The Meaning of Superbowl XLII
Posted by: duckandgather on: February 4, 2008
As my dear readers and listeners have noticed, from time to time I digress and expand on a topic of little interest to many of you (e.g. Sean). But as I have pleaded, my purpose for doing so has been to illuminate parallel dynamics within American consciousness.
As I have explained previously, I see sports as an allegory of American life. Just as young children are mirrors of the family life in which they grow up, American sports are mirrors of the culture (such that is) in which they perform. So for, example, I’ve pointed out that since 9/11, the champions of the three major sports (baseball, basketball, and football) have been “team” teams, not “star” teams.
The only exception to this was in 2006 when the Miami team “won” the the NBA title, and the Pittsburgh team “won” Superbowl XL*. Back then, I argued that those two seemingly model-breaking events actually were the exceptions that proved the rule. In other words, I entitled the accompanying podcast “Revenge of the Sports Corporations.”
So we come to last night’s Superbowl between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. What about America’s future can we read in the tea leaves of that game? Here is my quick answer:
1. Life is lived in the flesh, not on paper
The New England team was favored by 12-14 points in Vegas. They ended up losing by 3. Paper did not match the flesh. Why?
New England won the Superbowl of January 2002. That was the first of three Superbowls that New England would win over the ensuing six years. But they didn’t just win in 2002. Instead, that team hearkened the dawning of the new epoch in America (i.e. community over star individuals).
Since 2002, the New England team has “talked the talk” of this new epoch. I won’t bore you with all the details which show how they elevated the community (team) over the individual star. But what last night’s game showed me is that it is one thing to speak the truth; it is altogether another thing to live it.
The New England team of last night talked it. The New York Giants walked it. In the new epoch, walking trumps talking.
2. Look to the children, for the children will lead us
Children say the darndest things that embarrass the adults. This is because babies are born staring straight at the truth, and it takes many years to be taught how to spin and falsify the truth. The coming epoch will be a time of great, frightening change. Adults will have a hard time with it, being married to their own false consciousness. But the children will go with the flow.
And so the new and better ways of life will come from the children, not the adults. I know that seems hard to believe today when some of the children are named Lindsay and Britney and … (I’m drawing a blank to come up with more — I don’t have a TV). But history says it will be so.
So let me quote what Eli Manning said after last night’s game. After all the plays and non-plays by “adults” (i.e. the “knowns”) like Brady, Moss, Harrison, Seau, Thomas, Welker, Strahan, Burress, Toomer, and Manning, the game defining ones were made by the children (i.e. lesser knowns or unknowns) with names like Tuck.
As Manning said last night after the victory: “I’ve got two words for you: David Tyree.”
The lesson for the new epoch: listen to the children.
3. Jesus was a nice guy; Christ is a myth
In the new epoch, false messiahs will arise. As I have argued in my “All Hail the Messiah Obama” series, I believe Obama is just such a false messiah. But read that series! I strongly support Obama for president (I just voted for him this morning in California’s primary — actually, my wife let me check off her ballot).
I believe that, circa 2008, Americans are children who cannot yet think and act for themselves. Just as children need the guiding hand of a truth-speaking adult, so we Americans need proxy inspiration from the false messiah Obama.
And still, just as healthy children grow up to learn that their parents are not God (nor the Devil), so we Americans will need to grow up to learn how to talk and walk the truth for ourselves. In the new epoch, self reliance will be the rule. Nobody will be pulling your ass out of the fire. You’ll be doing it yourself or you’ll burn.
Thus I come to Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England team. In the months, and weeks, and days leading up to last night’s game, Brady was presented to us as Christ. Last night, we saw that he is no Christ (and, trust me, if Tom Brady isn’t Chirst, nobody is); instead, he’s just Jesus.
As Jesus, Tom Brady shits and his shit stinks, and he struggles (even just a bit) when the pressure gets too high, even for an extraordinary chap like him.
The lesson for the new epoch is: Don’t pray to anyone but yourself; and while you’re at it, don’t pray to yourself too much either.
4 Responses to "The Meaning of Superbowl XLII"
February 4, 2008 at 11:47 am
Thanks Kathy. On your first paragraph, I would say the healthiest approach is to talk and walk the truth. Talking is teaching; walking is how the teaching is verified.
On children, I see the stories they spin as parent-taught (ie. either they copy the parent, or the anti-parent). After puberty, they copy peers. After the teen years, they copy society. And that’s where most “adult children” get stuck. The final stage in human development is to return to the place where we began as babies: ie. with a consciousness that takes the world as it is without filtration.
“Christ is a myth” means I doubt the guy literally walked on water, conjured bread and fish out of thin air, or rose from the dead. As you suggest, I believe that the people who wrote about him forty years after his death exaggerated stories about him to make their case that he was actually a god, not a man.
As for whether Jesus was truly enlightened or, instead, was a tad insane cult leader, I think the issue comes down to whether he said “I am the light of the world and the truth goes through me” (insane) or, alternatively, “the the light of God shines equally in all of us” (there’s some evidence for that). I don’t think there’s any way to conclusively prove what he did or didn’t say on the question of his personal relevance to the greater truths he was speaking (e.g. do unto others, don’t worry about money, etc.).
February 5, 2008 at 9:51 am
Yeah, after some thought, I think it’s healthiest to talk and walk the truth. Trouble is, what is truth? Truth appears to be in the eyes of the beholder. Are there absolute truths? Unity? Love? Connection? Oneness? I don’t know. Maybe we make all of these up. What holds for one person seems not to hold for another person.
I think all adults get stuck. I don’t think it’s possible to raise a child into adulthood who doesn’t get stuck. We all come into the world unfiltered (well mostly, depending on the intrautero experience), don wild and crazy filters for the next many years, then all leave (at the moment of death) unfiltered again.
I suppose life is just about a wild crazy world of 6 billion filters where truth, the search of it, the meaning of it, is also subject to those wild and crazy filters. And absolute truth (if it even exists), exists at the exact moment of birth and the exact moment of death. Too bad we can’t interview the newly born, or the recently dead to found if that is true!!
That’s my philosophical musings for the day.
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February 4, 2008 at 11:05 am
I have no interest in football, so I couldn’t relate too much. But I got the metaphors. Problem is, that children grow up too and spin their own stories. Everyone does it. So maybe the team teams that won earlier were children who grew up and started spinning their own stories, then didn’t behave like team teams anymore. I think it’s a cycle. You walk your talk. You talk your talk. You talk your talk and then don’t walk it. Then you fail and start walking your talk again (or walk a new talk). Then over and over again. I don’t think anybody walks their talk all the time. Maybe it would be healthier to just walk and not talk period.
Also, I’m not sure I get the “Christ is a myth” thing. If you mean a messiah complex, then yeah, any kind of self-proclaimed messiah anywhere (be it in sports, medicine, religion, etc.) is unhealthy for the “messiah” and unhealthy for the “followers”. I don’t believe that Jesus ever said that he was a self-proclaimed messiah who said he would save the world. Others did that for their own reasons. In fact, Jesus never once wrote anything down to be saved for the rest of the world. He didn’t give interviews. He just walked his walk. I can’t imagine him saying: “And make sure you write this down Paul, so the whole frickin world from here on in will get my walk”. He just walked it.
Anyway, sports celebs are way too overpaid. But then America wouldn’t be America without all of the messiah complexes, ridiculously overpaid sports salaries, and Duck and Gather commenting on how this whole system is quite imbalanced!