Sports, Movies and the End of Western Civilization

Sports, Movies and the End of Western Civilization

We hear a lot today about how civilization is in decline. This is typically based upon a general lowering of moral standards, the coarsening of the culture and the apathy of so many in the West. Parallels are often drawn between us and Rome. These parallels include the fact that it was when they thought that they had reached the peak of human achievement that they began to decline and like us, their morals were flagging, the public was ambivalent about a growing government and the empire was being pecked to death by many small enemies and its frontier. But there is one parallel that I have yet to see made explicit and that is the role of sports, or more broadly, the role of entertainment in both cultures.

Now, before you engage in the time-honored and highly entertaining sports of jumping to conclusions and hurling accusations, I am not condemning sports or entertainment in general. While there are elements that are worthy of condemnation, both are overall good things. My purpose is rather to point out that the way we talk about and experience these things is another, under-analyzed symptom of our cultural degradation.

So, what is unique about our dialogue on these subjects and what is its relation to ancient Rome before its fall? Let’s start by looking at the first part of that question.

To being with, ask yourself how much time people spend talking about things like sports and movies. Quite a bit. Now, ask yourself on what level are they discussed? Usually, the topics include the quality of the ref, stats, and who’s in jail this seek. That covers sports. Concerning movies the topics of conversation revolve around the attractiveness of the women, special effects and action scenes. In short, they are discussed on the shallowest possible level. Discussions about how sports can provide a means of drawing out the best of human courage and determination or on how movies can be an important art form that explores the human condition in unique was rarely happen. The exception is when the two come together in a Disney produced “based-on-a-true-story” sports movie. However, while movies are generally well-received they are usually forgotten about as soon as the summer blockbuster season starts.

These topics lead into weightier matters, matters concerning just what it is that makes us human, matters that explore our essential nature, matters that sooner or later get us into the discussion of religion, or at least of politics (and often both). And as everyone knows, religion and politics are not supposed to be brought up in polite conversation.

Why is that? The answer typically given is that such topics are controversial, divisive, contentious, etc. That is, religion and politics involve questions of right and wrong, how we should live our lives. And given the number of competing religions and philosophies out there today it seems impossible that more than two or three people are likely to agree on what is right and what is wrong. Such topics are considered divisive and alienating and as such are left alone.

This reluctance to discuss the big questions of life has increased to the point that many even fail to acknowledge that these questions are important. The result is that our society is no longer held together by commonly expressed notions of truth and goodness. In fact, it isn’t even held together by the search for these things.

And yet, society does go on and even appears to be held together. The loss of a sense of truth hasn’t yet led to atomized individuals racing away from each other like galaxies. Clearly, we are still forming and maintaining relationships with various people and maintaining those relationships; which means that we are still able to find some sort of common ground.

So far as I can tell this new common ground is based on our shared commitment to entertainment. As I write this, I find myself remembering a magazine cover that touted that FUN is the “new core value.” Apparently I’m the not the first one to recognize this trend. The entertainment and pleasure involved can come from many things, sports, movies, music, pushpin, chess or sex (which society has basically reduced to a form of entertainment). To prevent this essay from turning into a book, I’ll focus on the discussing the two that I began with, sports and movies.

They both form a large portion of our common experience as a culture. Both provide a spectacle that excites and entertains, that pulls us out of our daily lives for at least a little while. And whether we admit it our not, they both call to deeper parts of our nature, the parts that cause us to exult when a team comes back from twenty point deficit to with the Super Bowl or that makes us teary eyed when Andy gives his toys to the girl at the daycare. I think that this ability to call out to our better natures is what allows us to elevate these things (sports in particular) almost to the level of a religion.

Think about how much time and energy we invest into these things. We research information about favorite players or upcoming movies on the internet. We purchase special clothing that identifies with our favorite teams, rotating our jerseys based on which sport is in season. We our over biographies of coaches and players, we set aside specific times each week to immerse ourselves in the football game on Sunday or Friday night for movies. We divide ourselves into particular cams and attack those who support others. We set particular foods and engage in specific activities (hotdogs and beer for tailgate parties, popcorn and soda for movies). Or to put it another way, we study our faith, where liturgical vestments, designate holy days and rituals, study the lives of the saints, practice ritualistic feasts and argue about the validity and worth of other denominations.

Or to put it another way, they have taken up the central place in our lives that once was taken up by religion. But now, despite or perhaps because of this investment, it seems that even this common ground is beginning to shake. Think of the people who get trampled to death at soccer games in Europe. Or the occasional fist fight over which sports team is better. Or just the pettiness that fans of rival teams (or movie franchises) will treat each other with. Such incidents are not extremely common yet but they do exist and may be indicating that sports and movies may become as contentious as religion and politics.

It is also possible that the general malaise of our day, brought about by the various stresses of the culture wars, economic and political conditions is beginning to make people search for deeper things than ERA’s and box office tallies. But what will happen should the idea that our entertainment culture isn’t providing the answers we need? That at the end of the day it only (and only at its best) points to things deeper and is not an end in itself? Will we seek another substitute? Return to true religion? Or will we simply give up?

Such concerns are beyond the scope of this essay. Still unanswered is the question of what the relationship to ancient Rome is. The answer begins with the phrase “bread and circuses.”

As already stated, towards its end ancient Rome was experiencing many of the same things we are now. These indicators of decline include social and moral degradation as well as military confrontations that individually were insignificant but cumulatively were a drain on the wealth and morale of the empire. Such things tend to make a populace restless. So, how did Rome address this restlessness? They did so with entertainment or rather, “bread and circuses.” This included the various games of the Coliseum and other arenas throughout the empire as well as a presumable transformation of Rome into a welfare state to ensure that the people were fed. The games and plays of the arena provided a spectacle that emphasized the wealth, culture, technology and military superiority of Rome which served to distract people from the fact that all of these were slowly deteriorating. While it is likely that this was not the original purpose of the games, it seems clear that the “bread and circuses” approach was eventually used to dull the populace through distraction and self-satisfaction, making them much easier to control.

In similar fashion, the modern West is full of varying degrees of welfare states and saturated with non-stop entertainment of virtually any kind, entertainment that is at times subsidized by the government. Just recall things like the mandated shift the high definition broadcasting and the vouchers so that we could all by a nice new converter box. Or, even more telling let us turn back to just a few weeks ago when our President postponed a speech explaining our involvement in Libya so as not to interrupt Dancing with the Starts. What does it say about our culture when our leadership fears to interrupt a dance show with news of a war (even if only one on the fringes of the empire) lest he upset the populace?