Michael Jordan: A Role Model for Students?

On Friday, May 17, my colleague Tom Kellie gave an uplifting lecture about a man who many students, at Tsinghua as in America, worship as a hero: the sports superstar and celebrity, Michael Jordan.

Tom took aim at what he said is a misconception of some Tsinghua students, that Jordan's success was based on luck or innate ability. He stressed that it was actually based on hard work. And the lesson was obvious: "Nothing is impossible!" Tom told his audience. "You can succeed if you try!"

To that end, Tom emphasized another lesson, one that he said Jordan's parents were fervent about instilling in their children: "Never make excuses!"

Jordan's most outstanding characteristic was his fierce competitiveness, his passionate drive to be #1. Tom put the question to all the students in the audience: "Why aren't you #1 at Tsinghua in your field?"

Tom voiced the excuse which students in the audience might be thinking: "But I wasn't born with Einstein's brain." Then he thundered in response:

"Einstein wasn't born with Einstein's brain! Challenge yourself. Don't make excuses!"

The students loved it. But wasn't there something ironic about their enthusiasm?

The lessons being doled out for them were exceedingly simple. They certainly were not being challenged. I think the students' delight had a lot to do with many tendencies which are directly contrary to the nominal lessons Tom was drawing for them.

First, even for students who might have had the notion that Jordan's success was based on luck, the idea of hard work being the route to success hardly represents a startling insight. People always love having their preconceptions affirmed, and Tom reiterated these familiar ideas in great style. It was pleasant to everyone to hear the story anew.

More important, the story revolved around the spectacularly successful Michael Jordan. Why is his story such a thrill for students? Most definitely not for the simple reason that Jordan is the best at something. Many obscure, unexciting people are the best at something.

Jordan's story thrills students precisely because his success is so tremendous and overarching. He's been on every magazine cover; he's idolized the world over; and, most awe-inspiring of all, he is filthy rich.

Yes -- that is the crass desire of many students. They would love to have a mountain of cash. And who can blame them? In America, where the culture has been drenched in advertisers' theology for decades, many lives are driven by shallow materialistic goals. But modern China is following in the same direction, as its people indiscriminately embrace every aspect of American culture. (One prominent sign of this is the proliferation of American-style junk food, together with the increasing incidence of overweight children.)

Materialistic values go hand-in-hand with spiritual emptiness, and even at a top university like Tsinghua, many students don't reflect on their personal life objectives much beyond the wish for wealth. In one of Tom's previous lectures, he quoted this exchange he'd had with a typical student planning to go to graduate school in America:

"What do you plan to study there?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"You don't know? Then why do you want to go to America?"

"Because I want to be rich!"

There is a more sinister reason, besides Jordan's wealth and celebrity status, why students idolize him. People worship Jordan because they have been told to worship him. Jordan, like all superstars, is a media creation. He's a mere mortal, yet corporate marketing campaigns have so seduced and dazzled the multitudes that he is thought to be endowed with superhuman qualities. The corporations' purpose, of course, is straightforward: Jordan is good for business.

If you wish to quell your own Jordan fever, it might suffice to calm yourself down and reflect dispassionately on a few simple truths. We are talking about a man who has largely devoted his career to playing sports. He has demonstrated great aptitude ... but it is an aptitude for bouncing balls up and down and "dunking" them through nets. Is an American ball-bouncer a fit model for China's top mental achievers?

What's sinister about Jordan's god-like status is that it demonstrates the potency of opinion manipulation in the media era. If the best university students are intoxicated by Jordan fever, can there be any hope that the entire world's thinking will not, for the remainder of human civilization, be shaped at will by the media and its marketers? Jordan is a god purely because he is useful to corporations selling shoes, shirts, shaving cream, and all the other detritus bobbing along the rushing river of consumer appetites.

Even basketball itself, a seemingly silly game, most likely owes its popularity to its usefulness as a vehicle for corporate advertising. For contrast, consider squash (a racket sport). Playing that game puts you in a continuous, full-scale battle against yourself -- against the limitations of your strength, willpower, and concentration. It is one of the most challenging and competitive sports in existence, but it's not amenable to TV coverage, large audiences and hype, so it's almost unknown and is virtually ignored by the corporations.

There is something sickening to me about the whole idea of spectator sports. Watching sports is the last thing Tsinghua students or any other ambitious people should spend much time doing. It's what the corporations want you to do -- Sit there and watch! -- but the spectator lifestyle is one of the main reasons why an incredible thirty-three percent of U.S. children are overweight, and why there is currently an epidemic of diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses in the U.S. You want to compete? Then get up and play sports!

Jordan is a fairy tale, and celebrating his success seems to invite the danger of tempting students to wallow in idle, self-indulgent fantasies -- the antithesis of the hard work his life is supposed to encourage.

America's ghetto youth are captivated by the Jordan mythology, by the slickly publicized legends of his astounding willpower and drive, by the semi-religious notion that "nothing is impossible." (The possibility of achieving any feat, as long as one is moved by sufficient ardor, is endlessly repeated throughout American culture. It is centrally featured in an endless parade of movies such as Star Wars and The Matrix. This conceit is helpful in preserving the privileges of America's upper classes, since outsiders can fantasize about joining their ranks instead of feeling resentful.)

But it would be a shame if Tsinghua students were as enraptured by such fairy tales as the lowliest members of America's youth gangs. These fairy tales are incompatible with critical thinking. On being #1, for example, simple logic suffices to appreciate that if this is the goal of two or more students, then it is indeed impossible for all but one of them.

Even Jordan's basketball stardom would have been impossible but for a quirk of fate. As Tom implicitly acknowledged, Jordan's brother, who like the rest of Jordan's family was of only average height, had no hope of accomplishing what Jordan did. So it is curious to hold Jordan up as someone who proved that "nothing is impossible." Jordan's accomplishments would indeed have been impossible if he hadn't happened to grow unexpectedly tall.

Similarly, worldly reason is impelled to question the romantic idea that "Einstein wasn't born with Einstein's brain." It's a happy notion, pleasing to one's sense of justice. But the truth, in all likelihood, is that genius is in large measure a result of genes and/or very early childhood, and that usually genius is simply, unfairly, beyond the reach of even the most ardent ambition. Ask yourself how confident you would be of Jordan's ability to even understand Einstein's work, great ball-bouncer though he is.

Just like Tom, I feel there are beneficial insights that many of our young students have not arrived at. Like him, I yearn to impart these insights and make my students smarter and better oriented to success than I was at their age. I feel that they are too idle, too incurious and too fond of worthless forms of entertainment; that their values and goals are too undeveloped; that they have reflected insufficiently about their aspirations and their possibilities. And indeed, it is likely that many of our students are blind to great opportunities that lie before them, only because they fail to realize that ordinary people -- if they can only muster the will to excel -- can accomplish extraordinary achievements.

But insight, by nature, is a product of mental action. What our students need first is to energize themselves so that they are awake, perceptive, and eager to confront these questions intellectually. And for that, they should avoid easy self-indulgence, they should resist the comfort of fables, and they should learn to think critically and independently.