Sports serve three Great Purposes: 1) To bring and keep groups together; 2) To distract (or release) group members from hardship, corruption, and other pedestrian and elite failures; and 3) To train the group for being set upon another group (or groups) — both mobilization and scapegoating. Sports are integral to building and maintaining ʿaṣabiyya. This is why developing countries often have whole ministries of “sports” or “sports and youth.” Team sports in particular teach young people that there is something greater than the individual in this world, the primacy of group survival and glory over individual recognition (Our Survival). It introduces young men to concepts like legitimacy and obedience to group authority outside the family setting. Learning sportsmanship can spill over into good manners, an understanding of duty and responsibility and other chivalrous attributes. (Of course, not everyone learns those things.) Membership in a group, a team or club, helps to socialize young citizens into civil society, builds pride in self, neighborhood, city and nation. As such, sports clubs are key in nation-building and other such projects. Recreational sporting encourages better citizenship. bowlers are famous for being more likely to vote than other Americans. All this is especially true where participation in sports is concerned. It spills over onto spectators, who put their faith in the team, drape themselves in its colors and reel with every try and every goal.
Fans learn something more useful from sporting: loyalty. Continue reading
