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?
P.S. The first American beer I ever drank was a Budweiser -- at a July 4 picnic, with an ear of corn. I thought it tasted great. Obviously, it's gone downhill since then.
To get a little philosophical here, I think that it's about the idea of trying to win by imposing ingenuity and structure to a chaotic environment. The team that wins it all is typically an interesting blend of passionate, committed, disciplined, consistent, lucky, and intelligent. As far as the Americans as individualists point, I can certainly see where you're going with that, but I wouldn't draw too general conclusions from it.
First off, I think the number of Americans who think of themselves or their country in terms of liberal philosophy that it was founded on* is actually pretty limited.
*don't jump on me for political connotations, guys- liberalism as a philosophy does not translate to the American political spectrum
In any functioning society, the individual will become a part of the greater whole. That's just as true in America as it is for anywhere else. Where the individualism comes in is that, right or wrong (I don't want to start a political debate here), we tend to think that nobody can decide better where the individual belongs in that structure than the individual him/herself, and nobody can decide how to allocate his/her resources better than that same individual.
I think, or hope at least, that Americans realize as much as anyone else that a properly oriented, well constructed, high-functioning group will always exceed the sum of its parts.
