Coach Mac’s mistake

Yesterday my wife and I watched an old episode of Friday Night Lights (S01E16). For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it centers around a high school football team called the Panthers in a small town in Texas. For the purpose of this post, it’s not really important that you know all the characters.

First of all, the background: Coach Mac is goaded and manipulated into saying something racist to reporters. He’s not really a racist, although he recognizes that he has some tendencies toward that because of his upbringing. And after he makes his remarks, he recognizes that he made a mistake—both in terms of what he said to the reporters and in terms of some of his own underlying prejudicial beliefs. His remarks stir up a huge controversy at the school and in the town, and many of the black and Hispanic players on the team speak out publicly against Mac.  The revolt is lead by the black player, Smash, one team’s stars.

The troopers’ mistake

The Panthers go to an away game (the quarter-finals!), and barely win against a team which plays very dirty, and referees who are clearly biased and unfair. The game ends with a huge brawl started by the other team. Finally the Panthers leave the town with jeering and hateful crowds screaming at them and calling for revenge.

On the bus trip home, two state troopers from the losing town pull the bus over and demand to take custody of Smash, who had scored the winning touchdown. Obviously they mean him harm. Mac, however, stops them by demanding a warrant, which of course they don’t have. They’re not really there in an official capacity—they’re just there for revenge.  Later, when Smash asks Mac what happened, Mac simply says, “They made a mistake just like I did.”

But aren’t the troopers “evil”?

But at one level, there is a huge difference between the Mac’s inadvertent thoughtless remarks, and the troopers’ conscious intent to break the law and do harm to a young football player. Mac is a simple man trying his best, but making mistakes both because of his upbringing, and because he just isn’t smart enough to realize that his comments are indeed racist. He is not intentionally racist, and would never act in any harmful way toward the black players.  In fact, it’s even pointed out that Mac was the person who was responsible for integrating the Panthers in the first place. None of this excuses his prior remarks, of course, but he is definitely not an “evil” man. The troopers on the other hand, are fully aware of what they are doing: they know they are breaking the law, they are using their authority for personal ends, they are intending to harm the young man that caused their team to lose. These troopers are not naive and unaware—they are calculating and intentionally malevolent.

But Mac’s comment, “They made a mistake, just like I did” takes the whole thing to a much deeper level. The troopers, too, are just making a mistake because they simply don’t know better. They believe that using their power to push others around and to intimidate and harm others is completely OK. They believe that living by the law of the jungle, that attacking those you don’t like, that taking from others for your own benefit is simply the way of life.  And in those beliefs, they are not evil—they are simply making a mistake. They are unconsciously playing out what their own personal histories and role models have taught them is the right thing to do.

And what about that philanderer Buddy?

At the end of the show another character, Buddy Garrity (the arrogant and self-inflated wealthy businessman in the show), is exposed as a philanderer and adulterer. Our initial reaction is to cheer at his humiliation and demise, gleefully and almost viciously cheering on from our own self-righteous high horse. And then I heard in the back of my mind a faint reminder: “They made a mistake, just like I did.” Buddy was simply following what he thought was the way of the world.  In choosing to have his affair, he believed at the moment that he was making the best choice for himself—taking what pleasure he could whenever he could. And if no one ever found out, then what’s the harm? Buddy was simply living out the mistaken values that his upbringing and culture had taught him: me first, take what you can, and if you don’t get caught it’s OK. Buddy was making a mistake.

We choose selfishness only because we don’t know any better

We don’t choose values of selfishness and egocentricity because we are evil. We choose them only because we don’t know any better. We think that the truth of things is that each of us is separate and alone (one of the implications of a belief in two powers). And that taking care of our separate selves is simply how you live most realistically. Of course, you may occasionally follow certain morals and laws and commandments that tell you to respect your neighbors. But if you deeply believe that you are separate, those laws can seem unnatural and self-sacrificing. (Nietzsche wrote extensively about this.) When we choose to live egocentrically, we don’t do it because we’re evil—we do it because we think it’s the truth, we think it’s the best way, we think it will benefit us.

But if we start from a belief that love is the only source and power, then living a life based on separation and egocentricity would actually prevent us from being aware of the truth of ourselves and others, and would make our lives fearful and unhappy. And ultimately, that way of life is just a mistake. It is the mistake of believing that we are separate—separate from love and separate from each other.

We all in the same boat

The second part of Mac’s comment, “just like I did,” reminds us, in the midst of our judgments of others, that we ourselves have made mistakes too. We did not do the things we did because we were evil, but simply because we didn’t know any better. Yes sometimes we felt we were doing the wrong thing and that we “should” be acting differently. But whatever we actually chose to do, we did it because deep down we believed it was the best thing for us at the time. And then later we discovered that it was actually a mistake—that far from being the best thing for us at the time, it actually was an obstacle to our awareness of the presence of love. And thus an obstacle to our own happiness and peace of mind.

In that sense, people who are acting in a self-centered and self-absorbed way should call forth our compassion rather than our judgment. They are not evil—they are making a mistake just like I did.

Back to the real world

After the episode was over, I went up to my computer to read my e-mails. One e-mail was from someone who (to my judgmental mind) was being dishonest and hypocritical. Although he publicly preached and taught unconditional love, he certainly did not practice it in private and he certainly did not express it in his e-mail to me. But in the midst of my angry judgment, a whisper reverberated in my mind: he made a mistake, just like I did. He was not being selfish and self-centered because he was evil.  He really thought that it was the best and most realistic way to live. He wasn’t evil, he just made a mistake—just like I myself had done many times. And ultimately, the passion of my judgment against him was really the passion of my own self-judgment against myself. At some deep level, I believed that all the selfish things I had ever done reflected an inner guilt, rather than a simple mistake—the mistake of believing that I was separate and had a responsibility to put myself first.

Another e-mail decried corporate greed—the oil spill, the killing of the birds and the oceans, the destruction of mother earth. My initial reaction was to be incensed against all those bad guys from the big corporations. But then I heard the reminder—they made a mistake just like I did. They’re not abusing the earth or taking from others because they are evil.  They simply made a mistake … just like I did.

Is anger a mistake?

The answer here, however, is not simply passivity whenever we see someone abusing others or abusing the environment out of ignorance. We have a responsibility to do what we can to prevent such abuse and to somehow educate the abusers. But if we act out of anger rather than compassion, we will simply be making another version of the same mistake—the mistake that says it is OK to hate and attack others if you believe you are right. After all, that’s what the abusers are telling themselves too, in one form or another.

Replacing hatred and fear with love and compassion

I don’t know the final answer here.  But over the last day or so, I’ve found that the line from Friday Night Lights has repeatedly interrupted my judgments and mental attacks. And it always has the effect of replacing my hatred and fear with love and compassion. What are your thoughts on this?

They made a mistake, just like I did.

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