So how about those Patriots? New Englandwins its first championship game in God knows how long and nobody comments on any aspect of our singular triumph. Not one glimmer of the interception touchdown in the second quarter or the resilience of the Patriot defensive line. Anyone who read the recent columns in The Dartmouth would think that the Op-Ed editor's body had been replaced with an alien pod person who was beaming "All Greenwood, All the Time" into the cranial antenna for some diabolical reason or other. It's like Fox News has taken over the Dartmouth newsroom, except that instead of "America Strikes Back " running 24/7 we've got "Spurned Sorority Sisters." I can almost hear the soundtrack in my head. What would the computer graphics look like? I wonder how Fox News would apply its limitless supply of retired generals to this tactical problem?
Thank God Bill O'Reilly isn't putting on a little black dress and going undercover at a rush party to get the inside dirt.
On a completely unrelated note, I just came up with a new mental "cold shower," guaranteed to delay or even reverse the strongest of sexual desires. I mean, I usually use Janet Reno but I've once again surprised myself with the lengths I will go to take even the most benign of topics away from the kiddie rack, if you know what I mean.
My mission hereafter is to liberate The Dartmouth from the clutches of the over-discussed, over-determined andintractable. Let's get to a more practical discussion -- specifically, Super Bowl XXXVI.
I've been knocking myself about lately over the fact that I didn't contact a sports bookie on Super Bowl Sunday. I knew the Patriots were going to win. Knew it as right as rain, but despite my Italian-sounding last name, I know no sports bookies -- only a barber who's not in the mafia. It wasn't just that I hate the Rams -- I think the clincher to all of these premonitions was that the Patriots didn't introduce the starting lineup. They entered the Superdome as a team, a Juggernaut, a single entity that was more than Tom Brady, more than Kevin Faulk, more than Antwan Harris. The Rams were clearly Kurt Warner and the boys. But if Kurt Warner was so great then how come his team needed ten other guys to play the same game against eleven of the Patriots?
The truth is that Tom Brady needed his receivers if his passes were to get through at all. Tom Brady is exceptional in his ability to analyze the context of his receivers, his blockers and the game itself. His value is not intrinsic -- it is only in relation to the 10 other men on the team. Brady could throw the ball from upright to upright, but without a receiver on the other end, his skill is worthless. Who can lionize a defensive line without relating it to the opponents it blocks? What is the value of a field goal kicker without protection from the other team? The Patriots showed the value of cohesive teamwork over misallocated glory.
This paradigm was manifested in other ways by other entities, and pervades our entire existence. Unfortunately familiarity leads us to a seminal example -- and not a judgment on -- the long-lasting Greenwood issue. Ms. Greenwood bemoans the existence of a "system" of exclusion and association that "distorts" the "truth" of people's self worth, racial balance and economic inequalities.
The very nature of human relations provides an answer. Human systems are castles in the sky -- constructs that provide incentives and penalties and methods of thinking that create a certain commonality of values. Yet none of this commonality of values is a given. Tom Brady's excellence was in a game which would have no value whatsoever without common acceptance of the National Football League as an institution. Until the coming of ESP, no human's values can directly affect the values of others. We all have choices to accept what we like and don't like. Greenwood's notion of truth and values are hers and hers alone. There is very little universal truth in this world and far less when emotions -- the most personal of opinions -- are involved.
Let's free our minds from the shackles of groupthink. Let's remember that the systems we live by are based on people and the values of individuals. There is no intrinsic value in the system at all. We're all free spirits -- free to do as we wish and enjoy what we enjoy. Human systems can win football games, exclude minorities and throw gigantic keg parties, but they only make us happy if we decided to let them make us happy. All of the rest -- all of the "-isms" that rule our lives -- are merely a means to an end.
