tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7398816522051509280.post240192706324681985..comments2023-11-03T07:19:42.953-05:00Comments on The Dissentators: Lacrosse - that's French for...the crossThe Dissentatorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826424514995298881noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7398816522051509280.post-11029662933712337112007-05-21T16:45:00.000-05:002007-05-21T16:45:00.000-05:00Wow, big day on the blog today. Hope the activity...Wow, big day on the blog today. Hope the activity level continues like this!<BR/><BR/>First off, to Virginia, Your Fine Punditry is only matched by Your Firstrate Propensity to incorporate crosses into your posts and find sweet pictures to go with them.<BR/><BR/>In any case I have enjoyed the recent content from all of you, in which we have all tried to get at various questions of widespread behavior among large groups of people. These are really interesting questions but also kind of dangerous because we may sometimes be making broad generalizations and can often be wrong about these, but nonetheless very interesting because there is no reason why widespread behavior can't point to some valid insight into human nature or the affects of culture on behavior.<BR/><BR/>Okay now to say something about your post. What did you think of this guy Shirley? "We want to see people that look like us succeed"? I find this pretty bogus in general and I am sorry that Europeans will meet this guy and take him as an example of a typical American.<BR/><BR/>But let's look at what Shirley is really getting at, which is white people routing for white basketball players in the NBA. One thing that is interesting here is that a lot of the white NBA stars are not American (Dirk, Nash, Ginobli), but that might be too much of a digression. I personally want to see my team succeed regardless of who the players are, but I can think of one valid reason for white people (or black or whatever) to want to see whites succeed in the NBA, which is routing for the underdog. Shirley implies this when he says that most of the time, we don't see white guys in the NBA, because there are less of them playing. Now maybe I am really out of touch, but I don't think most white guys will care how a white NBA player does (putting aside team allegiances), but if they do want to see them succeed, it is because they want to root for the underdog. Routing for the underdog is extremely interesting becaues it comes up in so many different contexts, but applied to sports, I think that routing for the underdog is something people do when they are watching a game where they don't care who wins (ex: you are watching the Superbowl and your team is long gone from the Playoffs and you are indifferent to the teams playing now), and you want to rout for someone just to make it more interesting (maybe to give MEANING to what you are doing, although I really don't know how to work in Bilgrami and normative agency).<BR/><BR/>So I think that this is what you, Virginia, were doing when you routed for Duke to win in lacrosse - routing for an underdog (although they are usually the favorite but I guess they had a lot of problems from what happened which indirectly caused big disadvantages for them on the field).<BR/><BR/>One other reason one might rout for Duke after what happened would be for some kind of "poetic justice," where something unfair or unfortunate happened to the team or one of its players so you want to see them succeed because they "deserve it," or at least you are thinking that if one of these teams is going to walk out victorious and all psyched with themselves, you would rather it be the one who you think could use that kind of a pick me up. Maybe you even will share in that pick me up because you sympathize with that team's prior troubles (we all have troubles) and you like the idea of a world with karma or something where if you suffer unfairly to some extent, your luck will turn and your sorrows will end, and you might even be compensated with some unusually fulfilling happiness, like winning the championship.<BR/><BR/>So that is my take on why you (the royal you, I guess, which would include Virginia) would route for some white athletes, I am much more convinced by the above reasons, as opposed to some idea of them as your "brothers." Wait, you aren't related to any of them, right?BostonDissentatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02004316885387232050noreply@blogger.com