Turn that Gaze Inward and Find Real Success

This is the first in an indefinite part series on how sports can teach people lessons about the world OR on how sports can explain the world OR on how the world should take lessons from sports on how to conduct its business.

They didn't give him all those for trying to keep pace with other teams. He focused on doing things the Bruin way.

Photo courtesy of Getreligion.org

If, like me, you peruse the pages of news websites like Cnn.com or Nytimes.com daily, then you know that one country is being spoken about above all as the Chicago Bears to the United States' Green Bay Packers, the Celtics to our Lakers, the Giants to our Dodgers: China. No surprise, right? The U.S. v. China showdown entered the American consciousness seemingly in the 1990s when their economy began growing like Barry Bonds' hat size during that same time. Today, while our economy struggles and that frustration combines with chaotic foreign relations and social issues, Americans gaze in fear at China, as if it might sneak up and smother us in our sleep.

To the common U.S. citizen, China is smarter, more technologically advanced, wiser, more disciplined, and chalked full of the ninja moves and ancient Chinese secrets our televisions tell us each Chinese citizen is given at birth. We point to test scores, economics, science stuff, and pure concocted stories as evidence that America is fading into irrelevance like Tela Tequilla and China is storming ahead like all the newest shitty reality TV "celebrities."

And yet, I have a feeling this fear isn't new for the U.S. My gut and intellect tell me that we've feared the downfall of our "empire" (which could hardly be called an empire as short as its been), since we rose to prominence after WWII. It took the U.S. all of five minutes to enter the Cold War with the Soviet Union based solely on our fear of their growing power (which it turned out wasn't growing as much as rotting from the inside out). When David Hasselhoff single handedly brought down the Berlin Wall, China moved into the American crosshairs, as the newest boogeyman. Essentially we've feared falling ever since we rose.

And why? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that the narratives that exist to present China as the land of golden intellect and unending prosperity are bullshit (especially the education narrative which relies on assessment so out of date with the needs and desires of a progressive education system it's a joke). That's not to say they aren't a nation on the rise in some respects. The probably are. They probably have decent, hard working, well educated people in China. They're probably making better lives for themselves there, in some respects and for some people at least. But does that mean that America has something to fear from them? From every nation on the rise? If so, we're proper fucked.

Luckily, that's not the case. Luckily, we tend to only fear the Communist countries that look threatening to us in some way, though it doesn't bother us enough to stop buying their products. While it's still an important piece of our fear among policy makers, I think China's communism doesn't bother the average American much. I think their prosperity does, and I think that fear makes us do some pretty stupid things ... like the No Child Left Behind Act. When we take part in reactionary policy making, like NCLBA, because we fear the results of a perceived "competition," we hurt ourselves by ignoring one of the basic rules of sports: Don't worry about what the other team is doing. Worry about what you're doing.

The best coaches in the world do not care about what other teams are doing. They game plan, yes, but they don't let the moves of the other team dictate the type of team they will be. Bad teams do this all the time. They try to run on bad catchers, even when they haven't stolen a base all season. They try to throw against poor secondaries with the leagues worst quarterback. Good teams focus on what they're doing to make themselves better. Getting better as a team requires focus and understanding of the type of team one has. Coaches work on weaknesses and emphasize strengths all with the goal of being the best team they can possibly be. John Wooden never spoke about winning and losing. He spoke about being the best team they could be because they could control that. If they're the best team they can be, they can't really control the winning and losing.

More important than the nuts and bolts of reactionary strategies is the mindset that comes from worrying about what another team/country is doing. Should it matter where the U.S. is in relation to China in some socially and arbitrarily constructed power rankings? Of course not, and focusing on that will only hurt the team we have. If we know what we want the U.S. to look like, not in relation to China or any other country but in relation to where we are now, why not simply set out to make that so? Why focus on the status of "most powerful nation" when that focus only hurts the cause of making our country better for its citizens?

It's funny because those who seek to make this country the most powerful in the world only hurt their cause by constructing this competitive relationship. They participate in reactionary policy making, like opening trade channels with China in the first place, and create problems where they never existed--outside the crazy folds of their gin soaked gray matter.

It's clear now that NCLB and increased trade with China, which shipped millions of manufacturing jobs overseas with disappointing return in the form of a new consumer market, were bad, reactionary that hurt the average American. It stunted the average American education and shrank the job market. We need to shift our gaze. Quit worrying so much about what our status is, as compared with other countries, and worry about what we can do to make the lives of our citizenry better. How is our country unique and in what ways might we take advantage of that uniqueness? How might we cater to the unique needs of our people? We don't need to educate the way the Chinese educate or install economic policy to combat theirs. We need to follow the mantra of the great teams in history and worry about us.