Note (1/15/20): This short piece was originally written in Fall 2017 for a University of Minnesota course entitled “Reality 101: a Survey of the Human Predicament”
One may say it’s impossible to be an enlightened by a speedy weenie. Actually, it’s likely no one in the history of humanity, language, or culture has ever uttered such a thing. I mean, imagine what such a phrase would look like, in say, hieroglyphs… yikes.
However, if they did, they would be wrong. Because as I have found through my high school summer job (yes, literal job) as a “Racing Sausage” mascot for the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, among other, non-meat-product-based observations throughout recent years, one of the most prominent conflicts with any of my tribal in-groups occurs between that of ‘Eco-literate Environmentalist’ and ‘Lifelong Sports Fan’.
The entire basic premise of (specifically professional) sports, seems to be this: mindless consumption and waste, consumption and waste, consumption and waste. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
To start off, you take fossil-based transport to the game. You get your paper ticket scanned, you throw it on the ground or in the garbage. You get a plastic cup of beer (or three, or six…) and plastic tray of highly-processed [insert stadium food here]. You sit in your plastic seat, dig in with your plastic utensils, and settle in to watch millionaires perpetuating the wealth inequality gap and economics of spending run around under the blinding light of a hundred low-energy-efficient suns.
You likely get up to throw the single-use junk in the overflowing trash, then take a piss, dry your hands with a mass of paper towels, be on your merry way; perhaps dig deep in the pocketbook to purchase some overpriced goods with highly-planned obsolescence; settle back in, play on your rare-earth-metal-containing device when the action gets slow, cheer or cry at the outcome; then head back home without a wisp of any of that on your mind, while the teams themselves jet off on their way to accumulating tens of thousands of air miles per season. Produce and consume. That’s the name of the game.
These thoughts don’t make me happy. It’s humbling. In a similar manner as, say, a naïve frequent flyer learning the ecological consequences of air travel, or a music devotee becoming aware of the mega (energy) consumption of massive shows and festivals. But I’m surely glad to be among the few eco-literate and enlightened enough to care. I’ll take the pain of having a broader understanding should it prove beneficial to steering society in a sapient direction.
Still, it can feel so difficult, because we’re raised to view these activities as benign, normal, even preordained aspects of human culture. I’m not saying that sports cannot, or should not, be enjoyed. Through the trio of playing, watching, and working them, they have provided some of the greatest joys and fondest memories of my life. Sports often provide happiness, release, growth, a resetting of mind and body. But, as in so, so many aspects of modern civilization, not everything is as it seems. It is, has been, and most importantly, will be critical for us all to comprehend the realities of our nearest and dearest in-groups. As I have with sports, we must make some difficult reconciliations with them, for the well-being and sustainability of our most basic but critical in-group — that of all living beings
Jake Marble 