There is no such thing as objective reality.
I don’t necessarily mean that in a post-modern sense, because I think objective reality could exist. I just mean the process of determining objective reality is impossible in the current U.S. climate (yes, I know that would qualify as post-modernism). When Osama bin Laden’s death can be politicized to the point where the two dominant political ideologies can simultaneously make contradictory (and contrary) claims about how it happened, why it happened and who deserves credit and blame, well, I’d say there’s no hope, just sides — reality is red, blue and up to you.
It’s not as though this hasn’t been true for a long time, or just in the U.S, but that it seems exacerbated to the extreme in the information age.
It’s not that we can’t agree that daytime is better than nighttime, it’s that we can’t agree if it’s daytime or nighttime.
What does this have to with sports?
Sports is different — we can agree on something.
In sports, we can agree on the exact thing that should be so disagreeable outside of sports. We agree that it is perfectly acceptable if not necessary to disagree on extremely simple, black and white issues.
Your team is winless? So what, they are the best. Your team has won five straight championships? So what, they are horrible.
We can agree that it’s okay to filter reality through a completely subjective lens, that perception is guided by the logo on the laundry. Fulfilling our need to feel righteous and superior should supersede reason. We can agree that there should be no negative-consequences to unbridled, raging bias.
We accept delusion, and the obnoxious-fan-of-a-horrible-team guy can still annoy us.
Maybe some would argue that the sports-fan mindset pervades the rest of society, or vice versa, that they simply mirror one another. But I think there is ever-growing evidence that the ethos of sports fandom has evolved — and should be emulated.
In the sense that statistical metrics have advanced to such a degree that sports can be more objectively measured, so too has the conversation of sports matured.
Quite paradoxically I suppose, from this common ground of mutually accepted insanity, an objective perspective becomes admirable, almost as if sports fans can accept both their inner-child and mature side without frowning on either. It’s ok to be reptilian-brain dominant, it’s okay to be analytical and fair — and sports allows for both at the same time.
Maybe this isn’t possible in our politics. Sport is fantasy, entertainment. Lives and ways of living aren’t at stake.
But what hope is there if we can’t make the most basic concession?
If politics imitated sports, all sides would acknowledge each other’s innate fanatical tendencies. If we can’t accept our own irrational nature, how can there ever be hope of inching back toward reason?
Reach the columnist at nick.ruland@asu.edu
