Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Jon Johanning wrote:
>
> > I meant: a *political theory,* or *critical-theory theory,* not a
> > psychological theory. A psychological theory of sports fandom would be
> > just as useful or necessary as any other psychological theory,
> > considered in purely scientific terms.
> >
>
> I don't get the distinction here. Why can a scientist
> develop a psychological theory of sport, but not a
> social theory of sport? The meaningful difference here
> is level of analysis, not the potential for rigorous
> empirical studies. --In fact, you could argue that
> it is easier to observe the social facts than it
> is to assess any hidden psychological factors!
>
Yes. There are 10s of millions of "sports fans," and I know nothing to suggest that those millions necessarily share any "hidden psychological factors." One can't even assume in advance that all of them gain pleasure from it. That is, some definite proportion, large or small, must force themselves to "like" sports because family, friends, or workplace implicitly (or even explicitly) demand that they do so.
But if we could first get our categories straight, and maintain clarity as to perspective, it should be possible to say something about the role of this or that subsection of spectator sports in u.s. (or british or chinese) life. But I doubt that one can make any (non-tautological) accounts of _all_ sports fans or about _all_ spectator sports. I would guess that one can't say a lot that would apply to both (say) the audience for extreme sports on TV and those who attend high school baseball games. One simply can't assume that "sports fans" or "spectator sports" (in general) constitute an intelligible entity for analysis.
Carrol
P.S. By clarity in perspective I mean that one necessarily has to abstract from the "blooming buzzing confusion," and one makes different abstractions depending on the purpose of the study.
> Miles