Spectator Violence

Spectator violence sounds more psychological or sociological than philosophical, but we have no fear of challenge.  Mostly, we examined the roots of the behavior, the source and support for it.

It seemed we all agreed that there's an amount of group-think behind the phenomenon, with the spectators resorting to violence in order to prove their allegiance to the group (or team) and behaving in the way the rest of the group is, without having any conscious motives.  I say it's a subset of mob violence, when there aren't rational bases for conflictive behavior.  The crowd gives in to a hive mind.  It doesn't even have to be actual violence on the part of the spectators to count for me; in many team sports, such as ice hockey, there's a demand for vicarious violence.  The crowd chants, "Fight!  Fight! Fight!" at the players, waving their fists, pounding on protective glass, demanding their avatars on the field/court/ice enact all their aggression for them.

The personification of spectator violence is for many of us the British soccer hooligan.  Our British representatives in the group assured us that one of the main causes for that type of violence was the availability of alcohol at the games, with the social tolerance both for consumption and acting out of pent of emotions while under the influence.

In fact, frustration was identified as another major component of the recipe for spectator violence.  Either anger that "your" team is losing or playing badly, that the refs aren't making fair calls, or anger that comes over from the injustices of daily life can be the fuel for the spectator's fire.  There's a need to release tensions and vent unpleasant feelings that is easily met at sporting events.  It has been said that this was part of the success of the Roman circuses: they met the needs of the people to de-stress when they had no other legitimate ways of doing so, being at peace and in a "civilized" society.

On contributor, the true philosopher among us, wrote a short essay on the subject beforehand, in which he used the phrase, "Football [in Spain] isn't a sport, it's a religion!"  Any expat or student of Spanish language has heard this joke time and time again, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek analysis of the importance of that particular sport to the public.  However, in our discussion, it touched of a tangential rant about making fun of believers, how unfair it is, how the speaker has never in his life heard any believer insult those who don't share the faith, it's just those stinkin' atheists, etc.  It seemed to be an extension of a disagreement from the week before, when he had an is-not/is-too argument with another participant.  My bar stool analysis is that he's filled to the brim with frustration that the clear rules of religious tradition are no longer valid and individuals are (supposed to be) more responsible for themselves and their behavior.  At least he didn't resort to violence.