The Left Hand of the Sacred

Abstract

Anyone watching the 1990 world cup soccer matches could not help but feel that he or she could have done a better job on the field than Argentina's Maradona. If it had not been for that country's goalie, Goycoachela, they would not have gotten to the final round. His few catches jn the overtime penalty kicks of the quarter and semi-final matches saved a part of his team's reputaton for this world cup. No one expected the U.S. to make the finals, U.S. citizens tend to make lousy soccer players. The reason is simple: U.S. citizens tend not to excel at sports where the talents of a single individual make the difference between winning and losing. This is why the Chicago Bulls and the Denver Broncos either cannot win or have difficulty winning their championships. Each has one superb player, John Elway and Michael Jordan, supported by many good or average players. Oddly enough, cultures which extol the virtues of the group tend to have better individual athletes—like the Chinese and ping-pong; and cultures which extol individualism play better team sports—like the Americans and football or baseball. This contrast, extolling individualism but not playing individual sports well, or extolling the group but not playing group sports well, is a way of understanding our generally accepted theories of the sacred. We usually extol theories of the sacred that have as their source the individual; and we do not accept, we forget, or we ignore, theories of the sacred that have the social as their source.