Gil Bailie at The Cornerstone Forum
"Riot police used pepper spray in small amounts for crowd control as thousands of rowdy fans swarmed into the streets near the University of Kentucky campus, overturning cars and lighting couches ablaze after a victory over cross-state rival Louisville in a Final Four matchup."
Athletic contests (which, by the way, I love) originate - as does theater, art, music, politics and so many other features of culture - in ritual sacrifice. The art of ritual sacrifice is to arouse passions latent in the community, turn them toward an expendable victim, and drain them away at the victim's expense. Sports events are fun, but they still perform a ritual function. They unite people who may have little in common by giving them a common cause and a common adversary.
Like ancient rituals, sporting events (aside from being entertaining) are socially and culturally useful only if the passions they awaken fade quickly away when the bell rings or the whistle blows or the clock runs out or the last batter swings and misses. Again, as in ancient ritual sacrifice (as Aristotle warned), when the passions spill out of the ritual containment and into the wider society, it is an indication that the society is slipping into crisis - its sundry rituals no longer able to periodically and routinely cleanse the social order of mimetic rivalries and social aggravations that threaten social cohesion.
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