The Ape and the Dolphin

Once upon a time there were some apes who were ever slightly smarter than all the other apes. They knew they were smarter because they built tall buildings and invented things and because if they ever got into a fight with the dumber apes, they would win hands down, in about 30 seconds. And not only could the smart apes kill every other ape if they wanted to, they could extinct every species they had ever known to exist in the universe. In fact, the dumb apes were so dumb they didn’t even know about surrendering before they got massacred. The smart apes had invented that too. So there.

So there was what the smartest of the smart apes liked to say. Of course, they would never say “So there” unless they were drunk, or exceptionally unsure of themselves, or caught in a rare moment of honesty they would later regret. Instead they would invent long-winded rationalizations that dressed up those fatal words in some more palatable tone, so that the dumber apes wouldn’t have to feel so bad. And so that they could do what they wanted and not have to feel bad about it either. So there.

The smart apes had also invented feelings and love and creativity and abstract thinking too. It made them all feel warm inside, probably the way the dumb apes feel most of the time (when they aren’t busy trying to forage for food or swing on branches or whatever stupid ways dumb apes waste their time). But the smart apes were busy with far more important things than swinging from branches. They were selling their bodies or building machines or digging really deep holes or doing science projects that might blow up the whole universe.

None of those things really had to do with love or creativity, though it came in handy now and again. Really, most of the smart apes weren’t even that smart. They just did some job and had a bunch of baby apes. And they watched apes pretend to be different apes than they were on an electrical contraption. Or they watched apes play games or have sex with each other. Mostly they wished they weren’t just apes and were something far greater, or at a minimum that if they had to be apes, they might have a little more money, which the smart apes had also invented.

It turns out that smart apes aren’t the only ones with big brains though. And so there were some dolphins, who also have really big brains, but can’t possibly be as smart as the smart apes since they don’t have any buildings or weapons or money either. Anyway, these dolphins were watching the smart apes (though because of their geographical limitations, they saw only a small sample size. Despite having big brains, the dolphins did not know about statistics). When they watched all these smart apes, they laughed.

They laughed because the apes had invented all these great things: like freedom, but most of them were slaves. And like justice, but most of their world was unjust. And like love, but they loved most to betray each other. And they had learned that generalizing about apes is usually a bad idea, but they did it all the time anyway, and believed their generalizations more than anything else. They laughed because the apes thought so highly of their ideas but felt so poorly about themselves.

And then, after the dolphins had a good laugh, they swam back out into the ocean and jumped around and played with each other. They squeaked to each other in their primitive dolphin language, and then swam as a pack to meet their next destiny and live perfectly in harmony with nature.

So there.

The Criminal who Became a Man

Michael Vick, like many other Americans of note (from Snooki and Bill Clinton to Brett Favre and Tiger Woods) have had their stories beaten into our heads by constant play and replay in print and televised media. Anyone who knows who Michael Vick is knows that he killed dogs.

The story had legs because it evoked a horror (the murder of America's beloved pet) and tied it to a famous name. Like Tiger Woods after him (sex), Clinton before him (sex), and perhaps the father of celebrity-centered media saturation, OJ Simpson (murder), Vick was a 24/7 story. It touched everyone, became a talking point in conversations across the nation, caused unnecessarily deep emotional reactions, and ultimately remains as a part of the public lexicon as Vick's life continues to develop.

My question: why was the public more willing to militarize against Michael Vick, athlete and dog-killer, than against other far-more-worthy social causes? Few expressed the same shock and anger at Bernie Madoff stealing billions (even as he was the head of NASDAQ) or Jack Abramoff fomenting political corruption at the highest levels. Obviously there are many views on the continued war on terror, but even the pacifists who most deeply oppose the war could learn something from PETA about forming protests.

To this extent, Michael Vick provided the public an outlet for the frustrations that are experienced across the cultural spectrum (economic, social, racial) since his crime centered on something universally disagreeable: the torture and murder of dogs. It's easier to protest Vick than a complex ideological war, easier to stand on the side of dogs than against pillars of the economy or political system (crooks or not). Easier to feel anger or righteous condemnation than to attempt to reconstruct difficult, broken institutions.

It was not so much that Vick was an innocent marched to slaughter by a biased jury, as that the court of public opinion was far more ruthless than it might otherwise be. That he (and others who share in his media saturated negative limelight) is an easy target. Everyone knows precisely how to react to someone who kills dogs or commissions scores of prostitutes or abuses power to have illicit sex with (not so attractive) college interns. Reacting to corruption, bad government, and war requires research, thought, and dedication. Voting is the accepted social medium for expressing these concerns, and regardless of the gravity of the socio-political crime, it can never be as heinous as killing innocent, lovable doggies.

What is the postscript for many is the story for me: the redemption of Vick. Some will never forgive him for his trespasses against animals, but the reality is that he lost everything for it. Years of his life, millions of dollars (in addition to the money that was stolen from him by his agents and managers, who were as crooked as Madoff and Abramoff, or even a dog's hind leg), and the chance at immortality (both as cultural icon and athletic innovator). Despite losing all of this, despite spending two years at his physical peak in Ft. Leavenworth, Vick is now the same caliber athlete and a better quarterback than he was before incarceration. He works hard, studies his role, says all the right things to media, and meets his obligations (both imposed by his federal bankruptcy court and as a result of his federal sentence).

The story of Michael Vick is no longer the story of a man who became a criminal, but rather of a criminal who became a free man. But that leaves little to protest against, it robs the public of its righteous anger, and it requires a re-evaluation of what is possible: both from those who consider him a victim of his culture, and from those who consider him a raging psychopath.

Really, though, we learn more about our own culture from Michael Vick than we can ever learn about him.