For a while now I have been meaning to write a discussion post on a topic that seems to keep happening, where a sporting star after retirement, as done some stupid shit that has stopped them for example, being inducted into a hall of fame. My question around this is whether the hall of fame is based on their career and what they brought to the sport during it, or their social lives after? I am not defending their post-retirement actions, but for me it raises the question of what is being evaluated, and whether it is right to backdate and apply current situations to past accomplishments.
This came up from when I read of an Australian Football League player who was well respected as a player, but a decade after retirement, was convicted of stalking his ex, or some such. Yeah, that is pathetic, but should it take away from his sporting career?
I think that this is an interesting question to explore, considering that we have still supported some other stars that have been arrested and charged for domestic violence offences - Sean Penn, Nicholas Cage, Mel Gibson, Christian Slater, Ozzy Osbourne, Axl Rose, Charlie Sheen, Slash, Gary Busey, Tommy Lee, and Evel Knievel for fucksake. This doesn't make it right, but is there consistency in how we apply our judgement?
Now, I don't give one damn about any of these people, or any celebrities at all, as they tend to live in a world that is so far detached from my own, it is hard to understand their mentality. However, there seems to be a massive amount of entitlement, which is no surprise considering that they have been handed anything and everything to them on a platter for free, by us. At some point, that power must go to the head, right?
But, there are other questions I have around this topic, for instance, the current publicity "Diddy" (is that his name?) is getting about assault and the video beating some poor woman in a hotel room back in 2016. Now my question here is a bit different, because he released some video saying that he was disgusted at himself for the behavior, that he was in a bad place, and he got treatment afterward. So, the question is,
Is there any way to be forgiven?
For instance, if a drug addict did a whole lot of terrible shit to feed their addiction, and then got cleaned up, they would be celebrated. And now we live in a world where we are meant to be sensitive to mental health issues, where people can have problems that an affect their behavior. So as a laymen, from watching the behavior in the video of Diddy, I would posit that the fucker had some pretty severe mental problems to act that way.
This doesn't excuse the behavior.
Yet, shouldn't we be sensitive to the causes of the behavior too, in the same way that we would be if a person was autistic, or had ADHD? If a particular individual has been raised in an environment that encourages and promotes the development of strong entitlement feelings, where they have the sense that they are allowed to do as they please to others, shouldn't that factor into the judgement?
And then, have a look at the conversations around other topics similar, where there is talk about something like rape culture, where they think that men are the cause. However, rape might be a symptom of other issues, right? If you heard of a sociopath inflicting some form of pain on someone, you'd say "typical behavior of a sociopath", right?
These are some common signs of ASPD:
(antisocial personality disorder)
- Lack of empathy for others
- Impulsive behavior
- Attempting to control others with threats or aggression
- Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others
- Not learning from mistakes or punishment
- Lying for personal gain
- Showing a tendency toward physical violence and fights
- Generally superficial relationships
- Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes
- Threatening suicide to manipulate without the intention of actually doing it
- Abusing drugs or alcohol
- Trouble with responsibilities such as a job, paying bills, etc.
How much of Gen-Z hold a group of those traits?
My point is, that we have created a world where the individual and their needs is the center of the universe, and people are encouraged to do whatever it takes to get what they want from life. Personal branding and lying on social media for the superficial support of strangers for money, while relationships of any depth are deemed a waste of time. Impulsive behavior, poor financial hygiene, blaming others, manipulative, demanding, entitled.
So, if we are creating an environment that develops the kinds of behaviors that we would expect to see in sociopaths and psychopaths, why would we be surprised that those behaviors are increasing in society? We have reduced families, reduced communities, escalated individual consumerism, and told people to take what they want from life - then are shocked when they do.
Being a successful athlete, musician or actor doesn't make you a good person that is infallible and won't be influenced by the environment. They are humans too, and the environment that surrounds them is completely unrealistic and far outside of the normal experiences of the average person. Yet, we are also being influenced by how they are presented, their lifestyles, their desires, their own branding, which of course is going to affect our behaviors.
If you believe that something like our body image is affected by the media, then you also have to believe that these celebrities are going to be affected by their surroundings too, right? If we can't control what we put in our bodies because of advertising, how can we expect the people who are handed drugs for free on platters, and have groupies, not to be affected by the advertising they receive, where so many people are willing to give them whatever they want, just to be close to them.
We live in a fucked up world on many fronts, but we also have to recognize that we are all pretty similar in many ways, even if we behave differently. Sure, there are outliers, but as we are products of our environment, we are nearly all going to be affected, meaning that our behaviors are influenced actions, nudged by our circumstances and surroundings. We think that people are lucky because they are wealthy and famous, but they are just as likely if not more, to have various mental health issues too.
Should we factor this into the judgement?
As said, I don't care about these celebrities, but perhaps my reasoning for the article is to highlight more of the world we have created. It is a mess, where there are all kinds of conflicting conditions, and a lot of ambiguity in what we should do, whether for ourselves, or morally for a community. There are a lot of complexities in being human, and we are fragile in so many ways, so that when there is a large amount of change and a lot of options in front of us, we can end up stressing, breaking, and behaving in ways we might not have if we had been under different conditions.
Yes, we have to take responsibility and pay the consequences for our behaviors, but we aren't much of a society if we are only looking to punish, and there is no way out of a mistake. We are told to learn from our mistakes, and if we don't support leaning and improving, there is no point to change, no point to be better. If we are going to backdate, do we also backdate causes?
If we don't openly talk about these things and question them, then we aren't going to reach any kind of solutions that the majority of people are able to live by. Instead, it will just be more "us against them" attitudes, with a lot of doubling-down on stupid.
We can do better. Can't we?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Take a look at Robert Downey Jr. He had a quite bad drug habit and now he is one of the hottest tickets in Hollywood. I honestly think that Pete Rose should get to be in the hall of fame too for baseball. Especially when A Rod is in there and he got caught lying about taking PEDs. I also think that looking at symptoms of mental health disorders is a slippery slope as we all exhibit some of those behaviors from time to time. My wife is a mental health professional and she will be the first to admit we are all a little crazy sometimes.
Oh, it is a definite slippery slope. And, I am glad that you picked up on this. It is ridiculous how much we let some people get away with because we have decided that their brand of mental health issue is acceptable and their behavior excusable because of it.
This is a very interesting topic as we tend to glorify those who are good at something such as sports, music, or science and forget they are also humans and make mistakes. We have a close example in Barcelona with former football team member Dani Alves who ended up arrested under rape accusation.
I don't care at all about all these famous people but I cannot unlink the professional from the human being. True they can have achieved great goals in their professional life, but the moment they act with greed (as most of them do) and treat others with disrespect, they do not deserve any recognition at all.
Today's society tends to forget what the real values are. We tend to glorify people for accomplishing "unimportant" entertainment goals and forget about those spending most of their lives helping those in need, just because they do not appear on TV every weekend or never have their stories told on the news.
Yet, don't we all do this at some point in our lives? Sure, it might not be to the same scale, but it is on the same spectrum. Where is the line where punishment starts or recognition stops? Who decides and on what factors?
I have never been a fan of much, nor have I ever looked up at people who might be considered celebrity, or that others worship for some reason. I just treat people all the same, tease them all the same :)
Sometimes I feel like people are way too addicted to punishing other people especially if they’re seen as better than them (taking down a peg/tall poppies etc). In my limited experience the exact same people also feel like it doesn’t count when they do the literal exact same thing coz it’s completely different.
People complain of a corrupt government, even though they themselves are corrupt.
You know the drill XD
I think it depends on how much strong the charecter of the star is or how much the star is loved.
I assume all people can be influenced. If a 100 beautiful women offer themselves to you a week, how many times would you say no, or for how long? Same with the drugs, and parties, free clothes, free entries - there are a lot of people willing to do things for celebrities, just to feel like a celebrity themselves.
In U.S. sports Halls of Fame, it’s almost as if there’s an unwritten rule. Once you’re in, you’re in, we won’t kick you out. But get caught before that, and you won’t be inducted.
O.J. Simpson murdered two people but is still in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On the other hand Pete Rose (gambling) and Barry Bonds (steroids) were passed over for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
So the trick is just not to get caught until after induction :D
I don't like the backdating at all - it fails to see the difference in times. For instance, they backdate the morals of today, and apply them to hundreds of years ago.
I think about this often. We are composed of multiple circuits that shape our reality. These are layered and extremely dynamic. Memory is more geometry than storage. I always wonder if in some cases the shape can be made more socially acceptable/less mentally ill. We're not far enough along to manipulate this shape in a meaningful way, but I'd like to achieve some of this one day. Are there any shapes (mental illnesses) that are too deviated from normal to be repaired? Currently, the intersubjectivity of the public is judge and jury. I guess, one day we'll see.
Or, what are acceptable treatments? Paedophilia and chemical castration for instance - if who we are attracted to is not a choice, what does that mean? Where is the line of unacceptable deviation, and what happens to that line over time?
One thing I'll be studying during the summer is the beginnings of uncovering the randomness of behavior. Usually these non-heritable changes are chalked up to the "environment." Some can be accounted for and others cannot. There are examples in nature of identical genetics and only minimally different upbringing that manifests as huge differences.
I wonder if anyone has done a study to see if there are genetic features of people that exhibit this behavior. If not, it would be cast into the environment category as being the explanation. Is this random though or learned?
Expensive players live in a lot of pleasure and luxury and there are some players who are drug addicts, gamblers and prostitutes. Their behavior is bad, there is evidence that they beat the devotees. They are very greedy for money so they do match fixing. They are not liked by the people but due to their good playing skills it is not possible to exclude them from the national team. No matter where it is high or low. Their hearts should be good
Is it the fault of the player, or the fault of the devotees?
Oh yes, you’ve got a point @tarazkp 💛, separate a player's career from their dumb pos retirement antics is needed.
I think if they were awesome on the field, shouldn’t that be enough? It’s frustrating how some celebs get a pass while others don’t. We need to figure out a fair way to judge these things.
I think the opposite - shouldn't being a good human be enough?
Yes man you're absolutely right, infact what saddens me most is the chairman of WWE Vince McMahon after decades of building the wrestling organization will not be allowed into the Hall of Fame of a company he built because of allegations outside the sport .. they completely disregarded his accomplishments
I don't follow that nonsense, but from what I I have heard, wasn't he systematically abusing women whilst building WWE?
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STOPI think the difference with these Hall of Fame things, is that they somewhat 'immortalize' these people. Those people that are usually considered for these are usually rewarded already during their career. If we take basketball for example, they need to have won awards, or championships, or have been really good overall. I think not including those with problems done isn't so much as punishing, but rather not also immortalizing what they've done, as respect for the victims, and also for future generations.
As soo as you lay a had on someone especially on a female you have crossed the line and don't care what mental issues you may or may not have. If you are raised the right way you know it is wrong and there are no excuses. The world has definitely changed over the last 20 years and I do think it is down to poor parenting or a lack of parenting for the most of it.
I think people react differently to drugs. When I saw that Diddy’s scandal, I got shocked. At the same time, some people feel they are celebrities and can just pull up some irrational behaviors. Would you also believe that there are some women who lie against celebrities in cases like rape and all??
I won’t say all celebrities are bad but the majority of them take drugs and have one scandal or the other including R.Kelly, Michael Jackson and so on
Now, my question is that does fame come with scandals or shitty behaviors?
Rurouni Kenshin was one of my favorite childhood anime. It tells a story about an manslayer who swore not kill again and achieved redemption by helping people. A few years ago author of Rurouni Kenshin was caught. It turns out that he had children porn or something nasty like that. I still like him as an artist even if he is despicable as a person. Still it is interesting that a person who told a story about redemtion would fall like this...