This is a guest post by Brett Maverick Musser. A University of Florida graduate, Brett is a self-proclaimed gluten-free radical feminist who will be pursuing his Juris Doctor at the University of San Diego come fall.
The type of attention Lebron James has received since his high school basketball career reveals as much about us as it reveals about him.
We have canonized him.
Paradoxically, however, we’ve also stripped him of the luxury of human error, essentially dehumanizing a man we’ve placed on an impossibly high pedestal.
We haven’t allowed him to be a human being because he’s supposed to be a god, the savior of a beleaguered city. And a savior doesn’t have flaws, a superhero doesn’t lose, and a god doesn’t make mistakes.
***
LeBron James is without a doubt the best basketball player in the world and arguably one of the greatest athletes in history.
Raised in a tough part of Northeastern Ohio by a struggling single mother, the likelihood of young LeBron James succeeding was close to zero. You don’t need a sociology degree to understand how unlikely his rise to superstardom has been.
From the very beginning, he was recognized as an athletic prodigy. There was no being cut from the varsity team in the 10th grade, like Michael Jordan. There was no being overlooked by college basketball scouts, like Steph Curry. For much of his most formative years success is all he knew. And not just success but overwhelming success with an unprecedented amount of media and social media attention. It’s so hard for any of us to really imagine what he has been through because success on that scale is so foreign to almost everyone on the planet.
It makes it almost impossible to empathize with him but I would challenge everyone to do so. It might sound strange but success on a massive scale is extremely hard to deal with for any human being let alone someone from a challenging background.
Via: wikimedia
What’s more impressive than his athletic achievements is his ability to maintain sanity through all of it. We’ve seen what extreme success and being under constant scrutiny from a young age can do to the human psyche. (Think Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, etc.)
LeBron James grew up with that kind of media scrutiny at all times from a very young age, with everyone telling him how great he was at all times coupled with the expectations of being the best that ever played the game of basketball. No small task even for someone as genetically gifted as him. The mental pressure is really unfathomable and a testament to how unique of a person he is.
He arouses great emotion, from outright idolatry to seething hatred, which can only be described as toxic. He is one of the most polarizing athletes ever by a healthy margin.
It’s way too much for anyone to handle yet, LeBron has at least been able to make it look like he has it somewhat together.
He hasn’t been arrested for anything. There are really no controversies of any consequence are attributable to him. He has two sons, a daughter and a wife of who he is extremely supportive. He’s professional on and off the court. His greatest flaws are changing organizations multiple times and thinking highly of himself.
If anyone is allowed to be conceited, shouldn’t it be someone like him? Yet he’s often criticized for his arrogance. Should he fake humility instead? Then he’d be crucified as “fake” or “disingenuous” or what have you.
We expect him to transcend humanness.
Via: rashad53.deviantart
The obsession over individual perfection and individual achievement in this country is troubling.
We seem to be trying to replace a religious God with some other transcendental being, be it in politics, entertainment or sports. It’s like we are yearning for someone to aspire to, who can prove, once and for all, that perfection is in fact attainable. Yet when our saviors let us down, we throw a fit as if it’s surprising.
Our obsession with individual achievement is misplaced and delusional.
The mythology of individual achievement that surrounds Michael Jordan is case in point and a key reason for the visceral hatred of LeBron James. Jordan is believed to be by many, including myself, to be the best basketball player of all time (but I would remind everyone that LBJ is only 30 years old).
But you would swear by listening to the commentary about Jordan, he never missed a shot in the playoffs, played every game with the flu, never misspoke in his life, accomplished everything on his own and always hit the last shot.
The truth of the matter is, for as magnificent as Michael Jordan was, he did miss shots, he has character flaws and he had a tremendous support system behind every one of his successes and multiple failures throughout his life. We’ve moved into this weird social environment where the people at the very top are given complete credit or complete blame for their successes and failures. There really is no recognition of others who contributed or the circumstances winners lucked into.
It’s all about one person’s actions as if it all happens in a vacuum and they are in control of every factor.
Via: Flickr
It’s a dangerous way to look at the world, especially when failure is such a big part of life. Success is the exception, not the rule, and a lot of it has to do with you, but just as much does not.
We also have to remember that LeBron James plays a sport, something that he and other professional athletes know yet others that don’t play can’t seem to grasp. They actually have a life outside of the game. Sport is a metaphor for life — really nothing more than that. If you start to take it too seriously when you’re so far removed, it becomes childish and a reflection of how you have placed yourself in the competition with some elaborate cognitive jiu jitsu.
The adulation we give these guys is absurd and the hatred we spew is sickening. They are two sides of the same coins.
These guys for all intents and purposes are freaks of nature who won the genetic lottery.
What’s commendable is the amount of hard work and pain they have to go through to get to their levels. Beyond that, the admiration is misplaced and can be harmful to the admirer and the admired.
Hopefully we can move past this deification of other human beings. I don’t count on it, but I hope that people recognize the circus that is our obsession with certain individuals. Their deification leads to their dehumanization. It’s not healthy for them and it’s not healthy for us.
History more than demonstrates that.
Featured image courtesy of: Flickr
