Superbowl Sunday. The most expensive piece of advertising real estate on TV. A celebration of all things American. Ritualized tribal warfare. A superbly crafted piece of marketing. But not a game. It masquerades as one. We call it a game. Games are things you do for fun. These people are getting paid millions of dollars to play football. That makes it business, because you first have to take in millions, before you can pay out millions. And its VERY BIG BUSINESS. Aside from the fact that top athletes, between salaries, prize money, and endorsements, sometimes make over $100 million a year, the fact that Congress spent so much time on the question of substance abuse in a "sport", while our country flounders, clearly reveals that sports have little or nothing to do, at their core, with fun and games. Huge amounts of money are spent selling this game to the public, building the hype. And, generally speaking, we buy into it. Spend our hard-earned money on it. For what? A game. A few hours of mock tribal warfare.
I am not a fan of the tribal mentality. Us-against-them. Exclusivity, not inclusivity. Competition for limited resources...that may not be all that limited. Institutionalized violence. I'm not blaming our problems on the Super Bowl, but I think it is...symptomatic, symbolic. I am tired of the capitalists shoving this bill-of-goods down our throats. And tired of people taking it and saying, "Thank you, Sir. May I have another?"
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