The Point-Fourward: 19th Century Twitter

Four points I’m thinking about the NBA…

1. Had social media existed in the 19th century, it would likely have been flooded by mad twitter beef between Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian’s superior number of followers would have re-tweeted his concise retorts, while Wagner himself would have released a steady storm of poetic hammers, each struggling to remain within the 140 character limit. Those on either side of the debate were absolutely sure of their righteousness. The internet would have been ablaze.

Verdi was an absolute genius. He valued tradition without being a slave to obsolete conventions. He respected and promoted the players of his operas by molding melodies and drama to their specific talents.

Verdi operas mostly focused on the human condition and social interplay on the micro scale. Though Verdi still used traditional operatic structure and character devices, he stripped them of much of their cliched heroism and made them real people. It wasn’t much of a surprise that his Shakespearean adaptations are arguable the best ever created. Verdi humanized previously deified tropes. Think “Game of Thrones”.

Giuseppe Verdi was incredibly serious in his work, but was forever the optimist. He wrote a comedy following the tragic deaths of his first wife and children, and he called the construction of a rest home for retired musicians his greatest achievement. By all accounts, Verdi was a really good dude who happened to be a musical and dramatic genius. He was the type of leader who had a chill glass of wine after a bad premiere.

Richard Wagner was also unequivocally a genius. He unabashedly slammed everything traditional as something to be reviled. Consistently, Wagner railed against established operatic structure as being pedantic, populous and ultimately beneath him.

Wagner operas are huge in scope, promoting macro philosophical ideology and stretching one’s melodic tantric limits. He used convoluted, multi-layered plot-lines that create great size almost through a pointillistic technique. Think “Lord of the Rings”.

The time and space of the literal theater is almost as much a vehicle of his work as what is happening on the stage. But like an optical illusion, it only functions if one is totally focused on the pin point provided. It would be easy to call him a revolutionary, but often revolutionaries only succeed if they are well-liked.

Which brings us to some of Wagner’s biggest fans. People often focus on a perceived link between Wagner and the Nazi party, but it is important to remember that Wagner was long dead by the time Hitler took power. There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that Wagner would have happily joined the party, but Hitler’s appreciation for Wagner’s music does not posthumously make the composer an actual Nazi.

Nonetheless, Wagner was a narcissist whose sole purpose was to create his “Gesamtkunstwerk”. He used anyone he could to accomplish his goal, running up countless debts before ultimately preying on the “Mad King” Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was Ludwig II’s money that made Wagner’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus a reality. The Mad King may have been a touch off base, but he did have good taste in music.

2. So what does this have to do with basketball? In the email chain between the contributors of our fine website, we often tackle philosophical aspects of our fandom as it pertains to the current state of Cavalier affairs.

My thoughts on Derrick Rose were pretty clearly laid out last week in this space so I won’t rehash them too much now. I do not find Derrick Rose to be a good basketball player, nor do I find him entertaining (we all know some players are awful, but are still super fun to watch). In my estimation, Rose will not be a helpful basketball piece for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Off the floor, I will choose to let the court’s decision take precedent over anything that I may or may not think regarding his history. It is possible that his statements are true. Regardless, the interviews of Rose over the years have made it hard for me to like him at all.

A stoic superstar sounds great until you learn that Rose has been in constant battle with other players about “whose” squad it is, or that he was irrational enough to babble about a New York SuperTeam. Really, he just seems incredibly disingenuous to me.

3. As a rule, I evaluate someone’s work, be it artistic or otherwise, independently from my evaluation of someone’s character. Yes, it’s impossible to truly separate the two entities entirely, but in general, “The Cosby Show” remains good even though we know things now. “Tannhaüser” is still absurdly moving even though Wagner was more than a little anti-Semitic. If we were to disregard all of the human achievement on planet Earth that has come from generally awful humans, we would likely be worse off for it. Let’s take the good and leave the bad.

Which is why Derrick Rose is hard for me. I don’t like him, nor do I like his game. The person and the art are lost on me. I am seemingly left only with the everlasting “rooting for laundry” possibility. When does rooting for laundry inadvertently make us root against our basketball and/or social principles?

4. Which laundry will Kyrie Irving likely wear next season? For his sake, I hope it is a jersey from an organization that mirrors the principles of Giuseppe Verdi. Greg Popovich absolutely fits the bill there. Pop has that specific ability to lead his players with strength without undermining their confidence as individuals. He truly doesn’t think his superstars are more important humans than his role players because he doesn’t think anyone is a more important human than anyone else. He is about as far from a narcissist as possible.

Why should I care about Kyrie’s new jersey? It’s not so much that I love Kyrie as a person. He seems a strange mixture of intelligence and irrationality. His flat-earth nonsense was not a cute little media trick. It was further poison added to an already corrupted media well. But, I doubt he meant it maliciously. It may be that he has spent too much time being the smartest person in the room without realizing that there are other rooms.

For me, it’s about his art. Irving’s individual offensive game is such an aesthetic joy that on a purely selfish level, I would like to see the rest of his game maximized. It would be beautiful to watch a player with his talent fully realize his potential. As a fan of basketball, it would be lovely to be rid of his face-palm inducing moments.

That being said, taking his list of preferred teams or not, Kyrie might not be built to be part of a flexible “we”. He may always be a solid “me”.

That might be the biggest reason why LeBron James is such an enigma. He embodies a flexible “me” that can undermine any particular “we”. In many ways, James is both Verdi and Wagner in one. He is a revolutionary man of the people, and narcissistic manipulator of worlds.

And he even has his own Ludwig II.

Note: if you are interested more in Verdi/Wagner, check out Stephen Fry’s great debate: