The euphoria of victory in team sports taps into something that goes well beyond sport. It’s only one…

The euphoria of victory in team sports taps into something that goes well beyond sport. It’s only one manifestation of a deeper cultural framework. Girard said, the root of all society is imitative rivalry. Team sports. In sport, but also across every area of social life. 1/6 https://t.co/0MLCrG60oX

Australia has a federal election this week. Elections are the foundational team sport, now the foundational ur-hierarchy from which all other status hierarchies cascade in society. A generation or more ago that role was taken by the church. The Protestants and Catholics. 2/6

And in fact it’s an open question if football may have usurped politics. Probably not in Australia, yet. A case could definitely be made in the UK. 3/6

Life isn’t neatly organised into independent bubbles like politics, sport, work etc. Culture respects no boundaries in that way. Look at the near obsession in the UK and elsewhere for the various football leagues. This isn’t sport, this is the culture itself made visible. 4/6

Nested hierarchies of status hierarchies. Look at how many seemingly level-headed public health scientists went batshit crazy over Covid. Because their deeper allegiance to particular political status hierarchies conflicted with their scientific status hierarchies. 5/6

It’s all status, all about our place and therefore identity within the various social hierarchies of our lives. But it’s the same basic socio-cultural pattern, in all parts of our lives. Imitative rivalry. /end