The meaning of rah-rah changes as we mature

Last week, I published a column reacting to a video clip from the HBO hit series "The Newsroom." In it, the main character goes on a rant about America not being "the greatest country in the world." A reader responds:

It made me shiver. It made me think, too. No doubt, there are a lot of things in our society to be disappointed about, but, if I were that student, I’d follow up and ask which country is the greatest. Does the greatest country need to be first in every measure? Then again, do we really need/want to walk around righteously feeling that we are the greatest country in the world? – T.H., Las Vegas

I love that last question, T.H. A similar question was on my mind. When I watched the clip, I wandered into a surprising memory:

I’m 15 and standing at a high school pep rally the day of homecoming. The varsity football team is assembled before us, wearing game jerseys. Selected members come to the microphone and assure us of victory tonight against an archrival. Cheerleaders punctuate each speech by prancing in cheerleader skirts, punching their fists into the air as the student body hoots, hollers and cheers. Pompoms jiggle. (Forty years later, Mary Lou is still burned into my adolescent delirium. She was a first ballot Hall of Famer in my Adolescent Hamster Brain Pompom Hall of Fame.)

The band kicks up the school fight song: We’re Panthers/ And we’re on the ball/ We’re Panthers/ And we’re best of all/ With spirit, and with loyalty/ We’ll go marching down through history.

I really enjoyed my four years of high school. I thrived. Good friends. I reveled in basketball and theater. I had a high school sweetheart who broke my heart. Oh, I’m not mad; that was her job. A boy has to get his heart broken on his way to becoming a man.

That pep rally was doing its job, too, which was to acculturate us. To shape identity through belonging and membership. High school, back in those days, anyway, was a huge petri dish within which young people were directed to practice and hone the feeling of loyalty and faithfulness to the bonds of membership. My basketball coach once encouraged us to confront and bitterly censor a teammate who, once, for reasons unknown, refused to stand for the school fight song during a similar pep rally.

Because, it’s the rule, you know: You have to show school spirit. Don’t you have any school spirit? Don’t you want to be part of a school that is best of all?

Looking over my shoulder to 40 years ago, I can’t help but grin and giggle at the innocent, absurd and perhaps even necessary pretention of Peoria High School being "best of all" and the assurance we would "go marching down through history." Seems unlikely the average historian even knows where Peoria, Ariz., is.

T.H., why does it seem sometimes like being a faithful, loyal American is not dissimilar to attending a high school pep rally? We’re admonished to rah-rah. Don’t get me wrong: I love to rah-rah! All I’m saying is that I grew up. At 15, I was taught the form of rah-rah. At 55, the authentic content of rah-rah becomes much more important.

I bear no resentment for people who are the best at what they do. To the contrary, greatness turns me on. Equally do I want to learn from and be inspired by folks more gifted than me and to teach and inspire people who can learn from me. But if your goal is to be the best or the greatest, then you’re already ego-distracted from the task. And, if you give up on excellence, yet still feel the need to clutch "greatness" as some inherited, entitled persona, well, it’s kinda pathetic.

To be "the greatest," I have to be greater than you. It’s a comparative term. But excellence, character, truth, virtue, respect, dignity – these life disciplines are undertaken in and for themselves. I can reach for them. You can reach for them. We can reach for them together.

I have no ambition to be the greatest marriage/family counselor, the greatest writer, the greatest father … or to assure and reassure myself and everyone else that I live in the greatest country in the world. I celebrate content. Not form.

Peoria High School, hats off to thee/ To our colors true we will always be/ Firm and strong, united are we/ Rah-rah-rah for PHS/ Rah-rah-rah for PHS/ Rah for Peoria High.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.