So Auburn has been investigated, weighed and measured, and not found wanting.  Oodles of interviews later, after TV episodes, an eternity of radio hours, pointed fingers and forked tongues, nothing.

But, but—where there’s smoke, there’s fire! Not a false principle, but not a principle such that if its premise is true, it conclusion necessarily follows.  What it really amounts to is—if there is smoke, there is probably fire.  The same kind of thing is true of the argument that many liked:  Cam’s father asked for money from Mississippi State, so he must have asked for money from Auburn.  (And since Cam came to Auburn, Auburn must have ponied up.)  At best, that argument could only establish a probability.  It is consistent with both arguments that their premises could be true even while their conclusions are false.  And it now appears that their conclusions are false.  After all that investigating, nothing.  So it is likely that nothing in fact happened.  Sure, it could have.  But that now means little more than that it is logically possible that Cam got money but the NCAA could not find out anything about it.  A reasonable person must now know that it is unlikely that Auburn paid Cam (or any of the HBO Four).

National championship?  Check.  Heisman?  Check.  National mediots embarrassed?  Check.

The only principle that is sure here, and the only one that appears to apply is this:  Where there’s smoke, there’s smoke.  And now even the smoke has cleared.

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column “Leisure with Dignity” runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. He blogs at Quantum Est In Rebus Inane. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

Related: List of universities currently on NCAA probation (with commentary by two Auburn fans).

…

Keep Reading:

* Former MTV “Real World” call Auburn “God’s country.”
* Auburn grad stars in new reality show
* Wonder Woman, Joan from Mad Men, Dr. Girlfriend… all Auburn fans
* Cam Newton’s Breast Cancer shoes
* Dirty Auburn, Kinkiest Village of the Bizarre!
* So a Playmate walks into Jordan-Hare…
* R.E.M. in Auburn
* Auburn one of seven schools represented in new TOMS shoes line

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Romans: 3:10.

I have been thinking about Harvey Updyke for a while. I guess since the news about his arrest. What I am about to write is written under the hypothesis that Updyke is guilty. Perhaps he is not. But I am writing under the hypothesis that he is.

One of the points of this column has been to temper fanaticism with good sense. I believe that we have forgotten how to be fans and to retain our dignity, how to be fans and to grant the dignity of our rivals. And I have been writing first and foremost to myself: I am the first of sinners. I knew something had gone wrong when I found myself reacting to anyone wearing Alabama gear as if he had been lobotomized. Dressing children in Alabama gear struck me as pre-schooling them in bloody pagan rites. But that is crazy. Absolutely crazy. Nonetheless, I had such reactions; I was so struck. My guess is that you have been, too, although you may have to change the teams named in order fully to recognize yourself.

I confess this craziness, and I ask you to confess it, because we are all potential Updykes. No trees are safe; no chimes secure; no statues inviolable. We have all lost our minds. The difference between Updyke and me, or Updyke and you, is that he added that sort of craziness to an already systemic craziness. His roots were already poisonous. That pre-existing craziness is the reason why we should pity Updyke. He was and is a crazy man made crazier by fanaticism. He is not an icon of the fans of the Crimson Tide, or he is not only that. He is an icon of the college football fan, particularly the SEC fan, who seems to know no moderation, no self-imposed limits, no fan tact. We all need to keep those unflattering photographs of Updyke in mind: There, but for the grace of God, am I.

“Ok,” you might be saying, “I admit I get a little out of hand. But a potential Updyke? No way. That is crazy talk.” Really? Is it? When is the last time you endangered a family relationship, a friendship, a good working partnership, a pleasant acquaintance, by fan crap? Was it as long ago as Saturday? Is alienating your brother, or your best friend, or a co-worker, or just the guy who serves you coffee at breakfast—is any of that less evil than poisoning a tree? Less public, sure; it involves fewer people, sure: but less evil? I’m not sure.

So am I pleading for everyone to go lightly on Updyke, for the law to go lightly on Updyke? A bit, I guess. The man is crazy, after all. But he will have to face whatever punishment he is given. What I am mostly pleading for is a little relentless self-examination. Will I enjoy an Auburn Iron Bowl victory any less because I respect the dignity of Alabama fans? No. And if your answer to that question, or your version of that question, is Yes, then you are taking pleasure in something that corrupts character. To take pleasure in the suffering of others is itself evil. And it is an evil that goes deep—you might even say: right to our roots.

Leisure with dignity, folks, with dignity.

Related: The Gridiron as Will and Representation / Could this have been what set Harvey off?

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column “Leisure with Dignity” runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. He blogs at Quantum Est In Rebus Inane. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

…

Keep Reading:

* Former MTV “Real World” call Auburn “God’s country.”
* Auburn grad stars in new reality show
* Wonder Woman, Joan from Mad Men, Dr. Girlfriend… all Auburn fans
* Cam Newton’s Breast Cancer shoes
* Dirty Auburn, Kinkiest Village of the Bizarre!
* So a Playmate walks into Jordan-Hare…
* R.E.M. in Auburn
* Auburn one of seven schools represented in new TOMS shoes line

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

SchopenhAUer.

That stank.

Like many fans, I was cautiously optimistic about this year’s team—not SEC-contender optimistic, but still optimistic. The first two weeks (yes, including the Utah State game) left me thinking that it was possible that Auburn could manage to grow up enough on defense to be competitive even through the brutal away-game schedule. Then came Clemson. What I saw, after mulling it over, was a reminder of how much of football happens in player’s psychology and not just in their physiology.

Don’t forget that the game began with Auburn looking a little like last year, although the moving parts are different and the way they move is different. The offense looked unpredictable and dangerous; the defense managed a couple of third down stops. (Yes, really; I know it is now hard to believe.) Auburn’s young players believed, I think, that Clemson was down, maybe for the count. But Clemson found a way to get going, got a score. And the slide from then on just kept accelerating, particularly on defense. I suspect that what happened primarily was that Auburn’s young players vastly underestimated how much commitment was going to be required to leave Death Valley alive.

Anyone who has played the game knows that playing in a hostile environment is more than just a technical challenge—a challenge for hearing calls, orienting to a different sort of sideline, running on an unfamiliar turf. Playing in a hostile environment is a psychological challenge. No one in the stands is willing you to succeed. Everyone in the stands is willing you to fail. That makes willing your own success doubly hard, because anytime you stop willing your success, you are overwhelmed by all the wills willing your failure. To succeed, you have to be committed to your success, unshakably committed. A moment of looking around, of gauging the situation, of allowing your will to ebb, allows all the hostility to enter your head, to roll around there, to dishearten you. After that, willing your success is like having to push a stone uphill. Each time you slow down, or, even worse, stop, the rock rolls back toward you, gaining speed, and becomes even harder to push.

Auburn met the rock on Saturday. Down 21-7, Clemson oddly had all the momentum. They played like they were ahead; and that was prophetic, because they soon were and never trailed again. Auburn lost the game inside the helmet. After that, what they did was largely useless bustle, an attempt to stop what had become a foregone conclusion. The poor blocking, the gruesomely ugly tackling—did I say our tackling was bad?—were the result of the disconnect between the player’s heads and their bodies. They wanted to will to succeed. But the problem is, as a wise man once said, although you can do what you will, you cannot will what you will. Auburn wanted to will success, but they couldn’t. And that meant that they were, in a way, just going through the motions.

By that I do not mean that they weren’t trying hard, that they mailed it in. No. They were trying, if anything they were trying too hard. But they couldn’t do what they were trying to do because they couldn’t whole-heartedly will it. Clemson, and especially the hostile environment, had separated the players’ head from their bodies. On defense, especially, they literally ran around like chickens after the farmer’s axe.

It was a mess. But it was also something that young players almost all have to go through. On a team with so few veterans and so many young players it really may have been unavoidable. What we can hope is that it will now be clear to the players what sort of commitment is required to win on the road, and maybe they will be better able to make that commitment and not waver.

All of us have had such moments in our lives. All of us have wavered. Let’s remember that when we decide to jaw dissatisfaction on message boards or on the radio.

Yeah, that stank. Maybe it will turn out, though, to fertilize future success.

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

…

Keep Reading:

* Auburn fan chisels “War Eagle” into the Sphinx
* Fans equate Iron Bowl losses with the end of the world—now confirmed by science!
* Auburn is the question, Cam the answer on Jeopardy!
* Derek Jeter’s guardian angel spotted—and he’s an Auburn fan
* 1950 Auburn Tigers stacked at coed

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Thayer, Thayer now...

Auburn begins this season as the National Champions. Lots of folks, in the media and out of it, seem to hope they can change that by talking about various impending this-and-thats: on-going NCAA investigations, bagmen about to jump from behind closed doors (impelled, apparently, by their disinterested love of truth and desire to keep Danny Sheridan’s reputation free of blemishes), or who knows what other dire prophecies muttered by the Deep Throat du jour. And Auburn fans seem restless, seem to feel that they have been deprived of something.

But here’s the rub: When lately has the fan base of any rival ever simply and collectively acknowledged its rival’s championship? Contemporary American sports, in part because of the journalistic and moral bankruptcy of what passes for sports reporting, exists wholly in the realm of envy. What other teams have (a player like Cam Newton) or win (a National Championship) provokes sidelong glances, narrowed eyes, on the part of their rivals. A rival—shall we say by definition—cannot deserve any good thing. So of course if they have them (Cam Newton; Sears Trophy), their agency in getting them must have been—shall we say it? all together now—Outside The Lines.

If you will forgive me taking refuge in an ancient and venerable tongue: what horseshit!

Auburn won the Trophy. Nothing has been proven. And nothing has been denied Auburn. My own view is that if Auburn’s rivals must envy (and I wish they wouldn’t, just because it is such a miserable state to live in), then Auburn fans should embrace the envy, not as a cost of the Championship, but as a lovely bonus provided with it: “Here is the Sears Trophy, and, as a bonus, the seething, boiling bubble guts of all your rivals!” Every phone call to radio shows, every spouted idiocy on television, every illiterate post on message boards, all unite together in a hymn to Auburn, hallmarking a complete and demeaning inability on the part of rivals to—shall we say it? all together now: Get Over It! If you must spice Auburn’s championship by pouring out your life’s few precious moments memorializing it in the dayglow green of your envy, who am I to tell you No? Memorialize, memorialize; and thank you!

Oh, but the rivals will say, what if Auburn is guilty? Well, then Auburn is. But I am not going to worry about it. I will bask in the Championship and the envy of it, until I can’t. Then I will move on. It’s just football after all, lots of fun and all that, but not important enough to corrupt my character for. I haven’t lost any sleep worrying about the Championship being recalled, and I won’t if it were to happen. That season is history now. And although the bookkeeping concerning it would change if Auburn were found to have done something wrong, not a moment of the season would change or go away. Even if the score of the Iron Bowl is marked with an asterisk, it will still be a game Auburn won: 28-27. The old saying that winners write history isn’t wholly true. In contemporary American sports, the winners make the history, and the losers try to rewrite it.

But before Auburn fans subside into a tranquil glow, before we bask in the collected during-the-season and after-the-season goodies of last year, we should check themselves and our relationship to Alabama’s Championship. How much envy did we send Alabama’s way? I hope the Alabama fans enjoyed it then as much as I am now. It would be nice if we could grow up and all stop being sore losers. But if that doesn’t happen—and of course it won’t—there is no way I will let the tantrums of a legion of sore losers deprive me of one bit of joy in last year; as I said, the tantrums are a bonus. We should take them that way, as a bit of unintended magnanimity by our rivals.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

…

Keep Reading:

* Auburn fan chisels “War Eagle” into the Sphinx
* Fans equate Iron Bowl losses with the end of the world—now confirmed by science!
* Auburn is the question, Cam the answer on Jeopardy!
* Derek Jeter’s guardian angel spotted—and he’s an Auburn fan
* 1950 Auburn Tigers stacked at coed

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Rogue Agency: Did Hot Carter succeed in stripping the ball or did Ingram fail to tuck it away?

One of the interesting features of this year’s Iron Bowl is the apparently radically different views of the game:  for Auburn fans, a sublime comeback, or Bama fans, a dreadful collapse.  But which was it—comeback or collapse?

Both.

Creatures like us, human beings, see themselves as agents, as the doers of deeds—at least, that way of seeing ourselves has (necessarily and typically) had priority over seeing ourselves as patients, the sufferers of deeds.  Events in which I see myself as meaningfully involved are events in which I see myself as an agent.  What happens I take to be the result of successes of mine or of failures of mine.  If I cannot take what happens to be the result of successes or failures of mine, then I cannot take what happens as really involving me meaningfully.

So—consider the play in which A. C. Carter chased down Mark Ingram and punched the ball from Ingram’s grasp, resulting in a touchback.  Notice that I described this event in the way that I think AU fans would, as Carter would.  He was the agent in the event, he made things happen.  But from Ingram’s point of view, or a Bama fan’s, Ingram is the agent and he failed to keep something from happening.  For Carter, he succeeded in stripping the ball; for Ingram, he failed to tuck the ball away.  This explains why I imagine that Carter must feel he did something crucial to help win the game and Ingram must feel he failed to do something crucial that helped to lose the game.  Who is right?  Both are, I think.  From the point of view of agency, a point of view that both Carter and Ingram will take on the play, one succeeded and the other failed.  That means that the answer to the question, who is responsible for the contribution of that play to AU winning and Bama losing must be:  both.  Carter did something great, Ingram failed to do something necessary—in that way each contributed to the result of the game.

My point in all this is simply to remind fans on both sides that there will never be agreement about whether the game was a comeback (AU as the agent who succeeded) or collapse (Bama as the agent who failed).   Could Bama have won if they had succeeded on plays where they failed?  Yes.  Could Auburn have lost if they failed on plays where they succeeded?  Yes.  Can AU fans see the outcome of the game simply as the result of Bama failures?  No—because to do so would be to rob AU of agency.  Can Bama fans see the outcome of the game simply as the result of AU successes?  No—for the same reason mutatis mutandis.

For AU fans to complain that Bama fans cannot admit that they got beat, well that may or may not be right.  If the AU fan means that Bama fans won’t acknowledge that the score of the game was 28-27, then the AU fan is right to complain, the Bama fan would have to be crazy.  That was the score. If he means that the Bama fan should recognize that the flip-side of many of their failures are AU successes, then is right to complain (but he must also return the favor, recognizing the flip-side Bama failures in AU successes.  But if the AU fan means that the Bama fan refuses to see the games as nothing but a series of AU successes (at least after halftime), then the AU fan should recognize that he is requiring the Bama fan to stop being what he is, a Bama fan, someone who sees Bama as the agent, not as the patient, as the successful or unsuccessful doer of deeds, not as the sufferer of them.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

William James, speaking somewhat before an Iron Bowl:

“You reach the Mephistophelian point of view as well as the point of view of justice by treating cases as if they belonged rigorously to abstract classes.  Pure rationalism, complete immunity from prejudice, consists in refusing to see that the case before one is absolutely unique.  It is always possible to treat the country of one’s nativity, the house of one’s fathers, the bed in which one’s mother died, nay, the mother herself if need be, on a naked equality with all other specimens of so many respective genera.  It shows the world in a clear frosty light from which all fuliginous mists of affection, all swamp-lights of sentimentality, are absent…But the question always remains, ‘Are not the mists and vapors worth retaining?’  The illogical refusal to treat certain concrete instances by the mere law of their genus has made the drama of human history.  The obstinate insisting that tweedledum is not tweedledee is the bone and marrow of life…A thing is important if anyone think it important…The Shah of Persia refused to be taken to the Derby Day, saying, ‘It is already known to me that one horse can run faster than another.’  He made the question ‘which horse?’ immaterial.  Any question can be made immaterial by subsuming all its answers under a common head.  Imagine what college ball-games and races would be if the teams were to forget the absolute distinctness of [Auburn] and [Alabama] and think of both as One in the higher genus College.   The sovereign road to indifference, whether to evils or to goods, lies in the thought of the higher genus.”

Just win, baby.  Just win.

War Eagle.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

But we should all stop for a moment:  what are we doing, following all this?  Are we turning the turmoil in a young man’s life and a young man’s family into entertainment?  Or are we doing something even more wicked—and yes, I use the word advisedly—namely, wishing for the downfall of a young man and his family?  I suspect few Auburn fans are doing either; the stakes are too high to treat this as entertainment, and few Auburn fans, qua Auburn fans, could be wishing for Newton’s or his family’s downfall.  Instead, Auburn fans are watching while wringing their hands.

With all this in my mind, I ran across a quotation today by philosopher Gabriel Marcel.  In his journal, on November 12^th 1932, he wrote:

I was talking…yesterday about Theresa Neumann.  This morning I was thinking with exasperation of the rationalist’s attitude to such facts.  They refuse to give them a hearing.  Reflecting next upon my own exasperation, I thought it was surely to be traced to some residue of doubt in myself.  If I were absolutely sure, I should only experience a feeling of pure charity and pity for doubters.  I think this discovery is far-reaching.  It seems to me that charity is bound up with being sure…

I am not interested in what Marcel was about Neumann.  I am interested in what he says about his exasperation and, especially, in what he says about charity and surety.  What Marcel says is indeed far-reaching.  Think about both of the sides in this saga, the side of the Auburn fan and of the fan of a rival.

First the fan.

Although perhaps someone (at Auburn, say, someone in the compliance office, or someone with the NCAA) knows whether or not Newton has been, is and will remain eligible, no fan knows.  No fan is sure.  Because no fan is sure, no fan has been able really to experience a feeling of pure charity or pity for those who doubt Newton’s eligibility.  If you think I am wrong, go troll a message board or two.  No one can leave the thing alone:  every expression of doubt in Newton’s eligibility must be refuted, responded to, squashed.  Because the fans are not sure, they cannot be charitable to anyone else, especially to fans of rivals.  Any fan who tells you he is sure, but who is spending time on message boards or surfing the ‘Net is lying—at least to you and probably to himself, too.

But this cuts both ways.  Consider next rival fans, fans that claim to be sure Newton is ineligible (or, even more, are sure Auburn is guilty of something).  These fans are lying as well—and least to Auburn fan and probably to themselves, too.  If they were sure, they would feel pure charity and pity for the Auburn fans who doubt Newton is ineligible.  At the very least they would feel no exasperation.  But they do not feel that way.  They, too, are on the message boards and surfing the ‘Net.

Let’s just face it.  No fan is sure.  No reporter or blogger is sure.  Surety simply is not to be had.  And neither, unsurprisingly, is charity toward other fans.  Everyone is exasperated.  No fan is willing to give rival fans a hearing.

But if we could all manage for a moment to just confess that we are unsure, then maybe the exasperation would decrease, and everyone could breathe a bit – freely – for a while.  After all, the only ones profiting from the exasperation are ESPN and their ilk.  (And now that I think about it, maybe that is what ESPN stands for, really:  Exasperation.)

I confess.  I am unsure.  I am unsure whether Newton was, is or has been eligible.  So I cannot dispense charity or pity.  But I can try to quiet some of the exasperation.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

Graphic via.

One day at a tiiiiiiiimee, Sweet Auburn...

A long time ago, Samuel Johnson remarked that human beings need more often to be reminded than informed.  That is one reason why cliché is such an important part of human communication.  We dislike cliché, we strive against it often when writing or talking.  But we are sometimes wrong to do so.  The problem with cliché is not that in saying something clichéd we are saying something many times said before.  Rather, the problem is that most of us do not know when to say something clichéd.  A cliché hits the mark when it is said in the right circumstances, to the right person, by the right person and at the right time.  When that happens, the clichéd can change our way of seeing things, straighten a lopsided attitude or organize chaos.  When rightly situated, a cliché reminds; it does not inform.  Our dislike of rightly situated cliché results from our wanting to be informed when we need to be reminded.

So, a reminder I take to be rightly situated:  Auburn needs to play one game at a time.  Yes, a cliché; yes, obvious.  But just what needs to be said at this point—and that is why Chizik and the seniors are saying it.  Auburn cannot win the SEC at Ole Miss.  Auburn cannot win the MNC at Ole Miss.  But Auburn can lose the latter and endanger the former at Ole Miss.

Why is it that highly ranked teams so often cannot match the intensity of their opponents?  Because the highly-ranked team wants to be playing someone else, somewhere else.  If Auburn goes to Ole Miss to play Georgia, or Bama—or even Chattanooga, Auburn will lose to Ole Miss.  To match the certain high intensity of Ole Miss, Auburn has to see the game in Oxford as Ole Miss sees it:  as a season-defining game.  It is.

Nutt has made a snaky living beating higher-ranked teams with lowered levels of intensity.  He has done it to Auburn before.  No doubt he expects to do it again.

Auburn is not a one-man team.  Newton defies superlatives with a burst like that he showed Patrick Peterson.  But what really makes this Auburn team go is the fact that both (both!) the defense and the offense have played with great intensity with the game in the balance.  But now a season—potentially a great season—hangs in the balance.  But the season cannot slump into imbalance unless the next game does so.  Auburn needs to not only play Ole Miss with great intensity; they need to play them as if there is no other game left on the schedule.  No other game.  Beating Ole Miss gets Auburn what it wants because it leaves all of Auburn’s dreams intact.  Losing to Ole Miss means watching those dreams drift out over The Grove, out into ever-greater shapelessness.

Beating LSU was great.  But that is done.  It may be that, as ordinary moral beings, we live our lives forward but understand them backwards.  But a football team lives forward only as far as the next Saturday; and, it understands nothing except its own mistakes backwards.

Play one game at a time.  An old book, a noble one, says somewhere:  “Today is the day of salvation.”  For this Auburn team, that Today is Saturday, and the scene of salvation is Oxford.  Today and today and today.  One game at a time.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

Did you read his last column? People dug it.

Is it possible to be dropped for a gain?

Auburn won Saturday.  Auburn won.  Auburn won.  Auburn did not lose.  Auburn had more points than Clemson when the game ended.   Auburn won.

Why is it that each time I say that to someone—that Auburn won—I get a reaction that makes it seem like I am lying?

Because we fans have lost our minds.  For us, our team only wins when it wins and plays so well that we are certain that they will win every future game on the schedule.  Fall short of that standard, and our team loses.  For us, our team only wins when it wins and wins so convincingly that we win every water-cooler argument from Monday-Friday.  Fall short of that, and our team loses.

This is self-inflicted misery; and it is an offense against the game itself.

No team wins when held to this standard.  Every team has a weakness; every team has the potential to play to less than its full potential.

We want perfection.  We want a team than which none greater can be conceived.  We want gridiron divinity, a team that arrives not in artificial smoke from a doorway in the stadium, but one that arrives with the sound of trumpets and the rolling back of the clouds like a scroll.

We have lost our ability to enjoy the game as a game, to respect its integrity, to acknowledge the bewildering variety of ways that teams can win and lose football games.  We have lost our ability to contemplate, and, when necessary, to capitulate to the contingency of outcomes.  We cannot bear up under the pressure of having to hope, sometimes to hope against hope.  We cannot lose gracefully because we cannot win gracefully.

We do not rightly appreciate the color and pageantry, the passion and pride of college football itself.  We regard all of these, not as ends in themselves, but as trumpery—unless they festoon victory.  Lose, and the color fades to gray, the pageantry reduces to empty ritual, the passion and pride becomes a source of shame.

Football at its best is a source of the recreation of the human spirit—for both the player and the fan.  It can make us believe in ourselves again, smile wryly at ourselves again, shrug in bafflement at ourselves again, nod in recognition of ourselves again.  It can make us trash our cynicism about ourselves.  And it can do that even when our team loses—if we are rightly related to the game as a game.  Hell (pardon my French), it can even do that when our team wins.

Auburn won Saturday.  Enough.

…

Dr. Jolley is a philosophy professor at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He was recently profiled by The New York Times. He also likes football. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.

Photo via.

Get ready to win a Walk-Man, Auburn fans.

Each football team is either more than or less than the sum of its parts. What it can or cannot do as a team is not straightforwardly inferable from what its players can or cannot do. Hence, much of the fascination with football teams: each team is a Leviathan that cannot be divided without remainder into its members. Each team becomes a kind of person, with its own traits, its own virtues and vices. Like a person, while it exhibits a reasonably constant character over time, it also changes over time–sometimes so dramatically that, were we talking about a single person (and not a team), we would employ the language of conversion. Football teams, like persons, are free; and free creatures are (by definition, we might say) unpredictable.

This is one reason why preseason analysis is really largely guesswork. I do not deny that it is sometimes educated guesswork. I do not deny that some do it better than others. But do not be deceived: no one knows how a team will do. Even those who get it right, and who say, after the fact, “I knew how the team would do”, are wrong. They did not know. They guessed correctly. Maybe their guesses were not purely guesses, shots in the dark. But they were at best shots in the twilight. (Except of course, for the shots of our own Jerry Hinnen, who has clambered from the Cave of guesswork to take his shots beneath the sunny Form of the Good!)

What I find most interesting about preseason analysis is that everyone knows that. Not everyone has said it to himself in so many words, but we all know it. And, oddly enough, that we know it is part of the reason we care about preseason analysis. If it were more than guesswork, it would harshly curb our fanaticism, instead of stoking it.

For the average fan, preseason analysis is a kind of long-winded trash talk. Troll the comments section beneath any preseason analysis and count the number of responses that either explicitly or implicitly complain that a team is being given no “respect” or getting too much “respect”. Sometimes the commenter, like the analyst, will wind out his trash talk, but it remains trash talk.

But, you may say, some of the analysts are so dispassionate, so logical. Their analysis comes so slowly, after so many numbers. Well, sure. But take a few such analyses and track their results across time. More often than not, they will turn out to do no better in predicting than you would have done flipping a coin.

That’s another thing: although some analysts will actually recap their analysis after the season, looking to see what they got right and what they got wrong, no one really cares much about such columns. They tend to be filler, something to write, when they are written, to fill the vacuum of the off-season. But if preseason analysis were more than guesswork, I think we would treat these recaps differently.

No, we care about preseason analyses mainly because they help us get our gamefaces on. They get us pumped up (my team is gonna be great!) or they fill us with righteous indignation (my team is being disrespected!) or they make us wary of showing our colors (my team is gonna suck…) Sometimes we learn things from preseason analysis, sometimes points are made that are genuinely interesting or insightful—but none of that changes analysis from guesswork to science. It only makes the guesswork educated, instead of ignorant.

Dr. Jolley is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Auburn University. He works in the theory of judgment, the history of 20th-century philosophy, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology. He also likes football and was recently profiled by The New York Times. His book “The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations” was published in 2007.  His TWER column Leisure with Dignity runs bi-monthly to monthly to whenever. Write to him at kellydeanjolley@gmail.com.