I was inspired to start this blog by David Brooks's dumbest column ever.
On February 16, David Brooks wrote a column entitled "The Jeremy Lin Problem". Although Brooks is almost always an apologist and water-carrier to some degree, he rarely writes something as plainly dumb as this. Trust religion to extract the dumb out of even the sharpest (if misguided) minds. Mind you, the column is vintage Brooks and expertly crafted.
The big idea of the column is that Christianity and the American ethos of sports celebrity are in conflict. Is there some sort of award for Most Achingly Obvious Premise Ever? If there's not, there should be. Tragically, Brooks attempts to mystify this. Fortunately, in so doing reveals the keys to deceptive rhetoric.
When you write to deceive, one of the most important rules is to try to get rid of the difficult bit as close to the title as possible - before the reader latches on to what you're trying to get away with. One of the best ways to do this is to use the wrong noun for something. Thus "a religious person in professional sports" is represented as an "anomaly". Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Note that Brooks never uses the word "America" or "American" in the column as this would instantly remind us how sodden are American sports with ostentatious and ridiculous pantomimes of Christian piety.
To overcome a flaw so obvious takes rhetorical subtlety. Note Brooks's telling us how "we’ve become accustomed to the faith-driven [American] athlete [and celebrity]" Tim Tebow - the very personification of ridiculous and ostentatious American Sports Christianity. Brooks then tells us that "the moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith" this seems like an innocuous sentence, but it could not be more carefully and skillfully worded. This is the turning point in the piece - the big "however" that serves to demonstrate the chimerical "anomaly" Brooks has cleverly set up. The key to this sentence is the use of the word "sport" - generally used to refer to the Olympic ideal of sports and physiculture generally - and its false contrast with the word "faith". This is the all-important second deception which gives the reader the feeling that the cognitive dissonance created by the first deception has been resolved, but only deepens the lie.
Obviously, there is not only no tension between "sport" and faith, "sport" - meaning physiculture generally, including yoga, rock climbing and amateur sports done for the reward of self-discipline and self-challenge - is an important part of many people's faith practice and has been for thousands of years. It's very important for Brooks to bury the achingly obvious fact that although the conflict between biblical Christian values and disgusting false piety of American celebrities is obvious, there is no conflict at all between physical culture and faith. In fact, they are mutually supportive.
Here's the anatomy of the piece so far:
Title: Jeremy Lin
First Lie: Anomaly
Truth: "faith-driven" (disgusting, ridiculous, ostentatious, un-Christian, American, sodden with false piety) athlete
Premise or Second Lie: "The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith"
Implication or Big Lie: Jeremy Lin is an anomaly because he struggles with the tension between his faith and the ethos of being an American sports celebrity.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Jeremy Lin's rhetoric is almost identical to the crap we hear from every American sports celebrity who has lived a short, unenlightened life of relentlous self-obsession and is now trying to pass himself off as a worthy Christian instead of an overpaid mook. Moreover, there could not possibly be an easier or simpler life for a young, commited Christian than that of a professional basketball player, but we'll get to that later.
First, we have to see how Brooks seals the deal. Once you've set up your lies, the rest is pretty easy. You just have to repeat the conflict baked into the premise with evidence on both sides of the false conflict. Brooks just does it with such expertise that it's lovely to read.
Since the premise is that the "ethos of sport" is in "tension" (weasel word for "conflict) with Christianity (wonkish theology note: it's not really in tension with Jewish or Muslim theology at all, both of which celebrate the athletic warrior-hero explicitly), but we're talking about a Christian athlete here, so the first job is to distinguish athletics from Christianity as much as possible while being as complimentary as possible to athletics. Here Brooks does not spare the horses, concluding with the "his primary virtue is courage" paragraph. This is utter crap, but so nicely put. Obviously, there's nothing "heroic" - particularly in the Christian sense - about getting paid massive amounts of money and receiving tremendous support and encouragement for playing a refereed kids' game as ostentatiously as possible. It's essentially an existence designed to be free of any consequential risk.
The second job is to "contrast" religion with sport as much as possible while hiding the biggest compliment possible to Jeremy Lin. Typically, the Christian lionization of sports celebrities focuses on all the hard "work" a person in his early 20's has done playing in the gym and working out surrounded by mirrors. Brooks skillfully avoids our expectation here and ends this misdirection with a sentence about the religious person: "You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause."
Let's review the structure so far:
Title: Jeremy Lin
First Lie: Anomaly
Truth: "faith-driven" (disgusting, ridiculous, ostentatious, un-Christian, American, sodden with false piety) athlete
Premise or Second Lie: "The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith"
Implication or Big Lie: Jeremy Lin is an anomaly because he struggles with the tension between his faith and the ethos of being an American sports celebrity.
First Evidence: Sure, athletes aren't about being Christian, the poor, dumb sinners are only filled with courage - the lovable lunkheads.
Falsely Contrasted with
Second Evidence: Christians focus on different things like being people who become leaders because they feel they are part of something larger. Of course a mere athlete would never presume to think something as trivial as a basketball game could be part of Jesus's plan - or could he?
Recapitulation and expansion of the Implication: Jeremy Lin is a courageous person, trying to become a leader because he is part of something larger than himself.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth. If Jeremy Lin actually wanted to serve Christ, his life would be a cakewalk: work out, play, talk to his agents - probably less than 40 hours a week on his job - then spend 10% of his time and 10% of his money serving Christ - 20% if he wants to be safe.
How to serve Christ? It's not hard. Christ was pretty explicit. Don't be ostentatious in your devotion. Be nice to "the least of these, my brethren". Don't be ostentatious in your devotion. Tell people the good news of Salvation. Don't be ostentatious in your devotion. Remind people that fame and riches are traps of sin, no matter how appealing they seam. Don't be ostentatious in your devotion. Don't be egotistical. Don't be ostentatious in your devotion. Be humble before God. Don't be ostentatious in your devotion.
Should be pretty easy for a "perceptive athlete" like Jeremy Lin - right? After all, he did go to Harvard.
"I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is God."
Woops. So much for not being ostentatious in your devotion. Apparenly Mr. Lin needs to brush up on his Sermon on The Mount. Jeremy Lin doesn't just wear his false piety like so much playa bling, he tells us that the maybe most non-pious act possible - playing a basketball game in front of an arena of sports-worshipping idolaters - IS his act of piety. Wow. This is not a guy who has read much Jesus of Nazareth, apparently.
How do you play a professional basketball game for God? Simple: you don't. You don't get three points for shooting a different ball than the other guys are playing with, either. You can't do ostentatious devotion for God. It's against the rules. Jesus said that. I'm an atheist and *I* know that because I've read the Gospel according to Matthew and actually comprehended the words.
Brooks ends with a lot of half-baked Jewish theology and why shouldn't he? What does serving Christ have to do with this picture? Jeremy Lin wants to be a Rich, Neo-Calvinist, Warrior-King Elite like King Saul, King David and every other ambitious American boy - like up-and-coming Neo-Calvinist MegaChurch Leader Mark Driscoll, Mitt Romney or the Koch brothers. Christ doesn't enter into this picture except as an afterthought and window-dressing.
If Jeremy Lin wanted to serve Christ, his life wouldn't be a struggle, it would be a cup running over with opportunity. I'm sure, however, that his life is a struggle - worthy of the wordcraft of a David Brooks. Christ is simple, requires simple things of his followers and offers them transcendent acceptance and love at very low cost. Mammon, on the other hand, is always a cruel, cliquish and fickle taskmaster.
