[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

ans Perlberger et al

for every Icarus that plummets into the sea, there are a thousand of us
who are put six feet under having never tried to get six feet above the
dirt.  at least the tragedies of those who dare make us feel:  the
tragedies of those who do not merely deaden us.

the 60 minutes story was based around Ryan's book "Little Girls" and
they interviewed her during it.  that doesn't make it any less crap.

a) 14 and 15 (and 18 and 19) year olds are unable to make decisions and
take responsibility for those decisions.

this argument tracks the bullshit of centuries applied to "savages" and
women and 19-year-olds.  they are innocents unable to exercise rational
choice over the course of their lives.  they must be disenfranchised
because they are uneducated, incapable of rational discourse, immature,
not really "people" yet.  we must protect them.

a "noble" but ultimately horrible way to understand other human beings.

i thought it was ironic that the same 60 minutes show featured the 13
year old boy from Canada who is leading the global movement against
abusive child labor practices.  HE was cogent, confident, expert, and
effective.  a human agent capable of making decisions and taking
responsibility for those decisions.  not five minutes later, the story
is 14 to 19 year-old girls who are victims of overzealous parents and
the unscrupulous Karolyis - THEY are not responsible for deciding to try
to become the best gymnasts in the world, THEY are incapable of making
life decisions, and THEY are framed as ACTED UPON rather than as AGENTS.
THEY are "little girls."

it is the contemporary version of disempowerment:  we make the other
incapable of deciding by convincing ourselves and them that they are
incapable of deciding.  we are not doing evil because they are in need
of our protection.  so we take away their agency and make them objects.
the Ryan excerpt on the web is the tried-and-true rhetoric of
disempowerment.

b) it is wrong for these girls to compete with injuries.

yes, that sentiment is called "kindness which kills".

Keri was hurt. she did her vault at risk to further injury.  she chose
to do so:  her decision won the first and only US Women's Gymnastics
Team gold medal ever.  that makes her a Hero.

had she failed, she would be a Hero nonetheless.  the heroic moment is
the decision to risk for glory.  don't take that away from HER by
framing her as a "puppet" of Bela or of the media or of a nation.  her
decision and her glory and we get to stand silently in awe.

there is no greatness without risk and imposing or teaching or coddling
persons to take no risks makes less of them and us.  look, what is
DISTURBING about those who attempt at great risk to themselves is that
WE would not see THEIR goal as worth it - we would choose to quit, to
not risk, to give up our dreams.  that is why you and i will never be
the best there is at something:  heroes DO take the risk.

and they train through pain because when the gold medal is on the line,
when they have their one and only chance to become the best there is in
something, they might have to go for it through pain.

and if an 18-year-old girl as a Hero disturbs you, that is your problem.

c) they are biologically "unnatural"

how ridiculous.  Ryan and 60 minutes know what a person's body should
be.  these female gymnasts don't have large breasts.  they are too thin.
they don't eat enough.  they have too little progesterone and estrogen.

the biological research says that the female gymnasts probably have it
right:  it seems that 2/3 of the NORMAL weight for height is ideal for
longevity.  there is no evidence that the health of these women is
somehow DECREASED because they have made their bodies what they are.
"normal" levels of estrogen (by today's standards which are historically
very high) lead to breast and ovarian cancer.  it is just a guess, but i
bet that these women are much healthier than the average teenager.

Ms. Ryan's revulsion is nothing but prejudice and a bizarre commitment
to what she perceives to be "natural".  it is the flip-side of the
stupid sentiment that female bodybuilders are "freaks".  it is the same
argument which undergirds prejudice against the obese.

true, they don't look like the average teenager:  but then, these women
are not average.  they are attempting to become the best out of 6
billion of us in something:  that is unlikely to happen if overindulging
on big macs.

d) the Karolyis are abusive.

these coaches are the best there is at what they do.  they are probably
the best there has ever been and could be the best there will ever be at
what they teach.  the only possible defense they can raise is the only
one they need.  in the end, what do their students have to say of them
and what do their students accomplish.

i doubt that any girl of 13 or 14 has ever made the trip to Houston to
train with the Karolyis with the intent of learning something fun to do
after school.  no doubt that gymnastics can be great exercise or
entertainment, but you wouldn't take on Bela as your teacher if that is
what you wanted.  

we are embarrassed or worse by a little-league coach who screams at
their charges for a mistake:  i think that is largely because those kids
just want to have fun and the idiot adult is going overboard.  my guess
is that no teenage girl has ever gone to Bela to have fun: you go to
Houston to attempt to become the best female gymnast in the world.

and that just leaves two questions, i think.  the first is the last
question asked in the 60 minutes piece.  Leslie Stahl or whoever-she-is
asked one of Bela's former students incredulously, "You don't think you
could have been just as good without the abusive coaching?"  the answer
was "I don't think there's any way i could have been as good."  and i
think the gymnast was correct.  not deluded and not suffering some
belated abuse-identification syndrome, and not ignorant.  just correct.

the second is why is the best there is at his craft like that.  what
seems like aberrant psychology is ego-involvement.  the performance of
these girls becomes at least as important to Bela and Marta as it is to
the girls.  when the student messes up or fails, it is personal for the
coaches:  they have also failed and that is at least as frustrating to
them as it is to the student.  if the student isn't learning, it HURTS.
if the student doesn't care enough or gives up, it WOUNDS.  whether or
not the student succeeds MATTERS to the coach.

there is no other way for a coach to be a great coach.  if it isn't
desperately IMPORTANT that the student does well, then a coach is just
an also-ran.  and when Bela Karolyi looks crushed by one of his gymnasts
failing, looks angry when a landing is missed, seems frustrated when his
team does badly, yells at the Russian judge for a lousy decision, er, i
mean, score, it is because his students and their success matters to him
and matters very very much.  and the insults, painful as they might be,
are just expressions of how important it all is to him.

so, the Bela carrying Kerri off the gold-medal podium is exactly the
same person as the Bela who might have yelled at her a thousand times
before.  it is not an act, nor an apology, nor a gesture.  and the Kerri
who went to Houston to train with him and who genuinely loves that man
is the same person who dared when you or i would have given up.

thank you for reading,
michael miroslav korcok
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page