Kleos: LeBron James, Cleveland, and Immortality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbmgJN7fk0

Editor’s Note: On the Second Anniversary of the greatest moment in Cleveland Sports History, please welcome James Michael Kenney-Prentiss to CtB as he takes us through ancient Greece, The Enlightenment, our greatest year, and all the way to the cold entropy death of the universe as he walks us through what sports, Kleos, LeBron James, and immortality means to all of us.

To be a Cavaliers fan is to be on a constant roller coaster of emotion. Tyronn Lue leaves us apoplectic. Draymond Green’s uncalled taunting even more so. J.R. Swish makes our hearts skip a beat with so many no-no-no-YES shots from distance. Kevin Love gives us pride – in knowing that he really is an All Star and leaves it all on the floor. Even the chants of “DE-LLY DE-LLY” that permeated the Q during his Cleveland tenure still echo the beats of my own Cleveland heart.

Yet, there is one man that stands above the rest. We are all Witness to his greatness. The bad and the good, the subtweets and game winning shots, his first Decision that laid waste a people’s collective hope, his Block that made all of us think, for a moment, that “wait – could this be happening – we might actually win this thing,” all of it coming from one LeBron Raymone James. Transcendent. MVP. GOAT. After so many moments that would define the entire careers of any other NBA player, he has elevated the entire city of Cleveland into the halls of history.

Being spoiled by his play and taking James for granted is not an option — it cannot be an option. What are the chances of a Cleveland sports team going to another four straight Finals? Or Super Bowls? Or World Series? He is our greatest star. He is our greatest warrior. He plays for us, for Cleveland. LeBron James, more than anyone else, has given all of us glory, everlasting and eternal.
“It’s Only a Game.”
Yet there are those who claim basketball is “only a game.” They dismiss it – cast it aside. In the wake of yet another Cavaliers loss in the Finals, many Ohioans brace themselves against the surging waves of misery and torment by using this dull phrase. A silly “game” that baptizes millionaires and pop culture icons from the people who dedicate their lives to something children play. And, the emotionally lazy point out, it’s especially silly to revere someone who wears their city’s jersey, even someone as transcendent as LeBron. Ball is a mere hobby — almost always promising a tsunami of rage, sorrow, and sadness crashing against our childlike-psyche and frivolous obsession about “only a game.” Even when the torrent lifts us towards the heavens, past our petty disagreements, past our daily stressors and ills, and into the throes of a conflagration of excitement, pride, and sublime ecstasy, we are reminded that this is only temporary, a fun distraction from the “real” things in life — and we quickly find ourselves on a calm and tranquil sea, our boats gently rocking against the diminished wind after the wake of triumph or tribulation passes, and we tell ourselves, “it’s only a game.”

Games are for children. The “serious” among us are quick to point out, in their dull and condescending way, that “real” things like politics, economics, and solving global crises are where we rubes should focus our stunted attention. For others that preach “it’s only a game,” the perfunctory nature of sports is often contrasted with the importance of family and friends, as if these things are mutually exclusive, or in a zero-sum competition for our limited attention that pits the full experience of raising your begotten children against a dozen empty jerseys with “CAVALIERS” strewn across their fronts, like a bundle of rattling, shiny keys shaken in front of the easily distracted.

But it’s all wrong. Every single bit of it.

Sports do matter. Cleveland sports matter. LeBron James matters.

The reverence of sports goes all the way back to Ancient Greece. It permeates our competing senses of culture and gives our lives greater meaning. It allows us to stand up, to shout, that it really is “Ohio Against The World!” Our reverence for where we live, our shared cultural identity, our need for glory and to believe in a cause greater than ourselves is as old as stories themselves.

In Ancient Greece, it mattered where you lived. The polis, or city-state, defined you, and you, in turn, had a duty to your polis. The relationship between citizen and polis was also religious — many great political decisions were made by consulting the gods, and many individuals prayed to the gods for themselves and their people. As a citizen in democratic Athens, civic identity revolved around the agora to trade and talk politics, the ecclesia (the general assembly) to resolve political issues, and participation in the army as a hoplite. As a Spartan citizen, your central identity was that of a warrior as part of a syssitiai, a military mess (literally “common meal”), whose duty was so great that, when going off to battle, soldiers were told by their wives and mothers to “come back with your shield, or on it.”

The centrality of the polis also explains why ostracism, the forced exile of an Athenian citizen for a period of ten years, was seldom used, often condemned, yet hugely important. Being ostracized as an Athenian was, in a very important way, akin to death. If ostracized, you suffered civic death and lost a central part of your identity. And for those of you that think “I would just go somewhere else, I’d be fine,” note that those that changed their loyalty from polis to polis were vilified and seen as untrustworthy by the Greeks — like Alcibiades, who changed his alliances between the Athenians, Spartans, and Persians during the Peloponnesian War.
But what was it all for?

Passion for one’s place and bonds to the community around a person led to strife: fighting, suffering, and sacrifice. Why did ancient man spill so much blood and toil for one’s polis?  It wasn’t for the sake of any benefits in the afterlife. For the Ancient Greeks, the afterlife was grim, if it existed at all. For instance, in Homer’s Odyssey, the afterlife in Hades is a dim affair, filled with the wandering souls of the dead that have forgotten their identities and are deprived of their vitality.

Nor was it for wealth. Although some in Ancient Greece got wealthy, wealth itself was seen as fleeting. The Athenian Solon, who laid the foundation for democracy, wrote in a poem:

Many evil men are rich, and many good men are poor;

But we will not exchange our virtue

For their wealth, since virtue lasts forever:

Whereas wealth belongs now to one man, now to another.

What the Greeks actually cared about was kleos — glory. Glory everlasting. Kleos, related to the word meaning, “to hear,” and involves what others hear about you, and not just in the present. No — kleos lasts for as long as people have the breath to tell tales about the great deeds of the glorious. In fact, it was the only way that someone could have a chance at living beyond their death. Since death was permanent and wealth was temporary, kleos was the only way to safeguard one’s place beyond their own mortality.

And how did one gain kleos? By performing great deeds. For the heroes in the Iliad, this meant killing other great heroes in battle. Patroclus kills the son of Zeus, Sarpedon. Hector kills Patroclus. Achilles kills Hector. In fact, it was often the case that before a duel between a Greek and a Trojan, the two men would sit down and introduce themselves so as to indicate how much kleos they would attain by winning the duel. And duel they must. The Trojan warrior Sarpedon, son of Zeus, spoke to his friend Glaucus about fighting, of facing a possible gruesome death at the hands of the enemy, and how they must fight nonetheless, because either they would kill other warriors and gain kleos, or die themselves and give kleos to others:

And bravely on, till they, or we, or all,

A common sacrifice to glory (kleos) fall.

How would you know someone had attained kleos in this world? By their timê, the honor paid to them by others. In the Iliad, timê involves gold, slaves, captured women, captured enemy armor, and other fruits of battle.

Now we get to immortal Achilles — immortal because we still speak of his glory today. Achilles was the greatest warrior in the Trojan War, fighting on the side of the Greeks, and the main character of the Iliad. Achilles is given a choice in the Iliad — to fight the Trojans and die a hero, attaining immortal kleos; or to go home and live a long and happy life, assigning himself to historic obscurity.

And what has happened since? The victors and the vanquished of the Trojan War are long since dead, some from gruesome wounds and others after long and prosperous lives. The Trojan kingdom was destroyed, and soon too was the empire of the Mycenaean Greeks. All the love, joy, heartache, the greatest triumphs and most painful tribulations of a people long ago — all gone. Mostly forgotten. Except for a seldom few. And one name rises above the rest like a siren’s song from the depths of history — Godlike Achilles, made immortal through the stories we still tell of his great deeds.

What does that have to do with sports? In modern warfare, heroes are generally no longer made by killing large numbers of enemy combatants. We’re in theory more civilized than that, yet, even the Ancient Greeks did not recognize kleos only for those great in battle. In fact, it was the people who excelled in great athletic competitions — the Olympians — that also live on through history.

For the Ancient Greek Olympian — he competed not only for his personal kleos, but also for the kleos of his polis. Leonidas of Rhodes won 12 Olympic victories for himself and the city of Rhodes. A quick survey of other notable athletes indicate that their names are always associated with the city for which they competed. Milo of Croton. Arrichion of Phigalia. Chionis of Sparta. Achilles won glory for himself and for all of the Greeks. Demetrios won glory for himself and the city of Salamis. And so to with Achilles, all are dead and gone — their names only remembered because they were victorious over others in a competition that pitted man against man, skill against skill, and people against people.

It is easy to make the connection between the Olympics and modern sports. Instead of the sport of wrestling that pitted an Athenian against a Spartan, we now have basketball that pits the city of Cleveland against the rest of the NBA. But, one may say that the Ancient Greek veneration of athletes is an antiquated notion — that we are far more modern, more sensible, and more serious to pay attention to such frivolities. Au Contraire.
The World Needs Sports
The modern world is, by many empirical accounts, appears to be better, healthier, safer, and happier than ever before. Steven Pinker’s latest book Enlightenment Now shows us that the amount of death, disease, and violence are at the lowest levels in history. This includes rates in life expectancy, famine, extreme poverty, child mortality, maternal mortality, violent crimes, death from war, and much more. We also have more knowledge, and greater access to it, than ever before. Just think for a moment — each smartphone with Internet access is a portal into the sum of all human knowledge.

And yet, despite all of this progress, many modern Americans feel alienated, isolated, and lonely. Even Steven Pinker points out that Americans “punch below their wealth in happiness” and their average levels of happiness have been stagnant despite the global trends of increasing average happiness.

Part of the reason might be due to social isolation. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam shows that participation in face-to-face voluntary organizations has significantly declined in the latter half of the 20th century, such as religious congregations, social clubs, fraternal organizations, and yes — bowling leagues. As Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning describe the phenomenon in The Rise of Victimhood Culture: “social atomization, where people act as autonomous individuals with little involvement in stable and solitary groups.”

Think to your own life for a second. Compare what you do in your free time to stories from your grandparents’ era. We watch a ton of television by ourselves (thanks Game of Thrones), log lots of hours into solitary video games (thanks Elder Scrolls), and stare at a computer screen for hours and hours (thanks Netflix). What did your grandparents do when they were in their teens? Twenties? Thirties? How many of us know who are neighbors are two houses down?

We might feel more connected than ever before — given the advent of social media and the Internet more generally. Yet, as Susan Pinker explains in the Village Effect, face-to-face contact provides us with huge benefits not found in impersonal digital relationships. Further exacerbating the problem is our culture.

Social scientists generally break cultures into two large types — honor culture and dignity culture. Honor culture puts an emphasis on individual reputation, personal bravery, and the adjudication of slights to be handled by the offender and the offended. Honor cultures run amuck have historically perpetrated terrible abuses, from honor killings to blood feuds. Due to its sometime horrific consequences and historic baggage of perpetuating violence and inequality, honor culture is usually dismissed as antiquated and contrary to living in the modern world.

Thanks to the Enlightenment, most of the world now participates in dignity culture. Dignity culture, on the other hand, emphasizes the inherent value, worth, and equality of every individual, encourages self-reliance, and supports the adjudication of disputes by impartial third parties. The arc of history truly has bent towards justice, and as Paul Bloom explains in Against Empathy, the increasing circle of people who we consider like ourselves has led to increasing the equality for those historically marginalized and oppressed.

In traditional hunter-gatherer societies, Jared Diamond explains in The World Until Yesterday, when you came upon a stranger in the woods, you assumed the person was dangerous and you might either flee or drive off and kill them. And, those that you were aware of in a neighboring village, but were not part of your people, were subhuman, sorcerers, evil, bad, and treacherous. By contrast, modern dignity culture sees all people, regardless of race, sex, gender, sexuality, and country of origin, as fundamentally equal.

And yet, dignity culture has helped exacerbate the atomization and isolation in modern America. Many who champion “universal equality” balk at ideas of community that, by definition, exclude outsiders, like nationalism and patriotism. Tamler Sommers writes in Why Honor Matters, “[t]he polices and social structure of dignity cultures place all the moral emphasis on the individual, which, along with the depersonalizing forces of industrialization, has left many people feeling lost, alienated, humiliated, and seething with resentment.” Sommers connects dignity culture with our cultural cowardice, shamelessness, and lack of solidarity.

Honor, properly constrained, can give people a sense of solidarity, respect for tradition, connectedness, and focus on the common good. Personal responsibility is a must, as is the willingness to “stand up for yourself and your principles even in the face of risks to your safety and material interests.” As Sommers explains, “people in honor cultures seem to have a strong sense of purpose and meaning — there’s less existential angst, and the people know what they’re living for, what’s important, and why.”

In short, a properly restrained honor culture in an otherwise dignity-centric world offers meaningful benefits for individuals and communities — for happiness, meaning, and connectedness.
“CLEVELAND! This is for you!”

Sports — specifically Cleveland sports — lay at the crossroads between Ancient Greek ideals of kleos, timê, and civic duty, as well as the solidarity and connectedness in an honor culture in an otherwise dignity-centric world.

Our sports teams are more than just a “game children play” but rather are the vehicles in which we, a community, share in the glory of triumph and the humiliation of defeat. In fact, they are one of the most effective ways in which all of us in Northeast Ohio can come together as one people.

I believe with every fiber of my being: Ohio is the greatest place in the history of the world, and Cleveland is the greatest city in the history of the world. We have the best people, with our Midwest hospitality, our shared focus on the contents of someone’s character rather than how much money they have (like New York City culture) or how close to power they are (like Washington D.C. or Los Angeles culture). We have four seasons, everything a big city offers (a world class orchestra, art museum, and theater district, great food, and the Great Lakes Brewing Company) and everything the country offers (horseback riding, hiking, hunting, and Cuyahoga Valley National Park). We have more Presidents, more astronauts, the best beer, the best museums, the best generals, the best universities, the best sports teams, and much, much more.

Honor culture allows us to say this. For someone wholly aligned with dignity culture, it would be heresy to claim that Ohio is better than everywhere else on earth, or that Ohioans are better than everyone else on earth — especially those slack-jawed, mouth-breathing yokels from Pittsburg and Michigan. It also allows us to revel in the joy of revenge by beating our rivals at sports and seeing those fail that have slighted our community. Every time Isaiah Thomas misses a shot, every time Draymond Green gets ejected, and every time Joakim Noah is a DNP-CD should give us all sublime moments of collective happiness.

Cleveland sports also allow us to have something akin to the Ancient Greek conception of civic duty and identity. As the Greeks conflated politics and religion, sports fandom is, in a way, quasi-religious. We owe support to our Cleveland polis, even in the face of a championship draught that lasted from 1964 to 2016. Our identity as Clevelanders comes prepackaged with ideas, such as die-hard fandom, a hatred for Art Modell and Jose Mesa, and sad, shared moments like The Shot, The Drive, and The Fumble.

Honor culture and civic duty helps explain why we feel so betrayed by the obnoxious contrarian that was born in Ohio yet just happens to be a Golden State fan (or worse yet, a Pittsburg or Michigan fan). They are not only a bunch of open-mouth-chewing, bad-driving sycophants, but they also are traitors to our collective identity as a people. They feel wrong — and we shouldn’t feel ashamed for feeling that way. Ever since ancient times, those that switched allegiances or didn’t have the community’s interests at heart were traitors and seen as untrustworthy, like Alcibiades in Ancient Greece. So if you’re an Ohio citizen and a Golden State fan— from the bottom of my heart — please go find another state to fog a mirror.

As Clevelanders, we don’t have armies to go vanquish opposing cities, but we do have sports teams. Just like the Ancient Greeks had their conquering army, so to do we have our conquering army in the form of the Cleveland Cavaliers. And what did our Cavaliers do in 2016?

We won a championship. We vanquished the Golden State Warriors, a 72 win team that had a 3-1 lead in the Finals, a modern-day Goliath against our Cavalier David. The whole world was against us. Nobody thought we would come back from such a deficit. But we believed, almost religiously, that we could. And the Cavaliers did win.

It wasn’t just the Cavaliers themselves that won — it was the entire city of Cleveland. Much like the Ancient Olympians, like Leonidas of Rhodes, the Cavaliers of Cleveland ended the day victorious.

With that victory came the timê of the championship trophy, the rings, and the parade. The entire world recognized our city for its temporary perch atop the NBA.

We also couldn’t have done it without our own version of Achilles — LeBron James. Before Achilles rejoined the fighting, the Greeks suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the Trojans. Before LeBron James rejoined the Cavaliers, the team suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the rest of the NBA. But then history happened.

LeBron came back home.

And Cleveland won its first championship since 1964.

Do you remember the ecstasy we felt when the final seconds passed in Game Seven? First it was disbelief – we always find a way to lose, this can’t be real. Then, the entire city took a collective breath, stunned in wonder and amazement, then let out a cry of pure happiness. The curse had been lifted. We won. We were champions.

Kristin Bauer

I will never forget that night. I was downtown, wearing my Dellavedova jersey, watching the game on a big screen from a parking garage. The celebration that followed had been like nothing I had ever experienced before. High fives. Hugs. An entire city brought together for one moment. Love and appreciation and camaraderie poured out of every bit of my being towards everyone single other person in the city. We had done it. We had won. We had reached the mountaintop of greatness for this brief and temporary moment in time.

Yet it was only temporary. Just like everything else in life.

For the Ancient Greeks, death was certain and wealth was fleeting. For our own time, even if we build a civilization that lasts for millennia, it will be but a passing shadow in the 14 billion year history of the Universe. In five billion years, the sun will explode, destroying life as we know it. We might not even have to wait that long, because the consequences of climate change, nuclear war, superbugs, and general artificial intelligence might kill us all sooner rather than later.

Given enough time, even the glories of Achilles might be lost forever.

And yet, something happened on that night of Game Seven that was greater than ourselves. We attained kleos. The same kind of kleos that Achilles and Leonidas and others in Ancient Greece strove for.

Immortal kleos — to last as long as we have breath to tell the tale— Cleveland set its mark in history. In our lifetimes, we will tell stories to each other, our children, and grandchildren about The Block, The Shot, and The Defense in that fateful Game Seven. It will bring us closer together. It will fight back against the atomization and the isolation of modern society. It will give us a reason to come together as a community.

Even after generations of Clevelanders have come and gone, nothing shall extinguish or diminish our triumph in that fateful clash of titans. Future generations may not know how we felt that day, nor will they have the same awe and appreciation in the victory that brought a championship-starved people to the promised land. Such is with all history. But, historic achievement matters. The modern Greeks do not have access to the same feelings of the 300 that fought the Persians at Thermopylae, but the immortal words still resonate with many today “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.” Such will be the pride to future Clevelanders when they read in the history books “Cleveland Cavaliers: 2016 NBA Champions.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWJuhMM7-cw

In that moment we achieved kleos. LeBron James, our Achilles, achieved the most kleos of any Clevelander since Jim Brown.

LeBron Raymone James. The greatest basketball player of all time. One of our own from Northeast Ohio. Drafted by the Cavaliers. Won a Championship for the Cavaliers.

He is our Achilles.

And that is why he should stay in Cleveland.

Nowhere else can LeBron win as much kleos as he would in Cleveland. Fighting for his hometown, he competes in the same arena as all the Olympians and all of the warriors in the Trojan War. He fights for his own kleos and for the kleos of an entire people. His people. Every single one of us.

Think for a second of Kevin Durant — a modern Alcibiades, the untrustworthy Greek changed his allegiance between the Athenians, Spartans, and Persians. Durant was born in Washington D.C., and has played for Seattle, Oklahoma City, and Golden State. He now has two championship rings and is the best player on his team. Yet, ask yourself — who will actually remember Kevin Durant in 50 years? 100? Who will be proud to tell their grandkids about that-time-Kevin-Durant-won-a-title? More importantly, whom does he play for? Himself. Just himself. So ask yourself – in the annals of NBA history, who will build statutes and sing the praises of the selfish Kevin Durant?

And now think of LeBron’s time in Miami. Four straight Finals appearances were great, but it was Dwyane Wade’s team. With Chris Bosh. The Finals victories brought LeBron glory — but only for himself. Fifty years from now, who in Miami will build a statue for LeBron Raymone James?

James has a choice. He could chase titles and rise in the record books. He could play for Philadelphia, or Los Angeles, or Houston. He could gain wealth and win title after title. But what will it really mean? Playing for another group of fans that leave early during a Finals game? Another people whose championship parade will only number in the thousands? LeBron James would be in the record books, but no group of people will sing his praises and honor him so long as people have voices to sing.

Except Cleveland.

The title in 2016 meant more for the people of Cleveland than the titles won by LeBron in Miami and the titles won by Kevin Durant in California. When LeBron James won in 2016, he won it for all of Cleveland. We will sing his praises. We will tell our children and our grandchildren about what that fateful Game Seven was like. And just like I will speak of the greatness of Jim Brown, after hearing about him from my grandparents, so too will my grandchildren sing the praises of LeBron James to their own grandchildren. Only in Cleveland can he win the highest kleos. Only in Cleveland will he get closest to immortality. He is our Achilles. There is so much more fighting to be done, and so much more kleos to win, for himself and for his people.

I hope he stays. We all do. But even if he leaves, he still brought us a championship in 2016. He won kleos for all of us. And for that, we are all eternally grateful.

When I travel, I meet others from Ohio and an instant connection is formed. Regardless of party, of race, of sex, of gender, of income, or anything else, other Ohioans are my kin, my people, my brothers and sisters.

That’s what this article is ultimately about. It’s about the shared identity of everyone from Ohio that roots for the Cavaliers. It’s about the instant camaraderie that I feel with an entire group of relative strangers on a website dedicated solely to writing about and supporting my home team. It’s about sharing in the same civic duty that has existed since Ancient Greece (and beyond).  It’s about saying it’s ok to love your city, your state, and your people more than anyone else on the planet. It’s a way to fight against the atomization, loneliness, and alienation of modern society.

It’s a way to say sports matter. That being from Cleveland matters. That it really is Ohio Against The World. That when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. We are one people, one team, one community.

We are all Cleveland Cavaliers. And we are now immortal.