredeemably corrupted and social media is divisive and tyrannical (more on this later), podcasting has emerged as a wonderful and engaging development that enables lengthier, more thoughtful and nuanced discussions about complex ideas than merely a 180 character tweet. The recent interview of Bari Weiss by Jordan Peterson on his podcast  ran about 2 hours and the New Discourses podcasts by James Lindsay can run nearly as long.  Podcasting is a great vehicle with which to explore ideas more fully and (assuming deplatforming doesn’t occur) are a welcome development in an era starved for civil discourse.

Despite all the social and political turmoil, there have been some very positive developments since the onset of COVID19.  That is the good.  My next post will deal with The Bad and The Ugly.