In the way of showing that this thread can hold its intellectual head up on A2K I submit the following thoughts which were placed on the record by that sublime American professor of economics Thorstein Veblen over 100 years ago--
Quote:College athletics afford a case in point. It is contended by exponents of the devout element in college life -- and there seems to be no ground for disputing the claim -- that the desirable athletic material afforded by any student body in this country is at the same time predominantly religious; or that it is at least given to devout observances to a greater degree than the average of those students whose interest in athletics and other college sports is less. This is what might be expected on theoretical grounds. It may be remarked, by the way, that from one point of view this is felt to reflect credit on the college sporting life, on athletic games, and on those persons who occupy themselves with these matters. It happens not infrequently that college sporting men devote themselves to religious propaganda, either as a vocation or as a by-occupation; and it is observable that when this happens they are likely to become propagandists of some one of the more anthropomorphic cults. In their teaching they are apt to insist chiefly on the personal relation of status which subsists between an anthropomorphic divinity and the human subject.
It is from Chapter 12 (Devout Observances) of The Theory of the Leisure Class.
That chapter, and the previous one, The Belief in Luck, suggests that the atheistic, materialist temperment might derive from being no good at sport in early life which might well cause energies to be diverted down the swotting route.
There is no denying that NFL is suffused in forms of devout observance in relation to shrines, temples, vestments, sacrifice, insignia, worship, attire and ceremonials involving complex, formal rituals of long standing.
The liberal, atheistic materialist temperment is entirely inconsistent with the sporting proclivity and, if one was to stretch the argument, one might speculate that liberal attacks on devout observances are attacks on the sporting element in society presumably in the service of preventing sportsmen from pulling all the best looking chicks. An obvious non-starter from the evolutionist point of view.
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