The End of Expectations
The issue, which Phillips and so many media yakking heads continually gloss over, is whether Martin’s reaction, however genuine, was appropriate to the stimulus that prompted it, given what we as a society expect from adults of Martin’s age. Phillips and others cannot see to this point – to this class of person (which tends to be liberal), there is no such thing as how a person ought to feel, there is only how they do feel. And if how they feel is genuine, however irrational, then it needs to be “honored” and coddled.
A society cannot long survive in the complete absence of expectations about behavior in response to stimuli. If no one can ever say, “Hey man, you need to throttle it back, as a grown adult you should be able to handle this,” without themselves being the bad guy in the situation, we may as well all pack it up and go home. We had a nice run, America, time to let someone else have a try.
And it’s perfectly appropriate to say, as New York Giants offensive lineman Antrel Rolle did, that Incognito’s actions were deplorable, while at the same time recognizing that as an adult, people are always going to try to push your boundaries, and your reaction to that can’t always be to capitulate and surrender. And in fact, when we see someone’s reaction that seems so out of bounds in terms of proportion to the stimuli that caused it, it’s definitely probative as to whether we believe the genuineness of the reaction, especially when contradictory evidence continues to surface indicating that Martin may not have been as upset about the text messages as he is now claiming at the time he received him, and given that Martin’s play on the field was roundly criticized before this incident ever occurred.
And yes, we should all be glad that if Martin was in the middle of a breakdown, he went to the hospital rather than getting a gun and shooting up the Dolphins’ locker room, as some have suggested. But does that mean that we can under no circumstances say, “Great, Jonathan, but maybe next time let’s work on some coping skills so you don’t have to go to the hospital next time you get a mean text message?” While we are busy burying the Dolphins’ organization for failure of oversight (over what two fully grown adults were doing over the privacy of a cell phone connection), can we at least ask whether Martin’s family, college, and high school coaches ought to have better prepared him to handle himself when someone upset him?
To Brian Phillips and so many others in the sports media, the answer is a resounding “no.” For the sake of America, I hope the answer on main street where everyday people live continues to be yes, in spite of the tsking we will undoubtedly take from our betters on the TV screen. Otherwise, every man for himself, straight to the breakdown lane.
