Kramer explains to Elaine at the beginning of the episode that unlike other people who only virtue signal, when he gets behind a cause he does so sincerely: “I tell ya, there’s some people, they just wear a ribbon and they think they’re doin’ something? Not me. I talk the talk, and I walk the walk, baby.” But things take a turn for the worse when he arrives at the AIDS walk and refuses to put on the decoration.
Organiser: Uh … OK, you’re checked in. Here’s your AIDS ribbon.
Kramer: Uh, no thanks.
Organiser: You don’t want to wear an AIDS ribbon?
Kramer: No.
Organiser: But you have to wear an AIDS ribbon.
Kramer I have to?
Organiser: Yes.
Kramer: See, that’s why I don’t want to.
Organiser: But everyone wears the ribbon. You must wear the ribbon!
Kramer: You know what you are? You’re a ribbon bully. (Walks away.)
The situation escalates when Kramer proceeds to go on the walk and the other walkers discover his ribbonless attire. After several demands that he justify himself, Kramer ends up surrounded by a mob in a dark alleyway and emerges later with clothes torn and eyes blackened.
The jersey bullies of the Manly Sea Eagles who attempted to enforce a rainbow diktat on their players this week apparently did not expect seven of their players to refuse to wear the ribbon (or, in this case, jersey).
Perhaps these officials over-estimated how progressive their players were and how sensitive they would be to social pressure. Or perhaps they did not even consider their beliefs at all when they made the decision that each player would don a jersey celebrating LGBTQ+ pride at Thursday night’s NRL game.
What is fascinating about this saga is how little the actual beliefs seem to have mattered to the decision-making calculus. Like the bullying over Kramer’s ribbon, trendy social causes seem to function more as a vehicle for enforcing social consensus rather than celebrating or honouring any authentically held beliefs.
It’s important to keep in mind that these players hurt absolutely no one with their decision. Choosing not to wear a rainbow jersey is not equivalent to disrespecting or discriminating against LGBTQ+ individuals and is not evidence of any belief other than the fact these players do not to want to wear a decorative garment.
Some may argue that these players are employed by the Manly Sea Eagles and are paid lots of money to get on board with the social projects that the team’s officials decide are important, and that dissenting from their team’s diktats is an act of insubordination. Such an argument, however, ignores the fact rugby league players are selected according to their ability to play league, not for their social beliefs.
While standards of behavioural decency should be expected from players, it is unreasonable to expect all players to agree with all trendy social issues all of the time.
Such an episode, while it may seem minor and trivial compared with our cost of living and national security concerns, is also emblematic of a wider cultural dysfunction. From being forced to declare one’s pronouns in email signatures, or in university tutorials, or coerced into changing one’s social media profile to support XYZ cause, we have become a society where we are expected to continually advertise our social beliefs, and where we are hectored almost everyday to “wear the ribbon”.
This hectoring has become so commonplace that remaining mute on certain subjects is viewed as suspicious.
The debacle also highlights the absurdity – as well as the seriousness – of modern-day peer pressure. It is absurd because much of the hand-wringing is over purely symbolic gestures that have little to no real-world impact. Nobody is hurt by a refusal to wear a ribbon or a rainbow pride jersey. Yet because these actions buck against a social consensus, dissent becomes a courageous act.
On Thursday it was reported that at least one of the seven players who dissented from his team’s rainbow diktat received threatening messages on social media. Instead of condemning such messages and supporting their players’ freedom of conscience, Manly officials decided to ban them from the league match, in effect punishing them for a situation they did not create.
The irony is that this type of oppression is exactly what the original gay rights movement fought against. In the 1950s and ’60s, when socially conservative values enjoyed cultural dominance, individuals who were gay and lesbian had to conceal their sexuality. Today, progressive values enjoy cultural dominance and religious individuals are forced to conceal themselves if they do not want to be stigmatised and targeted for discrimination.
This is not progress. We have simply swapped one set of orthodoxies for another.
Claire Lehmann is founding editor of Quillette.
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In a classic episode of the hit television series Seinfeld, Kramer participates in an AIDS walk but refuses to wear the ribbon.