COMPETITION

The Democrats forcing Senator Al Franken, one of their most effective legislators, to resign over unsubstantiated allegations of sexual harassment while Republicans openly supported Roy Moore, an accused pedophile running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, got me thinking.

We Americans are a competitive people. It’s in our DNA. We were born as a nation out of a revolution. Our history is a series of wars. We compete politically, financially, educationally, recreationally, physically, mentally, emotionally...., we’ve even made cooking and decorating your house into competitive sports (I can’t wait for the National Vacuuming Championships). And, since we claim to be civilized people, we have established norms, rules and laws for every one of these competitions. We refer to them as “The Rules of the Game”, which, since we have turned almost every facet of our lives into a competition, sort of suggests that we tend to see life as a game.

There are two “competing” philosophies about competition in this country.

“It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.” -  Famed sports writer  Grantland Rice

"Winning isn’t everything, it's the only thing.” -  Often attributed to Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi (after whom the NFL Super Bowl Trophy is named), who said it often, but actually originated with college football coach Red Saunders.

The philosophy you choose to follow will determine your world view, how you live your life and how you behave. Both philosophies have merit and are acceptable. However, if you are in the RIce camp and are competing against someone in the Lombardi camp, well.... tennis great Martina Navratilova said it best. “Whoever said ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts’, probably lost.”

The problem with all of this “game theory” is, life is not a game. Some things are more important than others. Whether or not your horse wins the blue ribbon at the next horse show or your daughter’s traveling soccer team wins the “championship” this year probably isn’t going to change your or your daughter’s life very much, if at all. Horse shows and soccer matches are games. But, whether or not Congress cuts Social Security is going to severely impact many millions of lives. That’s a competition, but it’s not a game. It’s a battle. It’s real life and, if you believe Americans need Social Security, then “winning IS the only thing”.

What does that mean?

I said earlier that all competitions have norms, rules and laws. Let’s refer to them as NRLs for the purpose of this discussion. NRLs are not tangible. They are not a thing, or a place, or a physical line in the sand. They are ideas expressed with words and words are not precise. They are subject to interpretation. Those interpretations create a cloud around the words, like morning fog on a county road. If there is going to be a real life battle governed by NRLs where “winning is the only thing”, it is going to take place in that cloud, in the fog, not on one side of the road or the other. That cloud is the “playing field” and, if you need to win that battle, you have to, at a minimum, take advantage of the whole playing field.

Again, what does that mean?

Let’s go back to the NRLs that govern competitions – games and real life battles – and look at the consequences for not following them. The consequence for not living up to a norm is an intervention, the consequence for breaking a rule is a penalty and the consequence for violating the law is exclusion. So, the only thing that will take you out of a game, or a battle, which would mean you automatically lose, is violating the law.  And that’s only if you get caught and convicted. Everything else is in the cloud. Everything else is within the “field of play” and if you don’t use the whole “field of play” you are giving your opponent a huge advantage and will most likely lose. Ask Martina. Ask Richard Branson. Ask Barney Frank. Ask any consistent winner. You can’t win by “playing nice.” Violating the law is cheating, If you get caught and convicted you get kicked out of the competition and automatically lose. That’s the only real “line in the sand” and, again, only If you get caught and convicted. Everything else is “fair play”.

If you are having trouble with this idea, keep in mind that you can switch camps for different aspects of your life. In my private life I compete in the sport of fencing (sword fighting). There, I’m in the Rice camp. I go to the club or to a competition to fence well. I’m good, but I usually lose to people who come to win, even if I fence well. In my professional life I’m in the Lombardi camp. I deal with human lives and, when lives hang in the balance, it is only about getting them what they need – winning – no matter what it takes (manipulating people, bending the rules, taking advantage of the loopholes, etc.) short of violating the law. As long as I don't do anything that can get me kicked out of the competition, I don't care what peole  say or think of me. All that matters is winning for the people I serve.

Getting back to Al Franken, conservatives tend to be in the Lombardi camp where winning is the only thing and they “play to win” using the whole field and then some. Liberals tend to be in the Rice camp and are often more concerned with “how they play the game” than winning it, which is why they lose so often. And they will continue to lose until they get off their “high horse” and get down in the dirt, or, to use my earlier metaphor, off the side of the road and into the fog where the battle is actually being fought and where it will be won or lost.

Yes, I think the Democrats forcing Al Franken to resign was stupid. What do you think?

THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT SCANDAL

It feels like a dam has broken as stories flood the news media about women coming forward accusing male celebrities of sexual harassment. And these accusations are not falling on deaf ears. One after another, these accused celebrities are being vilified by the media and fired from their jobs. My first reaction to this news has been, “Good! It’s about time”. But, I think it would be helpful to put all of this in some perspective because not everyone will agree with my reaction.

I have said numerous times in this blog that bad behavior is a social construct, not a universal concept, and sexual harassment is a good example of this principle in action. Different cultures and societies around the world have different ideas about what kinds of behavior constitute sexual harassment. Some cultures and societies don’t even acknowledge the concept of sexual harassment. Even here in the United States there is a significant difference of opinion about what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t.

There is no law specifically prohibiting sexual harassment. There are laws against various forms of sexual assault, most of which require some sort of unwanted, physical, sexual contact, but you can’t go to jail for what is commonly called sexual harassment. There is, however, a rule in the United States prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace. It applies specifically to employers who can be fined for not complying with it. That rule states that sexual harassment is considered to be a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to all U.S. employers with 15 or more employees. Anyone affected by the offensive conduct in question, not just the person to whom it is directed, may be a victim. The EEOC defines the offense as follows:

"Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment."

The rule does not mention gender, so both homosexual and heterosexual behavior is covered. However, there is a bias in the application of this rule. We hear a lot about men using their position and power to coerce sexual favors from women and about the emotional and psychological damage that does to the women they abuse, but we never hear a word about women using their beauty and charm to seduce men or about the thousands of careers that have been ruined and families that have been destroyed by “designing women”. Both coercion and seduction fit the definition of sexual harassment, so there is no discrimination in the rule. I’m just pointing out that we tend to judge men who take sexual advantage of women more harshly than we judge women who take sexual advantage of men.

The issue at hand is that there are many Americans who don’t take this rule seriously. One of them is in the White House. This should be a matter of grave concern for anyone who believes sexual harassment as defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is bad behavior. All of those celebrities who recently lost their jobs for sexually harassing women they worked with, and others who are sure to follow, are probably on this list, too.

The question is why do powerful, successful men, like those celebrities we’ve been reading and hearing about, do it? Why do they take the risk? My guess is they don’t consider it a risk. Even though they know sexual harassment is prohibited in the workplace they see that as being no different from smoking being prohibited in a restaurant. They didn’t believe what they are doing is wrong. And if they were ever to be accused of sexually harassing a co-worker, they are pretty sure they are so valuable to their employer that the employer will side with them and not take any action against them. Until recently, they've had every reason to believe that because that is exactly what happened most of the time. 

If I’m right about the “why”, that makes stopping sexual harassment a moral problem, not a legal one, and you can’t legislate morality. You have to teach it. So, how do we teach young men (and women) that sexual harassment is bad (unacceptable) behavior, not just in the workplace, but everywhere in our society here in the United States? Or, do we have to? Is this just a generational thing? What about it, Millennials? What’s your take on sexual harassment?