Moral victory

Reader question:

Please explain “moral victory” in this sentence: In today’s sports, you have to win and no “moral victories” count as wins.

My comments:

Moral victory refers to a good (subjective) lesson or experience gained from an apparent defeat. This term, most frequently seen in sports, belong to the optimistic losers, who choose to see the good from, say, a narrow defeat in order to remain upbeat instead of downtrodden from now on and hence forth.

You may understand “moral” in “moral victory” as you understand “moral” in “the moral of this story is such and such”.

In the ancient Aesop’s Fable, for example, a fox keeps leaping for the grapes up in the vines and can’t reach them. Finally giving up, the fox says to himself: “I might as well look for something else to eat because those grapes are green and sour”.

The moral of this story? Don’t be sour grapes.

In a more recent example, Ah Q, the hapless and pitiable (or un-pitiable, up to you) character in Lu Xun’s book, takes the Chinese propensity for claiming moral victories to the extreme. In the story, the homeless, jobless but once-upon-a-time noble Ah Q finds himself on the losing end of a fist fight with one of his fellow idlers. As he flees the ugly scene, he mutters to himself: “A son is beating his Papa for I’ve always considered him my son, or even inferior. But at any rate, what has this world come to, when sons are allowed to lay their hands on their Papas!”

And just like that, Ah Q seems more than consoled. He’s even congratulating himself to be sure for his limitless ability to snatch moral victories from the jaws of a clear defeat, however one-sided and painful.

Anyways, moral victories are subjective – meaning other people may not see it that way – and are the stuff of losers, who choose to see the good to feel good. A good idea it is too, if, for example, claiming moral victories stop you from staying downbeat all year round but don’t claim too many of these.

Lest you turn yourself into, well, perpetual sour grapes.

Win a real battle instead.

Anyways, here are still more up-to-date examples of “moral victory” culled from the media:

1. Even without Tony Parker, the San Antonio Spurs are making up ground in the playoff race.

George Hill stepped into Parker's starring role and scored a career-high 27 points, and the Spurs overcame Kevin Durant's 45 to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 99-96 on Monday night and forge a tie between the teams for sixth place in the Western Conference standings...

Oklahoma City had a six-game home winning streak snapped and lost back-to-back games for the first time in a month. The Thunder were coming off a 121-101 loss at Indiana that Durant called a “disgrace.”

“There’s no moral victories but I’m proud of how we bounced back from not bringing anything last game to bringing that energy,” said Durant, who matched his highest scoring output of the season and fell two points shy of tying his career best. “It’s something you’ve got to feel good about.”

- CBSSports.com, March 22, 2010.

2. Indeed, the impression lingered that Andorra, ranked 186th in the world, had been rather unimpressed with Capello’s side in a contest that effectively pitted blanket defence against increasingly desperate attack. “Mr Capello says he does not understand why a small team like Andorra still defends when we are losing 2-0,” said the Andorran coach David Rodrigo. “I can tell him that he should try coaching Andorra and I will try coaching England, and I’m sure we would beat Andorra more than 2-0.

“People talk about my team being nonprofessional and having jobs outside football, but my players made the English supporters turn against their own team again, just like they did two years ago. What does that say? If we had 11 professional players, we would beat England. We are proud to have lost only 2-0. We were very organized and stopped them scoring in the first half.

“It is not easy to play against England. From our point of view, it is no consolation but we have to say it was a moral victory for us.”

- Andorra taunt England after 'moral victory', The Guardian, September 8, 2008.

3. The term moral victory is not exclusive to sports. It has been used to describe everything from Al Gore’s disputed defeat in the presidential election of 2000 to the battle at the Alamo in 1836.

But the term is heard most often after athletic contests referring to the losing side of a close result against an opponent perceived as superior. The boxer Joe Frazier’s reputation was enhanced in 1975 when he lost his heavyweight title bout to the champion Muhammad Ali in the Thrilla in Manila. The same sort of fame came to John McEnroe after Bjorn Borg beat him for the 1980 Wimbledon title.

Phil Simms, the former Giants quarterback who is now a CBS announcer, said the term moral victory was “thrown out there probably way too much, like a lot of sports clichés.” But Simms said the Giants’ 38-35 loss to New England in late December was a legitimate example.

“I would say yes, that was a moral victory,” he said last week. “It gave them confidence to play the best team in the N.F.L.”

The topic is relevant this weekend as the Giants and the undefeated Patriots prepare to meet again, in the Super Bowl, and because, sometimes, a moral victory is followed by a win in the rematch.

That was the case when McEnroe beat Borg in the 1981 Wimbledon final. Defensive lineman Richard Seymour of the Patriots recalled a similar situation in 2001, when New England lost to the St. Louis Rams, 24-17, during the regular season.

“When we walked away from that game, we said,‘Man, we would love to see those guys again,’” Seymour said. After winning their next eight games, the Patriots faced the Rams again in the Super Bowl and beat them, 20-17. Therefore, Seymour concluded, “We understand the mentality the Giants have.”

- Giants Hope a Moral Victory Can Lead to a Real One, The New York Times, February 3, 2008.