I hate Barry Bonds. I think he’s a cheater who won’t own up to his mistakes. From press reports, he’s not a very pleasant person either. That makes him easier to hate.
But, I love Manny Ramirez. He’s fun to watch, charming and, unlike Barry Bonds, he plays for my team, the Dodgers.
There are many more intelligent ways to differentiate between the two, including how they have responded to allegations of using performance enhancing drugs. But the key difference, at least from my perspective, is that Manny plays for the Dodgers, and Barry played for their hated rivals, the San Francisco Giants.
I can’t say that I came to this realization on my own. As I planned for the family to watch Manny’s return to the Dodgers, my wife pointed out that we were celebrating the return of a cheater. The more I thought about what she said, the more I realized that my own blindness to this issue is probably a common, human one. We tend to excuse the transgressions of those we like and who are on our side; and we tend to be all too unforgiving of those we don’t like and are not, somehow, with us.
Some of this schism is likely due to that primitive, tribal part of our brain that encourages us to band together and distrusts outsiders. But that’s not an excuse.
Much of it has to do with the fact that we find ourselves sharing goals with the cheaters in our midst, especially at work. The cheaters who cut corners to make the numbers, get the product out the door, keep the client are, whether we like it or not, helping us meet our objectives. When that happens bonuses get paid and raises come – or in this economy layoffs don’t happen.
And, while we’re still fast to condemn the malfeasance of others, such is not the case with the cheaters on our side. We learn to look away, or cheer quietly. It’s a human urge that we in compliance have to help people to stop, no matter how popular the cheater.