The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Sports, Politics and War: Morale Matters

Posted on | September 26, 2024 | No Comments

The benefits of having a readership full of nerds is that sometimes they can teach you things, as in this comment on yesterday’s post:

Obscure wargaming reference here. In the old Avalon Hill Game called Kingmaker — a simulation of the Wars of the Roses — one of the most annoying random event cards is “Defeatism Rife”. Worse than “Plague!” and less amusing then “The King Goes Hunting”. No matter how powerful your faction is, you suddenly lose the ability to leverage your offices, bishoprics, and mercenaries. Your winning faction with an military power of 540 is now a weak 40 for a Turn.
In life, defeatism is similar. I love it — in my enemies and rivals. They defeat themselves before I even move against them. That is why despair is a sin — the Sin of Sloth IIRC.

One is reminded of the old adage that England’s wars were won on the playing fields of Eton, by which it was meant that the education system of British leadership caste was such as to instill in young men the attitudes necessary to victory. The old “stiff upper lip” disposition of British officers, the quality of calm amid crisis, the dogged persistence in the face of daunting odds and discouraging setbacks — “the playing fields of Eton” taught those qualities, somehow. If there is any cause to be pessimistic about America’s future, certainly the state of our education system is at the top of the list, because there is no effort to create leadership of that character. Indeed, our education system is run by people who lack patriotism and clearly do not wish to make our nation stronger. How could “gender theory” lectures contribute to such a project?

Whenever the topic turns to tactics and strategy in politics, we naturally borrow our metaphors from sports and warfare, both of which involve competition between rival teams, in which victory requires cooperation — good teamwork — by the winning side. One of the surest harbingers of failure in any such endeavor is when team members cannot restrain their selfish ambitions and suppress their personal pride in the way necessary for successful team cooperation. Think of the numerous humiliations that George S. Patton had to endure — e.g., being sidelined because of controversy over his slapping a soldier he regarded as a cowardly malingerer — before finally getting his chance at military glory. Or think about the “Wilderness Years” of Churchill, when he was frozen out of the Cabinet while Baldwin and Chamberlain pursued a disastrous policy of appeasement. Being able to keep up the fight — to maintain one’s morale — amid such discouragement is the stuff of greatness.

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In any long conflict, history teaches, the leader who emerges victorious at the end usually is someone who was relatively obscure when the conflict began. Prior to the American Civil War, U.S. Grant was certainly not the kind of figure anyone would have expected to end the war as top army commander, and when World War II began, Dwight Eisenhower was not a household name. The lesson history teaches is that men destined for greatness often have to “wait their turn,” to persevere through adversity and overcome disadvantages, in order to find their opportunity.

Carolina Panthers fans were celebrating Sunday after veteran quarterback Andy Dalton threw for 319 yards and three touchdowns to lead their team to their first victory of the season — in fact, their first win since last December. The Panthers had the worst record in the NFL last year (2-15) as No. 1 draft pick quarterback Bryce Young struggled in his rookie season and, by “struggled,” I mean failed. After back-to-back defeats to open this season, Carolina head coach Dave Canales benched Young and brought in Dalton, a 36-year-old who has bounced around the league since his glory days with the Cincinnati Bengals more than a decade ago. Dalton hadn’t done much during stints with Dallas, Chicago and New Orleans, and most NFL fans had figured he was nearing retirement while riding the bench behind the rookie QB Young in Carolina. Would replacing Young with Dalton make a difference for the Panthers, who seemed so lacking in overall talent? I didn’t expect any such thing, but what Andy Dalton did against the Raiders on Sunday was a clinic, a showcase of football excellence that seemed to lift the entire team to new heights. I still don’t think Carolina has a snowball’s chance in hell of making the playoffs, but for one day, Andy Dalton was Hercules in cleats, a demigod hero. (I should be writing scripts for NFL Films.)

That’s the kind of saga that inspires us to hope at times when our situation seems hopeless. There was no reason Panthers fans should have expected that, after more than 15 years in the league, Andy Dalton should suddenly recapture his former Pro Bowl form to spark an upset over the Raiders, and yet that’s what happened. The lession — never get demoralized, Don’t let the “Defeatism Rife” card defeat you.

Also from the comments on yesterday’s post, we were reminded of William Jacobson’s warning against “Operation Demoralize”:

 

Don’t let them demoralize you, and don’t be part of the discouraging chorus of Eeyores, spreading pessimism about the election.



 

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Category: History, Politics

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