Tiger Woods And The Morality Play

If there's something to be said about Tiger Woods - and count me among those who think most of what's happened speaks for itself just fine without my help - perhaps the most indicative of the moment we're in is how reaction to his troubles is a reminder of the conservative crackup, particularly when it comes to the "values agenda."

For a long time, conservative moralism was one of the right's most successful weapons; agree or disagree with their "traditional morals" viewpoint, one had to admit that complaints of loose morality, enshrinement of poor values, and our general cultural interest in salaciousness did make a point, one that was hard to beat back.

And it's not, as some suggest, simply the steady drumbeat of conservative mess-ups that has undermined the morality play as much as the fact that the shattering of conservative unity has revealed that on the right, as much or more than on the left, there's no firm agreement on just what the "morals" are supposed to be, or when "bad morals" utterly disqualify someone from any defense of decency.

That muddle has been especially true in the days since Tiger Woods crashed his car outside his house, and a world of sneak around infidelities has been revealed. The question isn't who's trying to excuse Woods' behavior - since almost no one is trying to call it acceptable or okay - but the struggle to explain exactly what's wrong, and why, and what it's supposed to mean in a cultural context. And it's telling, I think, that just as no one wants to defend what Woods has done, over the years, few seem to be able to explain exactly why these public revelations should have an impact on his career in golf.

And the dirtiest secret on the morality front is... that's probably because they won't, or shouldn't.

The fact that Woods has decided to take an "indefinite break" from professional golf sort of relieves everyone of having to decide an opinion on how to take the next appearance of Woods on a course, which is surely a relief. One could point out it's probably the power of personal shame. But mostly... it looks like another careful business decision.

That central coldness to the business of Tiger Woods - the fact that he rarely seemed warm or approachable as a celebrity, but seemed to prefer his pursuit of success in golf while keeping his distance from fans and reporters - was part of the way he stood out in celebrity culture. To me, it was always part of the odd, not entirely likable quality he seemed to possess: you could admire, in a technical way, his prowess, but it was hard to warm up to him. I admired his golf skills... but I was never sure that he was, in fact, a nice person, exactly.

And I think the cold, businesslike approach of Woods to his work has made the usual conservative moralizing rather pointless; in order for their usual charges of lax morals and liberal permissiveness to have some juice, the celebrity in question (whether Hollywood or politics or sports) has to be, in a cultural way, more central, more approachable. Mark Sanford - who managed about the only upstaging moment in this drmatic week of revelations by his wife filing for divorce - just as one example, was a charismatic politician with an exciting future in national races, liked by many in a personal way. Moralizing on his affair was thus easier, and more about some sort of betrayal of public trust.

To be sure, there's still a conservative morality play - Sean Hannity has taken up the story at length, the New York Post's ever reliable Andrea Peyser has weighed in, as well as others. But the effect has been fitful - lots of people won't touch the story, or won't write the usual boilerplate about what Tiger demonstrates about loose morals. In some ways, the attack is too easy. In others, tying Tiger to "liberal permissiveness" doesn't really work - there's almost no one to say "hey, that's no big deal." Except, well, the kind of older white men who are golf's central fan base. Notice how Rush Limbaugh - an avid golfer - has been pretty much dead silent?

The conservative morality play has always been a dilemma of hypocrisy versus decency; there's nothing especially wrong, or controversial, in saying there are societal norms and not all defiance of them is saluatory. But few of us, really, are in a position to judge; personal morality is about personal choices, about what you can live with, and what you can't accept. As much as conservatives could score some cheap points lambasting individual sexual peccadilloes, the actual business of raising cultural moral standards has never really happened; we are a sleazier, smuttier culture today, in many ways, than we ever were before. And the questions of what we can accept as morally okay - the relaxation of judgments about sexuality, gender roles, even nudity or sexually acting out - have generally loosened, not gotten less tolerant.

At the same time, conservative unity on much of this has shattered; the revelations of affairs and bad behavior, from Mark Sanford and John Ensign to Mark Foley and David Vitter, have complicated efforts to make this a simple left vs. right idea of a moral compass. Bad behavior abounds. And it's led people, left and right, to ask not whether we have a problem with affairs and such... but why we should care enough to even look. Years of salacious, sleazy gossip have led more people to the kind of "enough already" that's been around all along: more than anything... we'd rather not know. That's not to say affairs and sleeping around are suddenly okay to everyone... but what we don't know, we really don't have to judge. And the disdain for conservative moralizing, I think, has always been not about the morality, but the urge to impose a judgment on what others do. Who are we to judge?  What sets anyone in the position of moral arbiter, above everyone else?

As for Tiger Woods, I think what's struck me in the past couple of weeks is his passivity - his golf success, his unique sort of fame sort fo came to him; it's hard to say he chased it, or wanted it. Indeed, his story strikes me as a reminder to ask, harder, about whether drilling kids into becoming child prodigies is a healthy activity; I've never been entirely convinced that Tiger's golf career wasn't more about pleasing others - his dad for starters - than about knowing what he wanted for himself. The tidal wave of affairs, pursuit of strangers... what's striking in the revelations, to me, is how they too reflect no clear sense of what he wants, but a somewhat juvenile interest in getting whatever one can, behavior of someone who's never enitirely had to grow up. In the end, that's not a question of morals... that's just a question of maturing.  But then... who am I to judge?

Comments

[jinb]

a world of sneak

me likey.

[Jeremy]

Tiger Woods is just another covert operative used to distract the public from the real issues.

http://areyoutargeted.com/2009/12/12/tiger-woods-the-covert-operative/