call the foul
many years back a small group of us, around sophomore college age, were playing basketball 🏀 in a local park. a man in his 40s comes up to us asking to join. as we played, he travelled, double-dribbled, elbowed and fouled his way to shoot at the hoop. i spoke up to my friends about it during a break — “hey should we say something?” — the quick consensus was not to ruffle: “he’s just an old man”, “it’s harmless”, “it’s funny actually”. and that was that. it was a nothing but…
this small incident has stuck with me as a reminder of our collective tendency to overlook.
🤸 it prompts several questions:
- how many of small infractions do we let slide unconfessed?
- if we never practice our skills of conflict resolution or social accountability in everyday situations, can we expect to have those skills when the stakes are dialled up?
- how much of what we profess as values are mere status games and cosplay masking deeper indifference?
the right markets itself as having the answers. the centre dismisses the usefulness of these questions. the left is absent and tired.
masterful bullies, manipulators and tyrants have been practising for years — decades? while they have been sharpening their tools, drafting their team, and iterating on their playbook we have only calcified our communications and relations with each other — to their benefit.
in my many experiences with bullies one of the most effective tactics was fighting back. the strategies and principles of fighting is important to figure out and is a core part of our playbook.
ps: thank you all for being here and reading this. i’m not sure who i’m writing for but i’m grateful for your attention. i welcome your thoughts and would be happy to continue this conversations via email