Ayn Rand liked baseball.
Actually, I don’t know whether the imperious author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and deific apologist of objectivism liked the game at all, but according to a writer associated with the Ayn Rand Institute, she very well should have. Thomas A. Bowden writes in his website editorial, “The Lure of Baseball,” that baseball and spectator sports in general represent everything good and pure about being human.
And after another fine World Series with an underdog champ and plenty of late-inning heroics, I’m inclined to agree: Baseball is really great.
But if all Bowden has to say is “baseball is really great,” chances are the Ayn Rand Institute wouldn’t have a whole lot of use for this guy beyond having him devise an alternative use for the scores of leftover boxes of Rational Self-Interest: The Board Game. You see, Rand and Bowman’ s idea of what’s good and pure about being human tends to differ from that of most people (e.g. those with a conscience).
To Bowden, baseball isn’t great because it offers the chance to memorize mountains of statistics or enjoy Peter Gammons on a nightly basis. Baseball is great because its rules are explicit and fair, handicaps are overcome rather than rewarded, various physical and mental feats are glorified and because in the end people can sit back and enjoy it “for no other purpose than their own personal enjoyment.” Watching baseball is great, says Bowden, because it can “illustrate, in a dramatic way, the process of human goal-achievement.”
I suppose that’s something I can get behind?the Angels certainly achieved its goal of a World Championship through a fine process, and in a dramatic fashion, too! But there’s more. “Ultimately, sporting events like the World Series offer a microcosmic vision of what ‘real life’ could, and should, be like,” says Bowden.
I have some bad news for Bowden: You’re going to have to stomach a lot more than you bargained for if this is this world you idealize.
In such a world, until 30 years ago, if you wanted to “goal-achieve,” you were the property of the people you agreed to “achieve goals” for.
In such a world, if you decide you want to “goal-achieve” for yourself, the 30 current “goal-achievers” have to agree to let you first.
In such a world, if you want to “goal-achieve” in places like Minnesota or Montreal, you can’t?not because you aren’t good at “goal-achieving,” but because no one cares you’re “goal-achieving.”
In such a world, it costs so much to park your car, get into the “goal-achievement” stadium, and get something to eat that the vast majority of people who get to enjoy “goal-achieving” first-hand are rich and white.
In such a world, your boss could be a soulless, success-eschewing, bottom-line oriented jackass (cough, Jerry Reinsdorf, cough).
Ayn Rand herself probably wouldn’t be so opposed to any of this?that is, as long as it’s done under that all-encompassing aegis of “rational self-interest.” But to me, and to a lot of other sports fans (and non-sports fans, for that matter), Bowden’s ideal fails to resemble any sort of world we’d want to live in.
When spring training rolls around next year, do yourself a favor and leave the platitudes and overanalysis to George Will. Love the game in spite of its flaws, like I and most baseball fans do. Don’t ignore them, and please don’t glorify them.
Plus, if baseball’s so great for the objectivist’s soul, why the hell are the Cubans so good at it?
