Acknowledging the bad call
Listening to Jim Joyce's acknowledgement of his bad call, upsetting Armando Galarraga's perfect game, it occurs to me how little this happens in life.
That people just admit, openly, when they screw up something big. Especially on the biggest things.
Because we kick the shit out of them when they do, is the truth. And no matter how much doing that undermines peoples' willingness to admit when they screw up, and thus maintains the screwing up, we keep doing it. Especially in those areas of life where it matters most that we admit the mistakes.
And the most tragic mistake of all is our unwillingness to admit that any of this matters to getting things moving in a better direction. Because no matter how much we pretend that it doesn't matter, it very clearly does. And undermines most of the big calls in life.
Like him or not, Jesus was not bullshitting. Forgiveness and creating the space for people to admit when they've screwed up really does matter. For reasons practical more than theological. Some people never face up. And those people have to be dealt with differently. But those people are rarer than not. And what facilitates the lives of good people should not be dictated by our fear of the wicked. As a practical matter, more than anything else. Because it makes our lives less safe and less worthy of living. And that fact of existence will be so whether we acknowledge it or our failures in the matter or not.
Jim Joyce manned up and admitted his failure. 'Bout time we did the same.
2 comments:
WWJJD?
What would Jim Joyce Do?
I want a bracelet.
Gallaraga was a decent human being about the whole thing two.
You could put a lot of different pitchers together with a lot of different umps in this situation and this was probably one of the only combos where everything was handled like... Well, like adults.
WWJJD!
That comment was some kind of strange serendipity, Carson. I was just commenting on Bloggingheads editor-in-chief Robert Wright's column on the matter defending MLB's stubborn decision not to overturn, along the same lines.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/perfectly-unfair/#preview
"Either that, Robert, or that baseball is like real life. Full of stubborn dicks who can never admit when they're wrong. Especially in your field. Now that would be a lesson in life that would be honest for kids. Perhaps that's better than just manning up like Jim Joyce and admitting the error.
Then they'd be prepared in the fundamentals of political office."
It's beyond surreal, dude, that the likes of Galarraga and Joyce are under the authority of the likes of Congress and the President, none of whom are even remotely capable of doing the same.
I think Robert just actually found the one really honest lesson I will have to teach my kids, sadly. Because guys like him and the people he writes about are too stubborn to ever face up and take responsibility for anything, God forbid, that might really matter in the world.
Nice that these two can be role models in lieu of anything better.
Post a Comment