Click here (NYDailyNews) to read about how the Baltimore Ravens are refusing to tempt the Fates ahead of their Super Bowl appearance (n.b. the use of 'tantalizing' in the article).
What notions of cause-and-effect do you think might motivate such attitudes and behaviors? Is superstition involved? contact magic? something else??
11 comments:
It can be considered superstition. It seems like a good motivation tactic for a team, if you want it you have to earn it. If the attempt had a positive outcome It would be bold to say that it had a 'magical effect'.
-Taylor E.
This is not superstition at all. I totally see where the players are coming from. Taking pictures with such an item is just cockiness and can lead to underestimating the opponent
Tazheem Rubio
I do not think it is superstition at all. Someone would have to look pretty deep into the topic to pull that out from this article. I think it is common sense and also would save them embarrassment if they did not win. You can not count your eggs before they hatch. He has a perfect simile in this article, That’s like you can’t have any food, the best cake in the world is sitting there right in front of you. And you can’t have it, so you don’t want to touch it.”
- Tiana Kraus
I think it's some superstition but also some social boundaries that the players do not want to cross. What I mean by this is that they are avoiding looking like they are somehow taking credit by being photographed by a trophy they didn't earn.
But there does seem to be a bit of the contact magic avoidance here too. I think because the outcomes of games seem very hard to predict, the players want to take every "precaution" to prevent any negative outcome, whether or not it "makes sense".
Margaret Ransdell-GReen
Some things that may cause some superstitions through cause and effect is negative conditioning. If one can not give a good explination for why something went wrong then there must be an unexpalinable butterfly effect that caused the negative outcome. This reasoning causes alot of superstitions.
Ray Lewis is also well documented in that he treats his body as a temple. Never cheating on his diet and never letting anything negative in. So touching the trophy may in his mind might be jynxing him or his team.
I don't know about supersticious people but what I do know is that I will be watching the game wearing my vitage Joe Montana jersey. Haha GO NINIERS!!!!
I'm not sure that I would classify this as superstition, at least not for everyone on the team. Lewis made a very good point, you shouldn't celebrate what you don't have yet. As others have noted, this may have an element of magic or superstition, the idea that posing or celebrating with the fake trophy may in some way negatively affect their chances in the Super Bowl.
On a slightly different note, one of the other players mentioned having the trophy but not being able to touch it, this reminded me of the man from the Greek myth about the water and apples that we discussed in class, even though the circumstances are different.
-Erica H.
To me this is on both sides of the line. I agree that the pragmatic side has merit, why pose with somthing you havent earned, it would just send the wrong message. But on the other hand there is an element of superstition that can be derived from this. its the same thing as never saying 'What else can go wrong?'. Why tempt fate by being an idiot. Besides, posing with a fake trophy would just feel hollow.
-Casey S.
I think there is definitely superstition at work here. The team clearly understands the concept of jinxing and they are avoiding it by staying away from the trophy. Whether they realize it or not superstition is engrained in our society. By wearing your lucky socks, knocking on wood or crossing your fingers you are giving in to the magic of superstition. Just like the bud light commercials say... "It's only weird if it doesn't work."
Deirdre Adams
I would be superstitious. Touching the "fake" trophy before the game? I can see why that would be considered bad luck, the "lead up to failure" seems pretty apparent, like contact magic. Don't touch it or we might have bad luck, don't roll warm dice, don't eat the apple from the center tree. Who knows what cause and effect there is, but there is almost no effect from not doing anything. Play it safe.
- Scott
I would take this a step further, and douse the trophy in the blood of the other teams coach, after your ritual battle dance.
-Alexander Roth
Nice touch, Alex... leave nothing to chance! ;)
I appreciate the broad spectrum of everybody's responses, ranging from the pragmatic, to the socially appropriate, to the full-on superstitious. It is fascinating how such subtle notions of potentially 'magical' causality are wired-in to our popular culture (and even our brains, perhaps?).
pdk
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