Observers cannot stop scratching their heads and
nodding in disbelief at the inept naïveté with
which David Petraeus and his mistress-biographer Paula Broadwell tried to
conceal their doomed escapades. Indeed, one would expect slightly greater
sophistication from the spymaster of the Free World, and even from a West-Point-educated
lieutenant-colonel from the U.S. Army reserve. I suspect, though, that their
childish silliness has an easy explanation.
Here is my neat theory. Most accounts about the Petraeus-Broadwell
affair note that they were both extreme fitness fanatics. Some recent research
has indicated that physical exercise can be addictive in the most literal sense.
If we connect these dots, how surprised should we be to find out that yet
another form of addiction has led to impaired personal judgment, multiplied by
two?
Which leads me to wonder about other extreme fitness
crazes in recent years. There have been multiple reports about young men
spending their hard-earned weekends competing in supermarathons and triathlons,
bare-knuckle fist fights, races across bizarre obstacle courses, etc. Many of
these competitive events charge the participants hefty fees, and don’t disburse
any cash prizes. Yet, crowds of Wall Street traders and other white-collar
shock troops are eager to test themselves. One famous race known as Tough
Mudder was even started by a Harvard
Business School
The weekend warriors carry with pride numerous cuts
and bruises over their – judging from the pictures – pumped-up and mostly
hairless bodies and limbs. Cultural skeptic Kay Hymowitz once referred to their
type as “capitalists on steroids” – the toughest of the toughest in a world
where nice guys (and gals), I am afraid, do tend to finish last (yet another
stereotype supported by some recent research – so some stereotypes may exist
for a reason, after all…).
As with the Petraeus-Broadwell duo, I would question many
of the professional and private judgments of such extreme fitness junkies – to
say nothing of the valuation mechanism of a socioeconomic matrix which
continues to reward them so richly more than two years after the release of “Inside
Job.” But, as the old proverb says, the caravan must move on…
P.S. Our daughter has been reading and commenting (for
schooling purposes) on The Catcher in the
Rye for a few weeks now. As we talked about the book once, I was reminded
of Holden’s chief complaint about the world he inhabited back in 1951 – that almost
anyone he met was incurably phony. Who knows, he might have suffered from some
sort of dissociative disorder and misjudged perfectly normal individuals.
Still, I do wish he could wake up from hibernation on 12/12/12; and behold
the deeper truth contained in that famous advertising slogan: “You’ve come a
long way, baby.”
