America the Angry; the United States of Anger

THE HUGE POST GAME FIGHT involved the Brigham Young football team, all of it. Every player, coach, and assistant. It was a bloody, brutal brawl, worthy of neanderthals, not human beings, certainly not students at a religious institution. Human beings, after all, despite nearly ceaseless violent behavior, have somehow managed to create something quite fragile but beautiful called "civilization", with its intellectual triumphs of science and art, but which seems always in jeopardy, but somehow manages to carry on. But no surprise, really, that the brawl should take place among the angry population of the most aggressive nation in Earth, the United States of Aggression, in the world's most violent team sport, on television. That was last fall. The American people must have secretly loved it. Its no secret we love violence, the more vicarious and bloody, the better. Brigham Young University is where the cleanest of the clean cut, most moral, most disciplined, most Christian young scholars go for education, preparation, and inculcation of the highest christian moral values. Just ask them. And yet, this. Never have so many angry violent Mormons been seen live on network or cable or satellite TV. One rarely sees even one angry Mormon, let alone dozens. And that doesn't even include the crowd, or BYU faithful watching at home. They must have felt the anger too. The other team was Memphis University; southern, black, inner city kids. Probably a fair amount of pent up anger, and, one suspects, some mutual ethnic and cultural mistrust. Found a country violently, live violently, die violently. And why not turn it into a for profit spectator sport, in the land of the almighty dollar?