I am sitting in my local school’s gym, and talking to other democrats.  It was my first Democratic Caucus and I was excited and there to support Howard Dean.  I had even given Dean’s campaign some money a week before.  But about a half hour into the caucus I knew something was wrong.  I started having feelings of distrust, usually I reserve such feelings for the public education system, but this time I had them about the political process.  Clearly the Kerry supporters were in the majority and were courting most everyone in the room.  The Dean campaign had failed to really organize; we were mostly made up of twenty-something college kids and optimistic thirty-somethings which had somehow found ourselves in the political process for the first time.  We had a lot in common with the Edwards supporters, but we were both up against an organized and seasoned political group that were in favor of John Kerry.

By the time Dean made his now famous rant speech at the University of Iowa Student Union, (just a few miles away), the Dean campaign had failed, but I was still stuck at my local school’s gym, as we were ironing out what our local group would send to the state Democratic Party.  As I sat there listening to the few people that stayed, I knew the Democratic Party would no longer matter, but I at least still hoped that we could defeat the Bush ticket.  The few of us left discussed the important agendas for the party and what mattered to us: education, healthcare, jobs, and so on.  By the time Kerry and Edwards had their convention, none of our concerns ever made it to the national politicians and our voices became irrelevant and drowned out in favor of more dull Kerry slogans.  In a sense the Democratic party became ineffective the moment it stopped listening to its local supporters and instead tried to elect a boring and seasoned politician, no matter how well meaning Kerry was, he was still the wrong candidate.  Edwards in the end, showed to be the correct choice for most of us, but on a Kerry ticket, Edwards was just a sideshow.

Now in 2006, the Democrats think they can beat Republicans, because of the scandals, because of a hurricane, because Republicans are now seen as too greedy in comparison.  I doubt the Democrats can succeed on this alone.  They are the inept party, the party of no ideas, in a sense they are everything I hated about politics: the combination of pride and prudence.  I am in my thirties, too young yet to claim the wisdom of men in their forties and fifties, too old to cling to my rebellious and naive twenties, stuck in the middle between men who dream of making the world a better place, and those who would have you believe it cannot be done.

One of the most remarkable concepts to grasp about people is to understand the way they think, or as often is the case, do not think.  It may surprise you that what we refer to as common sense is not in actuality thinking!  It is actually what I call a shortcut to thinking.  This is the idea that people put very little thought into forming their conclusions and in our society it is more common than you think.

Everyday, people make connections, where they take what they see and hear and draw a certain opinion.  Though opinons are not facts, we often take opinions and attribute the same validity to them, especially if we somehow come to believe that the opinion in question is actually our own.  The easiest way to explain this system is the terms that French critics came up with, The Sign and The Signified.  In a system where everything that we encounter is a sign and that each sign signifies different things to everyone of us, you can see that actually would require a lot of mental thought, but if we do not calculate or try to comprehend what we think is being signified all the time, we realise that in a lot of cases, we do not even see the sign, just the signified.

Think of the term: Teenage Mothers.  Do you already have an opinion?  Does the term signify for you young unwed mothers?  Or did you think of mothers who have teenage children?  I bet you totally thought of the young unwed mothers.  The reason is because you did not think, you simply made a connection to the signified image, in this case that one being of young unwed mothers.  This occurs daily in our lives and we simply go through most of our day reacting instead of being proactive thinkers.

Con Artists

Next time you listen to the news, read an article, or are being convinced of something, think about just how much proactive thought you have to the information being given to you.  The most persuasive people, tend to understand that the best way to win over people is not by giving them a sound argument, but by getting them to think less about your actual position, to make them feel passionate and less likely to oppose you.  The most simple of con artist uses distraction, having you keep your focus on something while he does something else behind you, but the really successful con artist is more like a politician, who uses rhetoric to make you believe in something you may have questionable doubt about.  In fact, many politicians, lawyers, and salespeople use the exact question: How can I remove any doubts? Sometimes by stating an open ended question, you end up convincing yourself of a proposition you yourself do not agree with.

Perils of Quick Conclusions

Not all shortcuts to thinking are bad, but one does need to understand that all shortcuts are essentially quick conclusions, and quick conclusions do in fact have consequences.  It is these consequences that we have to live with, whether we make the wrong conclusions about a simple term as teenage mothers, or if we find ourselves on the wrong side of a political issue for all the right reasons but our own.

Perhaps you have missed it, or maybe you just have not seen it, but Rasheed Wallace is having a great year and in both games with the Spurs, Rasheed is practically unstoppable. He can out play Tim Duncan and other big men in the league easily, and unlike Shaq, Rasheed can actually score a three pointer! In the post, he can dominate offensively, and his defense is without a doubt terrific. So please, no more talk about Tim Duncan and his fundamentals, the truth is that Tim has problems matching up with Detroit’s Rasheed on both ends of the court.

Now I know the league is trying to make Chauncey’s head bigger by saying he is the man and all and I don’t want to talk away from that, but let’s face it Detroit is winning easy by going to Rasheed in the post. Once he draws the defense, it frees up Chauncey and Hamilton to go motown the rest of the game.

The Ron Artest story is interesting not because Artest is all that interesting (or dare I even say not even that great a player), but because it proves the point that great athletic potential is only possible because of a higher intelligence.  Michael Jordan was one of the greatest players on the court not just because he could dunk over his opponents, but because of his intellectual advantage over most of his counterparts.  I am not saying that Jordan was the smartest person ever, what I am saying is that being intelligent can and does give you an edge on the court.  We may not completely understand it, but there is something more profound about players like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.  Too quickly we dismiss the intelligence of athletes, thinking that they only possess better physical abilities, however the better athletes are indeed students of the game.

This brings me back to Artest.  No matter how much you think Artest is a good defender, he undeniably is not a great player.  He lacks the intelligence advantage which great players have.  In today’s league, there are good players and then there are great players.  Tracy McGrady is a great player.  He knows the game very well and knows his opponents weaknesses.  On the other hand Lamar Odom is a good player.  The fundamental difference between good players and great ones is that great ones can make their own shot.  They can adapt, and do it in ways that their opponents can not imagine.  You can see this in Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Shaq, and others.  Basketball is a team sport and even if you are not a great player, and do not have the advantage of greater intelligence, you can still be very successful on the court.  You just have to outwork your opponents and hustle more than any other player.  You can see this every time you watch Spurs and see how Ginobli beats his opponents with sheer effort.  In the case of Ginobli, he is not the fastest, nor the tallest, yet he is the most dynamic player in the game and more valuable than Tony Parker.

In the case of Lamar Odom, he most likely will never be successful with the Lakers.  He is a good player and one which the Lakers have been unable to propel to the next level.  I blame the Lakers.  Odom would be a star on any other team, and my favorite fit for Odom would be the Pacers.  He would be very successful and needed in Indiana, where he could be partnered with Jermaine O’Neal and become an offensive threat in an offensive game that needs more quickness at the moment.  In the Lakers, Odom’s game is too difficult.  It is hard to score when you are given less possessions and when you are given the ball too late.

So can Artest be successful, I really do not know.  I am not totally convinced that he is even a good player.  His defense may not be all that great either.  One has to remember that defense works better when it is done as a team, and perhaps we may not see how good Artest is until he plays for a weak defensive team.