"Youth," George Bernard Shaw famously said, "is wasted on the young." And that phenomenon was again on display this weekend in East Lansing where police reported 27 arrests. The MSU men's basketball team surprise loss to Butler in the NCAA tournament's Final Four series was the official cause of it say authorities and pundits. But is it really? No, I think Mr. Shaw had it right. All that passion and youthful energy is yet again pissed away in nihilistic vandalism and anti-social behavior over a basketball game. A fuckin' game.
Would that these "sports fans" channel some this energy, passion and youthful bravado toward building a just and humane society, eh? Like philosopher Herbert Marcuse noted some time ago, modern industrial societies very effectively channel the rage, frustration and passion people feel into safety valves like sports riots rather than allowing it to build into something more politically transformative.
