Inspired by Springer

Back in the day, when I was young enough that I can blame my bad taste on my youth, I was a fan of “The Jerry Springer Show.” This was before the same-sex love fests and fist fights that are now the staple of daytime talk show TV. Back when I watched Jerry Springer, an adulterous affair was still big news, and even though audience members chanted “Jerry, Jerry” every time a fight loomed, guests rarely made contact (let alone threw chairs). The best part of every show was Jerry’s final thought, when Mr. Springer stepped out of his role as purveyor of daytime sleaze and spoke with the wisdom and candor that once got him elected mayor of Cincinnati. During his final thought, Mr. Springer would distill the meaning of the show, projecting the small-time grievance of a single family onto the universal plane. I always walked away gratified, content in Mr. Springer’s breakdown of the world and savoring his signature sign-off: “Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.”

Until recently, I assumed the show had been shuffled off the airwaves, passing into the talk show oblivion where “Donahue” and “Montel” now reside. But I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of an episode during a recent sick day at home and I was struck by this line from the (still gratifying) final thought: “We all get treated exactly the way we allow ourselves to be.”

Afterward, I flipped to “The Steve Wilkos Show,” where a younger, balder, badder version of Mr. Springer counseled a 16-year-old girl about the dangers of her abusive boyfriend. The young woman spoke about how the boyfriend choked her and Mr. Wilkos did his part in calling the boyfriend trash. “You don’t deserve to sit in my chair,”

Mr. Wilkos said to the man. He kicked the chair away while the audience cheered. And I thought, “But why is she putting up with this in the first place?”

There’s an analogy that says people are like lottery tickets. Sometimes we get the $1 winning ticket and sometimes we get the $10,000 winning ticket, but we can never turn a $1 ticket into a $10,000 ticket. I wonder, then, why we spend so much time trying? Asking someone to change, begging someone to change, and taking someone on daytime talk shows to change — they all amount to the same thing: Nothing. Rather than investing our energy in making bad partners palatable, we would be better served choosing good partners from the get-go.

And I would take it a step farther.

We need to take responsibility for how we’re treated by the ones we’re with. After all, it takes two to traffic in poor behavior: one to dish it out and one to take it. To tell the truth, most of us have taken more than we should at one time or another. Perhaps we could all use a stint on “The Jerry Springer” show. I’ll bring the boxing gloves. 

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