The NFL—with 1,600 XY-male players and no XX-women players—issued a statement professing its steadfast commitment to inclusion, “The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.” Perhaps this means inclusiveness for women in background supporting roles for the male players.
Without doth protesting too much and overplaying its hand with its perhaps hypocritical statement, such as the now misnomered Academy of Motion Picture “Arts and Sciences,” [1], the NFL might have simply stayed in its lane by stating:
Mr. Butker was not speaking for the NFL. The NFL has thousands of players and staff members who have diverse tastes, opinions and beliefs to which they are each and all entitled in the United States of America. The NFL is disciplined not to concern itself with lawful off-field activities not related to the NFL’s goal of football athletic excellence.
It’s okay. We understand. It’s easy to get pushed around by the mousey little balls of new social media. And, the gates and goal posts are narrow. [2.1]
It’s now well-documented that Harrison Butker, the placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs (and let’s not digress into the name controversy), delivered an address at Benedictine College. In his speech, he touched on controversial topics, including the dignity of life, masculinity, and the role of motherhood. Butker also addressed abortion and gender ideologies.
Benedictine College, as a private educational institution, is entitled to profess principles in accordance with its spiritual mission. As a matter of social educational responsibility, private educational institutions often permit contradictory philosophical teachings, but this is by grace and not by legal requirement. A private institution may, as it deems fitting, assert spiritual dogma, because it is entitled to try to survive and to self-perpetuate by expressing its mission. Private educational institutions and public educational institutions are on different legal standards from a constitutional perspective.
Within the scope of mature critical thinking for adults and not little children, Harrison Butker addressed important social issues we need to contemplate.
Let us not conflate contexts. Harrison Butker is not an elected public official, such as would create an overt horizontal social duty to accommodate diverse public opinions in an elected public constituency. [3] Harrison Butker was not speaking to me, and he was almost certainly not speaking to you. Harrison Butker was not speaking for the NFL.
Harrison Butker was speaking for himself, at a private Christian college, that has a Christian faith-based mission, by an invitation to express his own personal wisdom to adults. His message was not to little children, but to adults.
Behold it, Butker said what he said by courage and strength, contradicting the momentum of a different narrative. Whether we agree with him right now is not material to the issue, as time and experience prove that no one who changes or evolves remains at the place of inception, by definition. [4]
Moreover, it is not for me to judge whether he exceeded his expected role. I was not his host, I was not a guest, and I was not in the audience. [2.2, 2.3]
Such as it appears at least, Harrison Butker does not subscribe to the principles of a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Confucian, or an atheist.
Harrison Butker professes to be a Christian, which he is entitled to be in the United States of America. As a Christian, Harrison Butker is entitled openly to express those ideals and principles that he believes are consistent with his faith. And it seems altogether fitting and proper to do so at a Benedictine college. [5] Moreover, having made his choice of faith, it may be reasonably presupposed that he believes that Christian principles are the better or the best temporal foundation for social conduct. So be it.
To this, at least for me, I am Voltairian, “I do not necessarily agree with what the man says, but I will fight to the death for his right to say it.” [6, 7]
Harrison Butker is entitled to express his ideals and principles, including by spoken words, written words, and by spoken words that are recorded.
In Harrison Butker’s professions by words, he is his own book. He is his own message. To burn the message, to burn the book, is to burn the man. [8] Censorship of ideas, silencing of free expression, and human intimidation are not the stuff of a free, diverse, free-thinking nation, as the United States of America.
History and experience teach that message burning, and book burning, and man burning are different implementations of the same condition: fear, weakness, and insecurity. Fear, weakness and insecurity, the condition of little mice that run from the slightest noise, scampering. [9]
Fear of the maintained and asserted difference in another implies the imperfection of ourselves, perhaps insulting us. To wit, insecurity. [10, 11]
But, please don’t get me wrong, history proves that, in this field of play, the church tends to be more the offender than the defender, but, it does not follow that being an often offender should justify injustice. [12]
Dare it be said overtly, Harrison Butker is entitled to influence and to persuade.
And, if his adult audience at Benedictine College is well-educated, they will do exactly what excellent judges are trained to do; to wit: “I will take it in and give it the weight it deserves.” Take it in and think about it.
Allowing information to be considered—perhaps to be rejected in due course—is a secure, mature, and thoughtful process, rather than burning the books, or burning the man, one way or the other, which is ignorance embraced, the most cardinal of all human errors, by contradicting the most precious of all human attributes: Wisdom. [12] We don’t have to agree, but we must think.
The Preface to the New American Bible makes one of most elegant written statements ever made in this regard: “In all these areas, the present translation attempts to display a sensitivity appropriate to the present state of the questions under discussion, which are not yet resolved and in regard to which it is impossible to please everyone, since intelligent and sincere participants in the debate hold mutually contradictory views.“
So said by the great political philosopher, John Stuart Mill, called “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century,” in his treatise, On Liberty:
Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few persons have a mind sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness. Thus, it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners.
When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence.
[13, 14, 15, 16] If we listen only to those who agree with us, to what credit is that to us, particularly in a free, diverse, and free-thinking nation? Do not the tyrants and dictators do and require the same? [2.4]
Go ahead, Harrison Butker, keep trying to convince me. I do not need you on the basis that we agree, but, rather, I need you on the basis that we do not agree. Where we disagree, I might be wrong. [*12, 17]
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[1] The Academy Awards and Bud Light Parallels, Gone Sideways with the Wind? [#GRZ_147]
[2] ONE®: The LinkedIn Reference Set [#GRZ_183] 2.1 ONE: 621 [T7:13] (“Narrow Gate“); 2.2 ONE: 609 [L6:38] (“The Measure“); 2.3 ONE: 612 [T7:3, L6:41] (“Beam Eye“); 2.4 ONE: 537 [L6:32] (“Love Enemies“)
[3] “Do I Look Like a Christian?” Or, The Gift of “Happy Holidays” – Stand for America® [#GRZ_51]
[4] The Three Noble Cardinal Rules of Wisdom [#GRZ_189]
[5] Critical Thinking and the Conflation of Character, Integrity, Goodness and Virtue [#GRZ_148]
[6] Kicking Around Big Ideas; Or, NFL Lessons in Human Nature and Political Philosophy [#GRZ_192]
[7] Mind Control, Protests and the Goal – Stand for America® [#GRZ_64]
[9] Surviving Prejudice, Not All Bad [#GRZ_73]
[10] The Insecure Human Being – The Business of Aesop™ No. 51 – A Fox Without a Tail [#GRZ_36]
[11] Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? Chapter 3, The Reflective Contemplative Dwelling Mind [#GRZ_124]
[12] I Am Not Brainwashed, And Neither Are You. Maybe. But I Might be Wrong. [#GRZ_165]
[13] John Stuart Mill – Leadership is Thinking Independently [#GRZ_46]
[14] John Stuart Mill – Leadership and Being Unique from the Crowd [#GRZ_47]
[15] Freedom of Religion, by Thomas Jefferson – Abridgment Series [#GRZ_61]
[16] Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Tease with Political Incorrectness [#GRZ_74]
[17] The Toll on Character [#GRZ_68]
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ChatGPT Review
Absolutely. Below is a structured analysis of Gregg Zegarelli’s article “Of Mice and Men, and Books and Men and Mice Burning Men; Or, Behold the Man, Harrison Butker” using the same framework:
1. Zegarelli’s Pedagogy in This Piece
Pedagogical Method:
- Contextual Framing and Conflation Separation: Zegarelli insists on separating different legal and social contexts — private speech vs. public role, religious freedom vs. secular governance, audience of children vs. audience of adults. His method is legal-philosophical framing.
- Protection of Expression through Thought Experiment: He walks the reader through a deconstructive empathy model: “What if we disagreed but still valued the discussion?” He positions disagreement as pedagogically useful.
- Civic Philosophy through Legal Analogy: Drawing from constitutional freedoms, Zegarelli invokes First Amendment values as the philosophical foundation for tolerance — not as a loophole, but as a core civilizing principle.
- Reference Anchoring: He supports the pedagogy with curated references — Mill, Jefferson, Scripture, and his prior articles — to show his consistency and continuity of thought (e.g., “Rollerball,” “CSI,” “Fox Without a Tail”).
- Judicial Analogy: He uses a judge’s training — “take it in and give it the weight it deserves” — to instruct the reader on how to handle disagreement with grace, critical thinking, and restraint.
2. Fit within Zegarelli’s Broader Ethos
| Ethical Pillar | Connection in the Article |
|---|---|
| Freedom of Expression | Emphatic defense of Butker’s right to speak, even if controversial |
| Insecurity Awareness | Frames modern suppression of dissent as rooted in fear, not strength (e.g., “mousey little balls of new social media”) |
| Educational Maturity | Encourages audiences to confront disagreement like adults, not children; elevates civil discourse as civic virtue |
| Anti-Censorship / CSI | Reiterates concern with soft censorship via intimidation (“book burning” = “man burning”) |
| Religious Tolerance | Reaffirms pluralism: Butker is Christian and entitled to act from that perspective; so are Muslims, atheists, etc. |
| Voltairean Dissent | Explicit endorsement of the classic liberal value: defend the right to speak regardless of agreement |
Zegarelli draws directly from his “Corporate Social Intimidation” (CSI) theme and his John Stuart Mill citations to emphasize diversity of thought as the lifeblood of a free society.
3. Conclusions and Specific Points He Makes
Here are Zegarelli’s explicit and implicit conclusions:
| Theme | Conclusion |
|---|---|
| NFL Response | The NFL overreacted or acted hypocritically; it should have taken a neutral, principled stance |
| Butker’s Context | Butker spoke at a private, religious, adult-only event. That context matters. |
| Freedom of Religion | Private institutions may express dogma; that’s part of a free society |
| Speech vs. Endorsement | Butker spoke for himself, not the NFL, not the state |
| Disagreement ≠ Silencing | We must disagree maturely, not burn the person/message |
| Conflation is Dangerous | Silencing ideas under the guise of inclusion is rhetorical dishonesty |
| Tolerance of Dissent is Strength | Mature societies value disagreement — that’s how truth emerges |
| Free Society Requirement | Free expression is a requirement for wisdom, not just a legal right |
4. Final Synthesis: Zegarelli’s Point
In One Sentence:
“In a free, pluralistic, and adult society, we must protect and engage with speech we disagree with — not silence it out of insecurity masquerading as moral virtue.”
Expanded Summary:
- Butker was acting privately, not institutionally.
- He is entitled to his views — and entitled to share them at a religious college.
- We, as citizens of a mature society, are obligated to process ideas thoughtfully, not censor them.
- Disagreement should lead to dialogue, not punishment.
- Suppression of dissent (even through soft power or media outrage) is a form of modern “book burning.”
- The real danger is not Butker’s speech, but our weakness to confront conflicting ideas rationally.
Key Take-Aways
- Pedagogy: Civic maturity through separation of context and critical thinking.
- Ethos Fit: Reinforces Zegarelli’s consistent defense of expressive liberty, anti-censorship, and moral courage.
- Conclusion: Censorship—whether overt or passive—is an act of fear. True strength lies in the tolerance and thoughtful challenge of opposing views.
Here’s the flowchart visualizing Zegarelli’s argument from the Butker article. It captures how he logically progresses from private speech rights to a defense of civil disagreement, culminating in his broader point about the preservation of wisdom in a free society.
20250429.4o
© 2024 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
The statements or opinions made in this article are solely the author’s own and not representative of any institution regarding which the author is affiliated.
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mice-men-books-burning-behold-man-harrison-butker-zegarelli-esq–5tvle
GRZ193.20250429 GRZUID193
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