Sheila Kennedy has a good post this morning on the similarities between football and religion; particularly the group dynamics involved. She mentions an anthropologist named Harvey Whitehouse who has suggested that belief in the supernatural is incidental to religion – what really matters are the rituals that foster group cohesion, creating personal bonds that people are willing to die for.
Rather than generate new content on this (hopefully) lazy Sunday (not to be confused with lazy Muncie), I’ll just cut & paste my comment:
Reminds me of an extension of the development of complex organisms in the first place. First the replicating single-cell organisms had no worries – resources were abundant. Then they replicated themselves into scarcity. But, those who started eating the others had abundance. Then it became an arms race, cells combining to develop offensive and defensive mechanisms. Those who were most successful in defending themselves while eliminating the competition replicated the most DNA.
Eventually you get to where combining the organisms means forming packs and tribes and groups. And you’re not just replicating your DNA; you’re replicating memes like religious beliefs. The meme that surrounds itself with defense mechanisms and arranges for elimination of competing memes is more likely to replicate itself.
Few people are willing to die for their football team; but to a lot of people the particulars of the football that gets played is incidental. They don’t love their team because their team is objectively “the best.” Or even because the particular players on their chosen team remain the same from year to year and they feel a personal bond with the personnel. Rather, it’s a pretty clear “us” versus “them” event, and by choosing an “us,” you get to be part of a group. I don’t think that I’m atypical in finding most sporting events more exciting if I adopt a rooting interest – even an arbitrary one.
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