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Brewers vs. something important
America’s got alienation to spare
By Nathan Johnson
“Many people had a greater emotional response to Brett Favre’s retirement announcement than to such important current events as the genocide in Sudan.”
The Milwaukee Brewers’ season is over, now that they have advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 1892, I mean, 1982. You can sigh in exasperation, or you can sigh a sigh of relief knowing that everything in the universe is as it should be. You can put your retro Brewers’ apparel back in the closet now, but don’t forget to add some fresh mothballs because who knows when the Brewers will make it to the playoffs next.
The entire experience of suffering Brewers fans has been a perfect lesson in Buddhism, which teaches that human suffering is the result of attachment. No attachment to the Brewers, no pain when they disappoint.
I once saw a t-shirt that read “the sports team from my area is better than the sports team from your area.” That completely sums up the insignificance of professional sports, in the grand scheme of things. Don’t get me wrong, sports are fun and all, and of course it’s perfectly fine to follow sports. I’m just saying there are plenty of social issues that are more important, but don’t receive half as much attention as professional sports.
During the Brewers’ brief post-season, Milwaukeeans felt a slightly greater sense of community and pride. On one hand it’s a good sign that it doesn’t take much to bring people together after all. But on the other hand, it’s sad that this increased camaraderie was the result of a mere game, and not something more substantial, like trying to end de facto segregation or revitalize Milwaukee’s fledging public education system.
It really says a lot about our society that, for instance, many people had a greater emotional response to Brett Favre’s retirement announcement than to such important current events as the genocide in Sudan. Some people even have a greater emotional investment in fictional characters on TV or in movies than in the wellbeing of real-life, impoverished people living just a few miles away in Milwaukee’s inner city, which is in a constant state of depression.
It reminds me of a scene from “The Catcher in the Rye,” when Holden goes to the movies,
“There was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture… You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn’t. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf.”
The people living in the ghettoes, ignored in every city of America, experience one type of poverty, while the wealthy experience poverty of another kind- a total failure and incapacity to empathize with their own humanity. This alienation is so severe the affected people are unaware of their own alienation. The middle class experiences a fusion of material and spiritual poverty, precisely because the middle class is in-between the destitute and ruling classes of our highly polarized society.
Alienation has become such an omnipresent component of the American landscape, that it is difficult to take the necessary step back in order to gain perspective. If people are so concerned over trivial regional rivalries, such as that between the Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, it becomes that much harder for Americans can overcome petty nationalism and develop an international consciousness.
Tens of thousands of people come together in sport stadiums to be entertained- imagine what would happen if tens of thousands came together to understand and solve social problems? That would be a revolution.
> Comments
Johanan Raatz on Oct 13, 2008 at 10:06 AM:
Well we may not agree on a lot but I definitely agree with you about the state of the culture. There is something really screwed up about a society if it prioritizes things like stupid sports games over things that really matter.
Greg on Oct 13, 2008 at 11:53 AM:
I'm sure that the beneficiaries of our new sense of civil service would be disappointed to know that the responsible majority decided it was for their best interest to discontinue their favorite way of temporarily removing themselves from their uran blight.
I've got two ideas for you to help you push your social responsibility agenda:
Pick something that everyone in the area holds dear to their heart. Then tell them that that's stupid and they should like what you like instead. That's sure to get people to listen.
Make a list of everything you think is right and tell everyone that they're wrong and they should agree with you.
Those are sure to work.
"My favorite way to improve social responsibility is better than your favorite way to improve social responsibility."
You Fool Nathan on Oct 14, 2008 at 10:45 AM:
There's political aspects of sports as well. Sports are a reflection of our politics and they're also a beautiful thing. So screw this moronic article.
Karl on Oct 15, 2008 at 08:24 AM:
Baseball is the elevator music of the masses.
Pundit on Oct 15, 2008 at 06:05 PM:
Bah, I won’t pay attention to sports until they bring back gladiator matches in the manner of those once conducted at the Roman Coliseum! I derive more entertainment from the suffering of those masses employed in sweatshops and other conditions that liberals excoriate.