The new principles that Simone Biles is introducing into sport may be more humane, more compassionate, and even more just than the outlook that demands any sacrifice in the pursuit of victory, but they may also shine with a less radiant luster.

I have no wish to add my voice to the chorus of praise and gratitude directed toward Simone Biles any more than I wish to condemn, or even to criticize, her decision to withdraw from the Olympic Games. I am not competent to offer a judgment or even to render an opinion one way or the other. More perhaps than compassion at what must be a painful time in her life, Ms. Biles deserves privacy. She will not get it. Willingly or unwillingly, she has for many years lived in the glare of a public scrutiny that is by turns celebratory and unforgiving, and she will have to endure the consequences now. In a more civilized world and a more dignified age—and let me mince no words: we are retreating from civilization and dignity—Ms. Biles, even as a public figure, would have been afforded a measure of privacy to keep her difficulties to herself. Today that expectation is laughably archaic and quaint. To make matters worse, or at least to make them more complicated, Ms. Biles has also become an ideological cudgel that pundits on both sides can use to assail their enemies, one more agony that has resulted from our choice to live shamelessly politicized lives.

Ms. Biles is a hero to some and a coward to others. She has either bravely abandoned competition to focus on her own welfare, demonstrating thereby that it is the person and not just the athlete who matters. Alternately, she is a despicable example of weakness and selfishness. It was her country that she deserted when summoned to represent it before the world. Neither argument matters very much. They reveal far more about those who make them than they do about Simone Biles, the person or the athlete. In one respect, is it any wonder that Ms. Biles, like so many others, has had to confront her demons? The inexorable pace, clamor, and tumult of our lives are driving ordinary people mad. Why should Ms. Biles, her vast celebrity and exquisite talents notwithstanding, remain immune and unaffected as the extraordinary pressures of her life begin to accumulate?

Yet, wherever one’s sympathies may lie, there are troubling aspects to this episode that we have ignored. We may find reassurance and comfort in the conviction that we are at last gaining new insights into the fragility and importance of mental and emotional health. But what are we in danger of losing? What might we already have lost? In “The Moral Equivalent of War,” among the last essays he published before he died in 1910, the eminent philosopher and psychologist William James contemplated similar questions. A pacifist, James himself, like his brother Henry, took no part in the Civil War, the tragic drama that his generation had to face. Their father discouraged, if he did not prevent, their enlistment. He did, by contrast, allow their younger brothers Garth Wilkinson and Robertson (Wilkie and Bob as they were known in the family) to join the Union army, although at sixteen, Robertson was underage. Both served as officers in the 54th and 55th Massachusetts volunteers, black regiments that John A. Andrew, the abolitionist governor of Massachusetts, had organized. They saw action in the island campaigns off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, where Wilkie suffered a nearly fatal wound that doubtless contributed to his early death at the age of thirty-eight.

Witnessing his brother’s long, slow, excruciating, and ultimately incomplete recovery, and painfully aware that his duties as a son may have compromised his duties as a man and citizen, William developed a conflicted vision of war. War, he concluded, was not only destructive, it was also barbarous. But martial values such as “intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command,” were the “enduring cement” of civilized society, “the rock upon which states are built.” James thought it imperative then that Americans discover or create a moral equivalent of war. He was right and wrong.

James appreciated that “so far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community.” But given the unacceptable costs of war, James instead proposed to conscript “the whole youthful population” as an “army enlisted against Nature” enjoined to perform the always difficult and often unheralded work that would “get the childishness knocked out of them.” More than a century later, James’s sympathetic reconsideration of martial virtues has been a spectacular failure. Nothing, no idea, no initiative, no program, has managed to overcome or even to temper Americans’ stubborn individualism or to identify and fulfill a national purpose. For the moment, I proffer no comment on the seemingly relentless American immaturity.

The fault may lie, in part, with James’s conception of war itself. Unless I am misrepresenting his argument, he wrote as if the purpose of war was solely to “discipline a whole community,” not to accomplish some other objective for which wars are fought such as, for instance, conquest, liberation, or the defeat of an enemy. James also never seems to have questioned the benefit of developing a national purpose, as if, propelled by national interests, governments strive always and ever to benefit their citizens and to improve the world. The idea of a unified people disciplined and obedient in their pursuit of a national goal has threatened at least as often as it has enhanced civilized life.

If James’s ideal of a moral equivalent of war has a lingering appeal it may be in the intellectual and spiritual discipline that such a commitment requires. During the NBA Championship Series in 1970 between the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers, Willis Reed, the Knicks’ all-star center, suffered a torn muscle in his right thigh. With the Knicks leading the series three games to two, Reed sat out game five. The Lakers prevailed. The Knicks had no answer for the redoubtable Wilt Chamberlain, who dominated play. Chamberlain scored 45 points and collected 27 rebounds. No one, apparently not even his teammates, believed that Reed would or could play in game seven. The emotional inspiration that he provided them when he hobbled onto the court to complete his warm-ups and to start the game propelled the Knicks to their first NBA championship.

The implicit comparison of Willis Reed to Simone Biles may seem unfitting. Since our metaphoric language describing feats of courage and heroism is unequivocally gendered—we are told, after all, to “man up”—it may seem that I am exalting a masculine over a feminine paradigm. (There are, of course, other, more vulgar expressions to the same point that I am choosing to ignore.) Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who thinks that women are incapable of achieving magnificence and glory in sport and life has not been paying attention. Although deserving of induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame and inclusion among the fifty greatest players in this history of the National Basketball Association, Reed never reshaped his sport in the way that Ms. Biles has reoriented hers.

Even if she never again competes, Ms. Biles is among the most gifted and elegant athletes of her, or any, generation. She has accomplished exploits in gymnastics once thought impossible and that others will not soon equal or exceed. She has nothing to prove, nothing to justify, and nothing for which she needs apologize. It may also be that in retreating from the Olympics she has once more established a new standard—this time a standard of justice and humanity in the understanding and treatment of athletes. She may, as Robert O’Connell has written in The Atlantic, have “revised the language of greatness, positioning it as something to be tended to and mindfully maintained, not drawn on ad nauseam. Her most telling words rejected the false dichotomy between personal well-being and professional excellence, instead pointing to the former as a precondition of the latter.” I am prepared neither to discount the possibility nor to dismiss the salutary consequences that may result. Hers could be the form of greatness and happiness that is appropriate for her time and her generation to which former standards of judgment have no relevance.

My hope is only that there is still a little room left for another standard, the one that Willis Reed exemplified more than fifty years ago. Mr. Reed’s most important, and perhaps his only, opponent that night in Madison Square Garden was not the Los Angeles Lakers. It was himself. He could dull his pain with injections. Subduing his expectations of defeat and humiliation required something more. He had first to triumph over himself; he had first to set aside his looming fears before he could attempt to defeat the Lakers. His was an act of will, fortitude, resilience, selflessness, and discipline of mind and soul comparable to what James recommended in “The Moral Equivalent of War.” Prepared thus to conduct the business at hand, the body followed. “I didn’t want to have to look at myself in the mirror twenty years later,” Reed explained, “and say I wished I had tried to play.”

Mr. Reed’s decision did not produce the greatest moment in the history of sports or even in the history of basketball. He scored only four points and had only three rebounds, far below his usual level of performance. But game seven of the 1970 NBA Finals was Mr. Reed’s moment and he rose to meet it, giving everything he had to offer. No one has the right to expect more. It was enough. While Mr. Reed in all likelihood was trying just to get through the experience without causing further injury or embarrassing himself, his teammates, or the game to which he had devoted his life, his performance at the same time contained the rudiments of a moral education. It was ennobling.

The new principles that Ms. Biles along with tennis star Naomi Osaka are introducing into sport may be more humane, more compassionate, and even more just than the outlook that demands any sacrifice in the pursuit of victory, but they may also shine with a less radiant luster. They may bring greater security and contentment, but they may also exact a price, depriving athletes and spectators alike of those rare and fleeting moments of brilliance of which the human spirit is capable only under the duress of adverse conditions. For human beings by their nature respond more readily to need than to abundance, more decisively to obligation than to caprice, more ardently to the failure of today than to the promise of tomorrow.

A few months ago, I read of experiments conducted during the 1980s in Biosphere Two. Among them, scientists planted trees under what seemed optimal conditions, supplying the perfect balance of light, water, and nutrients. The trees grew to a lofty stature before toppling over, unable to support their own weight. Apparently trees need the stress that only the wind can provide to grow the durable and intricate root systems that keep them upright. Without it, they die. Life, it turns out, is literally rooted in adversity and struggle.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

The featured image, uploaded by Agência Brasil Fotografias, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

All comments are moderated and must be civil, concise, and constructive to the conversation. Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved, but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published. Also, comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved. Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email