Dealing with abstractions

Last night was a bad night in the Rainier96 household. It started out nicely enough, watching a bowl game that was being played well by both sides. It ended, however, in tears. And in screams, thrown objects, and bewildered cats scrambling for cover.

My team lost, of course. Lost by a missed field goal, a seemingly easy kick by a seemingly competent (albeit freshman) kicker, with two seconds left on the clock.

A good night's sleep, followed by a vigorous piano lesson this morning, restored my will to live. But my volcanically emotional reaction interests me. Why did I care so much? I don't know anyone currently in school at Stanford, my alma mater. And I certainly don't know anyone at Oklahoma State.

And yet, for an hour or so, I felt devastated, as though my own personal worth had been cheapened, my character attacked, my entire way of life insulted. I found myself hating the entire state of Oklahoma and all its inhabitants -- even though a quick glance at the faces of the school's players and student body made it obvious that they were every bit as wholesome, exuberant, playful, and good-natured as their opposites from my own school -- or rather as their opposites from my school had been, up until two seconds before the end of regulation play.

Competitive sports everywhere is based on the fans' willingness and ability to identify with an entity -- a school, a club, a professional team. Thus, I "love" the Seahawks; I "hate" U.S.C. But "Seahawks" and "Trojans" are just abstract entities. The players on those teams and their coaches, change constantly. The U.S.C. of today is composed of an entirely different cast of characters from that of ten years ago. I'm loving or hating a fictitious entity that is incapable of loving or hating me in return.

Sports fans are merely a less virulent version of a nation's "true patriots." When an American says (as they often do) that he despises Iran (or France), it's difficult logically to understand what he means. He may, of course, simply mean that he strongly disagrees with the policies pursued by that nation's government. But when the words "hate" or "despise" are used, the user generally has passed beyond logic. Despite not knowing a single person living in Iran (or France), he sincerely feels hatred and contempt for an entire nation, a nation that has no idea that he even exists. Iranians are "evil and barbaric fanatics." French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." These patriots' own America, on the other hand, is "a shining city on a hill," a "beacon of freedom," and an "exception" amongst nations.

My short-lived emotions following the bowl game remind me of a dialogue between two infantrymen that I read in a novel a long time ago. I suspect the book was Remarque's All's Quiet on the Western Front, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. One soldier asks another (all quotes are paraphrases from my memory): "Why are we fighting, anyway?" The other replies that they are fighting because another country had insulted theirs. The first asks in reply, quite sensibly, how one country can possibly "insult" another. "How can we be killing and getting killed for such an "insult"?" he asks. "Do you feel insulted? I certainly don't feel insulted."

Our minds seems hardwired to use such abstractions when we think. But as I watched the faces last night of the winning Oklahoma State players and students, it was obvious that they were no different from players and students at my own school. I obviously didn't hate them, anymore than I actually felt that my own school's victory or defeat would be a personal victory or defeat for myself. It was just a game, as our parents used to remind us.

When I visited Iran last spring, I looked at the faces of the Iranian people, the Iranian children. In all but superficial respects they seemed pretty much like Americans. However irresponsible their government's conduct might have seemed to me, I didn't "hate" the Iranian people, or wish them harm. And I feel no desire now to "punish" them by backing sanctions that would cause more harm to them in their daily lives than could be justified by any effect the sanctions might have in persuading the Iranian government to modify its policies. Nor, more profoundly, can I support an actual attack on them by our government's military forces. I certainly won't support "bombing them back to the stone age."

Foreign affairs is not "just a game." Affairs between nations affect real people, people who rarely have much control over those affairs. I take the conduct of foreign policy seriously. But I won't "hate" people in other countries, laugh at their customs or religious beliefs, disrespect their natural love for their own country, or remain indifferent to the effects of my own government's conduct upon their lives.

I'd recovered from my temporary insanity by this morning, no harm having been done to anyone, including my cats. Let's hope our government can handle in a rational manner the challenges posed in dealing with Iran, realizing fully and at all times that however much Americans oppose certain policies by the Iranian government, we recognize our brotherhood and common humanity with the people of Iran.

As for Stanford's football team -- well, there's always next year