Without naming names such as Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds or Raphael Palmero, there is a fascinating answer to be questioned in all of this. When it is so much easier to say nothing, or even to confess, especially since there are no punishments when a drug test had not been failed in real time (and talking is useless once that has happened), why do some personalities go to such lengths to deny everything when all this does is advertise the accusation? Even if one is falsely accused, speaking out only makes it worse. However, several folks who were definitely guilty made very loud, attention getting protests. Did they really think that everyone would say “Thanks for letting us know so we don’t waste any time investigating you.” These large egos live with a need to have everything they do watched and and drawn out bigger than life, do they think that suddenly this denial will not be checked under the proverbial microscope?
Okay, steroids surely don’t make you smarter, but despite the lack of discipline they can induce (roid-rage) they don’t instantly make people stupid either. What gives? we keep hearing that such egos are interested in their legacy. This makes no sense. So far all the biggest deniers have proven to be the biggest liars in the end (Not making predictions mind you, just noting a trend). They each had to know they were lying, therefore, they had to know they could not prove their innocence, and even if they could raise a doubt, they have to know proof of their guilt could leak out. Since the main crime will go unpunished but the cover up can earn jail time, and since their legacy is hurt far more by the denial process than by cheating, what’s the point? (as some sports philosophers have always said, “if you’re not cheating, you’re not really trying” What do you think all those announcers mean by “they gave 110%”obviously everything beyond 100% means cheating!).
If I was falsely accused,(I have never done steroids, but after all the time I have spent in the gym recently to rid myself of the affects of sitting around writing a blog, it would be nice if at least one person made an accusation!!!) I would remember the first rule separating science from belief systems: You cannot prove the non-existence of anything. You just have to accept that if people want to believe that they will.
The only time fighting an accusation is worthwhile is if there is something that does exist that you can prove, such as providing a tape of your accusers actually plotting to falsely accuse you. Needless to say, I wouldn’t keep a true accusation in people’s minds by fighting the impossible fight.
Curiously enough, the answer behind all of this insanity is actually simple: The legacy they are trying to preserve is not the one in the minds of the fans or their friends or even the media. It is the one inside their heads. They have a hugely inflated self image, and doing the steroids in the first place was done to try to match this truth as they like to see it. They really think everyone else may have cheated, but they are just becoming their true selves. (Since people project their style of thinking on others, the very first cheater probably was sure everyone else would soon do it so he was just equalizing things, in advance, the others are the guilty ones for forcing this preemptive action) They have to scream their innocence to anyone who will listen, because they need someone to believe them. Even taking the time to listen confirms to them that their story sounds plausible, that the version of themselves that they manufactured seems believable. Every fiction writer likes to be told that his characters are believable.
One more question sir/ma’am, if you don’t mind (read that again in Detective Columbo’s voice): Why do these guys seem to really be hurt as if they are innocent and falsely accused? Because they feel that way: Use a polygraph (lie detector) and ssk them if they did it and they’d fail if they denied it. Ask if they’re guilty and they’d pass! They truly see what they did as excusable, few did it without convincing themselves that a crime for others was their right for whatever reasons. They also figure they seemed perfectly normal and nobody could have seen through it. The voice in their heads assures them; “While others were cheating I just started to look more like my normal Kryptonian self” (I could have used the term “Olympian,” but too many sports cross references involved). Once discovered they can’t conceive that anyone really saw the truth, so in their minds they come up with all these scenarios where jealous people invented stories about them and there’s no connection between the accusations and the fact that it’s all true. In their minds that’s coincidence and therefore can be honestly denied. At some level they feel that their tormentors would be surprised if they knew they were right.
So they will fight reality to their last breaths, (at least most haven’t included double murder in their version of keeping their universe straight) defending their view of themselves and the universe that revolves around them.
The Professor has some good news and some bad news for these athletes. Special Relativity grants us each our own frame of reference, our own exact definition of where space ends and time begins as a dimension, our own perspective that is absolutely correct since it is our own tailor made universe. They have every right to believe they live in their own universe, and we all revolve around them. The bad news is, even within their own universe custom built for their own perspective, there is a limit on what can be called truth.
I could quote Einstein about the nature of people, however, I remembered something he mentioned regarding technology and society (and politics?) and it is wonderfully applicable, seeing as athletes use technology to improve the machine that is their primary tool, their own bodies: “Perfection of means and confusion of goals seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.”
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