- Joined
- Aug 3, 2009
- Messages
- 5,744
- Reaction score
- 5,306
I'd like an answer to the following question: why does (American) football appeal so much to Americans?
Here's the puzzle. (1) Football is the ultimate in disciplined sport, the submersion of the individual for the good of the team (2) America is a highly individualistic society. Is there some contradiction there? Is either of (1) or (2) false?
I don't know if I'd call it a contradiction; I think the way Americans are perceived is the problem.
Another similar "contradiction": America loves underdogs (and you can use the Pats as an example when they ran through that tunnel as a team against the Rams), even though America is rarely an underdog in anything.
While individualism is a bigger deal in America than some other countries, don't forget that America also created the assembly line. In "The Meaning of Sports" by Michael Mandelbaum, he suggests that football started to gain popularity in the 60's and 70's, when many Americans who were involved with the military during WWII/Cold War were rising to positions of authority in American society. I don't know how much weight that argument holds since I wasn't around back then, but just curious what others think of that.