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From a very interesting discussion between Jonathan Pageau and Vesper Stamper.
From the beginning of the lockdown and universal quarantine, I kept wondering about why they took away sports. Bread and circuses keep the masses calm and compliant. They kept the bread flowing, with $1200 checks, but shut off all the circuses. Why?
Jonathan Pageau answered the question, and the answer only makes sense if you knew you wanted riots all along. Sports, like religion, is a place of identity and communion. But it is something more. Sports offers a place to fuel our aggressive tendencies and to give an outlet to channel our aggression. We cheer and root and argue about our team.
The gladiators served the same purpose. It sublimates our aggression; it’s a communal catharsis of violence. When you take it away, you end up with what you’ve got now: pseudo-religious actions where people are using all religious tropes of scapegoating, catharsis, violence, contrition.
The only place where it is permitted is in the protests. You can’t go to church, you can’t go to a restaurant, you can’t go to sports, but you can go to these protests. It is the only outlet, and without sports it is the only outlet for aggression.
The forces are trying to remove unity even if the games are played. As a Texas Ex, some players are petitioning to end the tradition of everyone singing The Eyes of Texas after the game. It is a song everyone sings win or lose and at any official school ceremony. It is a source of school unity, but someone wrote an article linking the song to "racism". So now there have been calls to end that tradition. Truly sad.
ReplyDeleteYou equate sports with religion and in many aspects I'd say sports is more of a god than God himself. I cant count the times that I've wanted to have a serious discussion with someone, about something of substance, only to be met with that deer in the headlight stare. But talk about some fictitious character on the boob tube or the game from last night and they spring to life. So what I came away from these sad encounters is that the masses are mendacious, mediocre and mean. Because, if as you say it's a way to "channel" the aggression, what you in essence have is a populace of violent ignoramuses who live in a fantasy world. That also might explain why the American empire never ceases to wage war and destroy others outside its borders lest it turn its violent tendencies upon its own.
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