My parents tell me there used to be a time when it was hard to be a jackass.
The problem wasn’t necessarily a lack of willing participants (in the long history of the world, the human race has never wanted for ignorance). Rather, the constraining factor was a social environment that disincentivized displays of stupidity. Through sheer force of collective human spirit, my parents tell me, we were able to push problematic ideologies, flagrantly immoral beliefs, and generally gross displays of sensitive masculinity straight into the societal gutter where they belonged.
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The reason wasn’t high-mindedness, it wasn’t sanctimony, and it certainly wasn’t hegemony. It was something much simpler: shame.
On Sunday afternoon at Shinnecock, the crowds at the U.S. Open showed us that if shame ever really did exist, it has long since left us. For the second time at a major golf event on Long Island in the last 10 months, the fans in attendance spent most of the afternoon proudly bearing their ignorance, loudly rooting against the wire-to-wire winner (and several other players, including Rory McIlroy) in a way that forced the USGA to deliver a mid-tournament apology via NBC.
The 24 hours since have featured no shortage of hand-wringing over the whole affair, including several suggestions that Long Island be banned from the major championship rota altogether. As a Long Islander who is proud of his golfing heritage and the people who protect it, I’m galled by those suggestions. As a journalist who has witnessed both major Long Island golf events of the last 12 months up close, I can’t say I disagree with them.
The crowds at Shinnecock were not the worst I’ve seen at a golf tournament. They were not especially vile or “over the line.” Nobody yelled in a backswing or cursed out a parent. In fact, for a few seconds on Sunday, I realized that I wasn’t really hearing the jeers because I have grown so accustomed to them. And then I thought for a few seconds more, and I realized that I felt shame. Is the only time we can agree the house is on fire after it has already been scorched to the ground?
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I came of age in the time of social media. I was in high school when I made my first accounts on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. We didn’t know anything about algorithms then, we were just posting into the abyss. Tech leaders made the idea of the “virtual town hall” sound exciting and civic-minded, and for a little while we proved them right. Then, after we were addicted, we realized we were condemned to spend the rest of time remembering why nobody likes attending town halls in the first place: The most obnoxious people tend to do the most speaking.
On Sunday at the U.S. Open, we saw what happens when our lives revolve around those “virtual town halls” — and when those town halls have altered their rules to intentionally inflame every one of our sensibilities. The audience was not cheering but dunking. The yellers were not fans but commenters. The players inside the ropes were not people at all.
To be alive is a beautiful thing, and to be alive outside the ropes on Sunday at U.S. Open is particularly vibrant. There is a beautiful, historic golf course on display, an incredible achievement in the offing, and a whole bunch of regular guys competing to see the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. To flatten that experience into our internet cubbyholes of virtue and anger — and then to act on those feelings in broad daylight without an ounce of empathy for the shared humanity of the people around you? It is not just wrong, it’s sad.
My parents tell me there has never been a time when empathy was a strength. It has always been something to work toward, slowly and often painfully. It was worth it because it brought us closer to one another, and whether you believe in a god or not, there was something holy about the experience of being known.
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Still, if we could not bring ourselves to empathy — because of a feeling we could not buck or a contender in a golf tournament we did not particularly like — there was a time when we could still force ourselves to find our better angels.
Not because we were better, smarter, or knew more. But because we felt an emotion that appears to be fading only in the people who need it most — a feeling that will be familiar to too many golf fans on U.S. Open Monday morning on Long Island and all over the world.
Shame.
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