The ethics in the now viral incident at the start of a Chicago Cubs baseball game are clear as a mountain stream. A Gen Z slug was ignoring the National Anthem, a Vietnam vet sitting behind him took offense and demanded that he stand, and when the kid resisted, gave him a sharp slap “upside the head.” Then the young fan finally stood up.
The online debate is contrived. Of course…
- …the young fan was being disrespectful and deserved the rebuke
- …he was also being ignorant, forgetting that there are a lot of veterans who take loyalty and reverence to the nation they served very seriously; my father would have said something to him
- …he still had a right to sit if he chose to, though doing so was unethical,
- …hitting the kid was indefensible, even if the contact was light and more symbolic than serious, and
- …the young fan showed good judgment by capitulating and not allowing the conflict to escalate.
Further observations…
1. To his credit, the slapper says that he regrets the slap.
2. He also says he and the kid shared a beer at the game. That speaks well of the young man. It is also very typical of the kind of human comradery I have witnessed at baseball games many times over the years. Everyone there has a bond with everyone else—they are baseball fans and usually fans of the same team.
3. Lots of the critics of the veteran remind us that the slap was battery. No, it wasn’t assault: assault is when the victim is placed in fearful anticipation of unwelcome contact; battery is the contact itself. Since the slappee was hit from behind and didn’t see it coming, there was no assault, just battery.
4. Though technically a tort and a crime, the chances of either getting substantive legal redress is about zero. De minimis non curat lex.
5. If the slapper was the kid’s father, mother, or sibling, we never would have heard about the episode
5. Questions: would the veteran have handled the situation the same way if the kid had been black? Female? A Muslim? My guess: no, no, and no.
6. If the kid was with a group of peers, would he have stood? Would the vet have confronted him if he were with friends?
7. Would a black fan have behaved the same as the white kid? Maybe. If not, however, the incident would be characterized as a racial clash by the media.
Ethics Alarms 
Thanks, Jack. As a lifelong Cubs fan (and White Sox fan too, but that’s another topic), I have followed this story. Were I still teaching ethics to undergraduates, I’d spend an entire 2-hour seminar on this story alone. The kid had the right to sit for the anthem—I just hope he comes to realize that he can safely express disrespect in the very same country he disrespects, and couldn’t get away with his behavior nearly anywhere in the world.
I was thinking the same thing: the episode is rich in ethics conflicts, dilemmas and gray areas.Easily worth two hours.
In my jurisdiction (Texas), the criminal offense for the actual physical contact is also called assault. Under the Texas Penal Code, contact becomes assault when there’s bodily injury, and the standard for bodily injury is minimal (if the slappee said it hurt, that’s sufficient).
Your assault/battery explanation is correct for civil tort law and, as far as I can tell, Illinois criminal law. But the people online who characterize this incident as assault aren’t necessarily wrong. It just depends on where they’re from.
As Abe said,sort of, calling an assault battery doesn’t make it battery.
A quiet, but firm, “Hey. C’mon buddy. Stand up. It’s the national anthem.” would have been sufficient.
According to Jack’s summary of the incident, the verbal request was made and not heeded, so escalation followed. A classic “escalation of force” example familiar to LEOs everywhere.
Then I’d have left it at that, the point having been made.
Just watched the video.
I would have been strongly tempted to punch him in the gut.
I don’t like bullies.
(Of course, as much as I eschew most demonstrations evidencing any kind of “mob mentality,” I stand for the National Anthem.)
-Jut
We’ve hyperbolically gone in the direction of some sort of weird “physical abuse” absolutism in an effort to make sure we never physically abuse anyone. Let’s be clear, we shouldn’t physically harm anyone. But we’ve let our fear of doing so wipe out common sense in regards to the effective and harmless technique of proportionally appropriate physical redirection or emphasis.
*there’s nothing wrong with a gentle swat or semi-rough “man handling” of a person for whom nothing else is getting through*.
I’m sure everyone just gasped a little. I don’t care.
However, among several limiting conditions on the amount of physical force applied, there’s a very key limiting condition – the person doing the redirection should be in some sort of “authoritative” role. Otherwise all admonishments and redirections should be verbal only.
The guy doing the slapping is in no authority role above that kid in any. Even in a “gemeinschaft” culture, the man would be hard pressed to justify a slap. Certainly in that “gesellschaft” situation there was no such authority.
Let’s pretend he was in a role where a little physical redirection was warranted, the slap itself was beyond the limit of proportion in terms of force applied to the situation.
That pretty much covers it.
A few decades ago a woman was rebuked by a man in a theatre for not standing during the National Anthem. At the half time break he went out and tripped over her crutches, so he bought her an ice cream to apologise. She was a young woman and leading Paralympian so one cannot assume that just because someone is young they are able to stand.
I am here in hospital at the moment having my knee replaced, and if I stand I can get dizzy so require help whenever standing. In eleven days time I and others in our club will be at a meeting with the City Council about upgrades to our track and field. As our club are the experts in what is needed we will try to make sure the budget is spent in the most needed places and not wasted on the unwanted and unusable as happened at another track. By then I will still be on crutches so will be riding around in a John Deere Gator. What I am saying is by just looking at someone, you often cannot tell if someone has a disability, permanent or temporary, so one should be careful in passing judgement.