Beyond the merely physical, these forms of socialization can supply rootedness and particularity. In its organized and spectator forms, exercise and athletics can provide exactly these goods. For athletes, especially younger ones, teams can become worlds unto themselves. They can create meaning, rituals, and memories that form powerful bonds, generating lifelong friendships. As for spectators: Entire schools, towns, cities, states, and regions can experience the victories and defeats of others as their own. Families pass down their loyalties and attachments through the generations. And countless fans structure rituals around their pastimes. "Sports are carriers of traditions, of rituals," Novak argued. "They war against traditionless modernity. They satisfy the most persistent hungers of the human heart." Not for nothing, the modern word "fan" come to us from the Latin, "fanum," referring to the shrine of a deity specific to a place. Both participation and fandom, moreover (mostly) sublimate tribal, primal passions that would otherwise go suppressed, and/or to more dangerous ends.
Source: In Defense of "Lifestyle Rightism" – Jack Butler
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