A Psychoanalysis: The Fan Delusion

It is wondrous, paradoxical, and oxymoronic how the creatures on this planet who are supposed to be the most intelligent should also be the most hypocritical and more subjective in their behaviour.

Arts and sports among other such activities are intended not only for the pastime of the beholder or the pleasure and/or livelihood of the creator, but they are also intended to raise the levels of human thought, its morality and clarity, and broaden the boundaries of its perspectives.

The following discussion is not about the creators or beholders of art nor is it about creators of sporting-artistry.

It is about its beholders or a debatable class of the curia—the fans.

In an instance of fanfare-ridden another's idol-bashing, the man in the photo was analysed threadbare with regards to his morality, prudence, and professionalism in these esteemed columns.

The premises behind the various analyses varied, but in the pandemonium, no one cared for the other's view nor for his/her premises.

Everyone had something to say about the subject. Conjectures were made from an absolute absence of real information.

One man's speculations became another's piece of credible news. There were people all over the place trying to win points—to win arguments.

Clearly prejudiced arguments were encapsulated in analytical writing styles. Thorough and objective statements were misconstrued to be personal bias.

The dust is slowly settling now.

Perhaps it's time to put things in perspective, not with respect to this particular incident but with respect to where fandom is heading.

A true sports fan doesn't have prejudices toward/against any particular player/team. He loves the sport for its objectivity, the perfect completeness and clarity of its rules, the mechanics of the game, the variety of strategies it allows, and the amount of talent it commands.

But human beings have delusions of grandeur. They have conceptions of superiority of their own with respect to other seemingly lesser mortals.

The vast majority fall prey to the need for physical symbolism and especially a visual evidence of it to signify any rational/objective conclusion about heroism, giving rise to an emotional conclusion of it.

If it is not easily or obviously available, they search for it.

And sports provide the most visual evidence for such heroism. The human effort, talent, and execution is so dynamically evident in this form of pastime that it is hard for a person not to draw meanings from the achievements as well as draw personal connections with the creators of it.

Hero worship could indeed be applied without distorting its literal meaning to sports.

The second aspect of human nature, alluded to above, indeed could be the reason for associating oneself with a particular team or player. The choice of the association could stem from one's own inherent likes and dislikes.

This is indeed a subjective process.

But, the individual knows that these likes and dislikes are subjective; he is not supposed to question the similar prejudices of any other.

Then the question arrives, why it is done even in the light of this knowledge?

Perhaps it is because of the disjointedness of reason and emotion coupled with the knowledge that only a mathematical and logical conclusion can be stated to be categorically true and a desire to be right.

This realization perhaps results in a hasty search for an explanation based on reason and logic to substantiate one's emotional choices. And the prejudices that one has cause one to be selective in lining up one's axioms and data for the reasoning.

That each individual is defined by his own prejudices may go a long way in explaining why each such individual's pseudo-reasoning comes into conflict with another's.

Sports incite irony.

They decide the winner and loser in the most objective manner. At the same time, they cultivate a brand of subjective thought in the guise of objectivity among its fans.

But, it should be realised that no sport is to blame because it comes short in putting a check on its followers. It is rather the delusional human who should put a check on himself.