he rules
of basketball have changed often over the years, so I hope
no one will object if I offer a few modest revisions to make
this truly wonderful game even better:
First, I would
charge an admission fee not only to watch the game but to
play in it. And the more one pays, the longer one gets to
stay in the game.
Second, there
should be a price paid for each shot taken, and the easier
the shot, the more it should cost.
Third, as for
fouls, one should be able to pay the referees, so that they
never call any fouls on you (or walking or double dribble
violations for that matter).
Fourth - and
maybe most important - there is no good reason that the
baskets should be the same height for both teams. It should
be possible for the team that pays more to have its basket
lowered, and for double that amount to have the basket the
other team is going for raised.
Under present
rules, those players who are taller and better coordinated
and can run faster and jump higher have all the advantages.
My rules would exchange the advantages enjoyed by these
people for other advantages that would benefit a different
group, one that has been poorly served by basketball as now
played. That group is the rich. With my rules, the rich
would possess all the "talent" (what it takes to win) and -
more in keeping with what occurs in the rest of society -
never lose a game.
"Whoa", I can
hear some readers saying, "how is this going to make
basketball a BETTER game"? Well, that depends, doesn't
it, on what you think the game is all about, and on what
you take to be its main purpose or meaning. Sure, one of
the main things basketball does is enable us to have fun.
But, like all games, basketball also provides people with a
simplified model of how society works and - implicitly and
often explicitly - how to get ahead in such a society. It
does this through its rules and through what people do and
experience when following (or watching others follow) these
rules, and in the assumptions it encourages people to make
regarding the relevance of these experiences for the rest of
life. Basketball, then, is as much about education as it is
about fun. Education is part of the deeper meaning of
basketball. As a teacher, I take this pedogogical function
of games like basketball very seriously. Well, how accurate
a picture does basketball, as presently constituted, give us
of the world in which we live? Or - put a little differently
- try calling a foul on your boss or landlord and see what
happens to you.
Games, of
course, receive a lot of help in socializing young people to
systematically misunderstand their society from schools,
churches, families, media, government and market exchanges,
but only games are able to use the pleasure they generate to
hide what it is they teach. Believing that what is so much
fun cannot be part of education (something associated with
schools, reading and tests) games have been spared most of
the critical probing directed at these other means of
socialization. However, if the ideas acquired at moments
of pleasure are - as I suspect - both easier to learn and
harder to discard, then treating basketball as if it were -
well - ONLY a game marks an ideological surrender of
monumental proportions.
The new rules
that I have suggested for basketball would change all that.
People who played or watched my version of the game would no
longer expect being swift and agile along with persistence,
teamwork and fair play to bring them success in life, but
would learn something about how our society really works-
$$$$$$$$$. Playing basketball by my rules would help prepare
young people for life in capitalist society and, eventually,
for doing away with what they found unfair and oppressive,
rather than miseducating them about what the future holds
in store. Admittedly, the game might be a little less fun,
but in the process the naïve mantra, "Keep hope alive" would
give way to the political imperative, "Organize to bring
about the changes that you want".
At this point,
some readers are probably thinking that if basketball is
such bad education maybe we should get rid of it altogether.
I would be inclined to agree if I didn't detect another
equally important, equally hidden meaning in the game, and
this time one that is wholly positive. To get at what it is
we need only ask - what do both players and spectators enjoy
most about basketball? I don't think it is the slam dunk or
even the occasional circus shot. Rather, what really
excites most of us about basketball is good teamwork, the
times when the ball moves around between three, four and
even five players, whose movements are perfectly
coordinated, and the prize is an uncontested shot at the
basket. Each player's skills, court sense and timing are on
display, but it only "works" when the movements of each
individual are transformed into the movement of a group,
when the team as such rather than the individuals who
compose it comes into focus. Putting our physical and mental
energies into such successful acts of cooperation is very
satisfying. It is also very unusual because there are few
occasions in life where such intense cooperation is
possible, and its fruits so immediate and evident. For
players and viewers alike, it is a utopian moment, where
they catch a glimpse of something wonderful, an ideal of
community, that disappears as quickly as it appeared.
If basketball
offers us this kind of utopian moment, why don't we hunger
for more? I think we do, but for most of us it's disguised.
We are not quite sure what it is that gives us this high, so
we have trouble pinpointing what exactly is missing from
the rest of our lives. According to this interpretation of
its broader meaning, basketball is not so much a distorted
education of what society is like but a utopian ideal of
what it should be like. In truth, basketball contains both
of these moments which are in an uneasy contradiction with
each other, just as each is in striking contradiction with
the laws and customs of the society in which the game is
played. The one, treating basketball as education, that is
taking seriously its role in teaching us how society works
and how to get ahead in such a society, calls for changing
the rules to make basketball more like life; while the
other, treating it as a utopian ideal, calls for trying to
make life more like basketball. The choice before us, then,
would appear to be whether to keep society as it is and
revise (as I tried above) the rules of basketball (which
would probably make the game a little less fun to play), or
to keep basketball as it is and radically alter our society
(which would retain or even increase all the fun). What
cannot be chosen - not if we wish to be consistent and not
if we wish to avoid constant frustration - is simply leaving
things as they are, where basketball delivers poor education
at the same time that it provokes unresolved utopian
yearnings. I have already addressed what we could do to make
basketball more like life, but what is involved in making
life more like basketball?
The
cooperation that we idealize in the game of basketball is
essential to any functioning democracy. It is also at the
core of what is still the best definition of "democracy":
Abraham Lincoln's "government of, by and for the people".
We in the U.S. have a democracy of sorts, but it is quite
limited in scope and seriously flawed even in the political
sphere where it does apply - as evidenced by the recent
events in Florida and the obscene influence of big money in
our elections. Still, despite such qualifications - and
there are more - at least politically, we can be said to
enjoy some kind of democracy. But work, education, culture,
health, housing and communications are other important areas
of our lives, and in every one of them a few people over
whom we have no control simply tell us what to do. There is
no accountability, no elections, no participation in
decision making, and no chance to cooperate and experience
the power and satisfaction that comes with cooperation.
Rather than democracy, something akin to feudal relations
rule over our social interactions in all these areas. Are we
missing something? You bet we are, and the intense pleasure
we get from being involved in or just watching good teamwork
in basketball suggests that somewhere down inside us we know
that, and even yearn for a life that would provide more
opportunities to experience such positive feelings.
The comedian
and political activist, Dick Gregory, said, "If democracy is
such a good thing, let's have more of it". Seems obvious
enough, and that certainly would increase the opportunities
for people to cooperate and enjoy the psychic benefits that
come with it. But what kind of society is it that "extends
democracy into all walks of life"? According to Norman
Thomas, a Protestant minister and one-time leader of the
American Socialist Party, that's the best possible
definition of "socialism". Could it be that the deepest,
most hidden, and most profound meaning of basketball, one
that underlies and helps explain its contradictory functions
as miseducation and utopian ideal, is - socialism?
Unfortunately, few of the people who love teamwork in
basketball, which hides their desire for more cooperation in
life, which in turn calls for the spread of democracy
throughout society, are likely to admit that what they
really want - and need - is socialism. For them, the term
has been too sullied by the caricatures of socialism found
in a few Third World countries, which were too poor for
socialist relations to take root, and in our own capitalist
media (and what other kind of media are there?), whose
owners are too rich to tell the truth on this subject. But
if the deepest meaning of basketball is - socialism, then
why not exchange the term "socialism" in our discussion of
what to do for the term "basketball"?
Our goal? To
make all of life as interesting, as fair, as cooperative and
as much fun as basketball, whose rules and mode of play
would then serve as excellent education for life in such a
society. Our motto? "Basketball players of the world
unite; you have nothing to lose but your coaches, your
bosses and your landlords." Now there's a game - and a world
- worth celebrating.
Bertell Ollman is
a professor in the Department of Politics at NYU. He
has published over a dozen books on Marxist theory and
socialism, the most recent of which is
Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method.
For his writings, see:
www.dialecticalmarxism.com.
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