Superbowl 42

We kept half an eye on the football game last night while we read our Pullman novels. It would have been exciting, I suppose, if I had money on the game or if I otherwise gave a rat's patootie about which team won. This morning, I heard some folks call into my favorite radio show who seemed almost suicidal (Patriots fans) or manic (Giants fans). These people need help.

I was once a lunatic for a sports team, but I got over it. Now I can't figure out how I ever got into the position where my mood depended so heavily on the success or failure of a group of guys so wholly unrelated to me in an endeavor so completely divorced from my interests. Talk about mindless jingoism. I spoke of the team in the first person. "We" won or lost. The team promoted this sense of identity with it because it helped sell tickets and merchandise and advertising on broadcasts of games. I spent a lot of money on "my" team and attended, listened to, or watched every game I could. I felt that I could influence the outcome of games with telepathy.

Then I moved far away and was no longer surrounded by people who shared my delusion. Instead, I was surrounded by folks who identified with a completely different team! These people were insane!

I know people who identify with groups other than sports teams and who suffer from the same kind of delusional thinking. They identify with a political party or a nation-state or an ethnic category and imagine that they are part of something greater than themselves. They're not, but there are plenty of folks who will take economic or political advantage of their tendency to identify with something.

I'm not saying that it never makes sense to identify with a group and to practice solidarity. The tendency wouldn't have evolved if it didn't have survival value. But you should look for some real commonality of actual interests that can actually be served through solidarity before devoting yourself to the collective. If you are depressed today in Boston or elated in New Jersey because of what happened last night, you really need to get a life.