Fans of the legendary English soccer team Liverpool FC display their support

Fans of professional sports are a derided bunch. Usually associated with belonging to the lowest common denominator intellectually and culturally, others have gone as far as to claim that they represent the most prevalent form of social conditioning present in our modern society.

An observer in first century Rome coined the phrase bread and circuses to describe how Romans of that era chose food and fun over freedom, thus giving up their civic duty in favour of decadence. To people like Noam Chomsky, little has changed. In Manufacturing Consent Chomsky explains the role of sports in social conditioning:

Take, say, sports — that’s another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it — you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that’s of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about — [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it’s striking to see the intelligence that’s used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in — they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.

You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? [laughter] I mean, I don’t know anybody on the team, you know? [audience roars] I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn’t mean any — it doesn’t make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements — in fact, it’s training in irrational jingoism. That’s also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that’s why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

Is being a fan of professional sports all that bad? New research by economists and psychologists suggests that sports fandom actually has some benefits.

The Boston Globe tells us how being a sports fan is not necessarily the bad thing it’s made out to be in The Secret Benefits of Fandom:

But a few scholars have started to suggest that there may indeed be another kind of benefit from big-time sports. There’s a catch, though: the team has to be good. In a forthcoming paper, economist Michael Davis and the psychologist Christian End say that having a winning NFL football team increases the incomes of the people who live and work in its hometown by as much as $120 a year. And while the study doesn’t identify exactly what causes the boost, the authors point to psychological literature suggesting that winning fans are at once harder workers and bigger spenders. In short, buoyed by the team’s success, we work longer hours, take bigger risks, and shop more avidly, all of which helps the local economy.

“This collective mass of people in a good mood, that is something that could really bolster the economy,” says End, an assistant professor of psychology at Xavier University.

and:

The new work suggests that this kind of success on the field can shape a positive mind-set that affects the rest of our lives. Studies have shown, for example, that fans are not only happier when their team wins, they feel smarter, more athletic, luckier, and even more attractive. Other research shows that happy, self-confident people tend to be more successful – at work, in school, in any realm they’re competing in – suggesting how the successes and failures of our sports heroes become our own.

The struggle for freedom can take many shapes and sizes, and can quite often be contradictory

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the magazine More Intelligent Life is asking a dozen eminent figures what freedoms they’ve gained and what freedoms they’ve lost.

Commentator Neil Ascherson on his freedoms gained and lost:

FREEDOM LOST
Can one regret a right which damaged other people’s rights—in this case, their right to health and clean air? I was never more than an occasional smoker. Yet I still miss the compound pleasure of going to a movie in the afternoon, putting my boots on the seat in front, and lighting up a fat black Gauloise. The smoke curling up to the cupola of the almost empty cinema. The total, concentrated anticipation. The feeling that “this is the life”. With that loss went a whole grubby sensual underworld: the extinct trick of telling where a stranger came from by the perfume of his cigarettes: Ekstra-Mocny from Poland, Nazionale, Roth-Händle (this guy’s a west German left-winger), Morava from Nis which was so much sweeter than Morava from Sarajevo…

FREEDOM GAINED
The new right for which I am most grateful has to be visa-free travel. A right still limited to certain parts of the world. But the knowledge that, within a few hours of an impulse, I can be not just in a capital city (Prague, Warsaw, Berlin) but wandering down Piotrkowska Street in Lodz , or standing on the cobbles of an East Bohemian village inhaling its scent of pork chops and cabbage, or buying the real original Weihnachtsstollen at the Christmas Fair in Dresden—that’s still miraculous. Do I regret the long waits at frontier stations, the sound of jackboots slowly moving along the corridor from compartment to compartment? No, it’s all been perfectly preserved in novels. And if you still hanker for that paranoia kick, just put on a burqa for your return journey to Britain.

Ascherson’s response made me reflect on what my response to the question would be. I’ve decided to focus on communication for both parts of the answer.

FREEDOM LOST
The rise of Political Correctness really took hold in the 1990s through several approaches ranging from the cultural to the educational. While they were enclosed in these areas the overwhelming majority of us were not in any sort of danger as to our inherent rights to speak freely. The worm unfortunately turned as Political Correctness began to be inserted into legislation. Anti-discrimination legislation as well as laws and bylaws in regards to racism, sexism, etc. have taken away our rights to speak freely should we hold controversial opinions outside of the mainstream. These opinions may not necessarily be correct nor educated, but they are nevertheless outlawed in a climate of fear. People are now forced to watch what they say (especially in work settings) for fear of a lawsuit or stigmatization.

FREEDOM GAINED
Technology has done much to restrict and to increase freedom. Yes, the statement is paradoxical but it is also true. In the realm of communications, the technological leaps and bounds of this past century and especially these past two decades have seen communication flow faster, more freely, and over longer distances than ever thought possible. The internet and mobile phone technology have made communication remarkably cheap and relatively instantaneous. While I sit here and blog, my words will be put out into hyperspace and the market for my words has the potential for billions. I am incredibly thankful for this freedom.

A portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Back in 1947, a Bedouin goat herder stumbled upon the archaeological discovery of the century in a place called Qumran in what is now the West Bank. What he found in there is what we refer to as The Dead Sea Scrolls. The importance of these scrolls to history and faith is still yet to be determined as much of their contents have been jealously guarded.

Thanks to the rise of the internet, the scrolls themselves will be open to all eventually as scientists have announced that they will be publishing the scrolls on the internet using American space technology:

Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet for all to see, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.

High-tech cameras using infrared photography are being used to uncover sections of the 2,000-year-old scrolls that have faded over the centuries and become indecipherable, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.

The project is expected to take about five years and the goal is to make the scrolls accessible to scientists and the general public, Antiquities Authority official Pnina Shor said.

“Now for the first time the scrolls will be a computer click away,” said Shor, who heads the authority’s department responsible for the conservation of artifacts. “This will ensure that the scrolls are preserved for another 2,000 years.”

The internet has been a boon for amateur archaeologists and anthropologists as historical records have been finding their way into the virtual world. The two best examples are The Domesday Book from Medieval England and the Ellis Island Records from the turn of the century USA. I have no doubt that the Dead Sea Scrolls will prove just as fascinating as these two already available online.

On the left is a neanderthal skull from France and on the right is a modern human skull from Polynesia

Neanderthals are a hot topic in the world of archaeology. Recently on this site, we reviewed the long running debate on how the neanderthals disappeared so rapidly by asking whether they were the victims of inbreeding with early humans.

A new discovery in Ethiopia could lead to the conclusion that inbreeding occurred much, much earlier as we’re told that the earliest humans had neanderthal qualities. Here’s an excerpt:

The world’s first known modern human was a tall, thin individual — probably male — who lived around 200,000 years ago and resembled present-day Ethiopians, save for one important difference: He retained a few primitive characteristics associated with Neanderthals, according to a series of forthcoming studies conducted by multiple international research teams.

The extraordinary findings, which will soon be outlined in a special issue of the Journal of Human Evolution devoted to the first known Homo sapiens, also reveal information about the material culture of the first known people, their surroundings, possible lifestyle and, perhaps most startling, their probable neighbors — Homo erectus.

“Omo I,” as the researchers refer to the find, would probably have been considered healthy-looking and handsome by today’s standards, despite the touch of Neanderthal.

“From the size of the preserved bones, we estimated that Omo I was tall and slender, most likely around 5′10″ tall and about 155 pounds,” University of New Mexico anthropologist Osbjorn Pearson, who co-authored at least two of the new papers, told Discovery News.

Pearson said another, later fossil was also recently found. It too belonged to a “moderately tall — around 5′9″ — and slender individual.”

Click here to read the rest of the article

Sagalassos, the first city of the Roman province of Galatia (present-day southwestern Turkey)

The archaeological dig at Sagalassos in present-day southwestern Turkey is uncovering some real treasures.

Last year, a massive statue of Emperor Hadrian was uncovered. This week a colossal marble head of Faustina the Elder was found by archaeologists.

Sagalassos is in present-day southwestern Turkey

Some background on Sagalassos:

Sagalassos is an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, about 100 km north of Antalya (ancient Attaleia), and 30 km from Burdur and Isparta. The ancient ruins of Sagalassos are 7 km from Ağlasun in the province of Burdur, on Mount Akdağ, in the Western Toros mountain range, at an altitude of 1450-1700 metres. In Roman Imperial times, the town was known as the ‘first city of Pisidia’, a region in the western Taurus mountains, currently known as the Turkish Lakes Region.

The Roman Empire absorbed Pisidia after the Attalids and it became part of province of Asia. In 39 BCE it was handed out to Galatian client king Amyntas but after he was killed in 25 BCE, Rome turned Pisidia into the province of Galatia. Under the Roman Empire, Sagalassos became the important urban center of Pisidia, particularly favoured by the Emperor Hadrian, who named it the “first city” of the province and the center of the imperial cult. Contemporary buildings have a fully Roman character.

Around 400 CE Sagalassos was fortified for defence. An earthquake devastated it in 518 and a plague circa 541-543 halved the local population. Arab raids threatened the town around 640 and after another earthquake destroyed the town in the middle of the seventh century, the site was abandoned. The populace probably resettled in the valley. Excavations have found only signs of a fortified monastery — possibly a religious community, which was destroyed in the twelfth century. Sagalassos disappeared from the records.

In the following centuries, erosion covered the ruins of Sagalassos. It was not looted in significant extent, possibly because of its location.

On the current dig:

From 1990 Sagalassos, a major tourist site, has become a major excavation project led by Marc Waelkens of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. The monumental city center is now exposed; four major restoration projects are (nearly) completed. The project also undertakes an intensive urban and geophysical survey, excavations in the domestic and industrial areas, and an intensive survey of the territory. The first survey documents a thousand years of occupation — from Alexander the Great to the seventh century — while the latter has established the changing settlement patterns, the vegetation history and farming practices, the landscape formation and climatic changes during the last 10,000 years.

On August 9, 2007, the press reported the discovery of a finely detailed, colossal statue of the Emperor Hadrian, which is thought to have been stood 4-5m in height. The statue dates to the early part of Hadrian’s reign, and depicts the emperor in military garb. It was carved in sections that were fitted together with marble tenons on the site, which was a thermae, a public bath. A major earthquake sometime between the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE brought the vaulting crashing down; the statue of Hadrian was felled, coming apart along the joins of its facture. The discovery of carved marble toes drilled with dowel holes to fasten them to the hem of a long mantle suggests the possibility of finding a companion sculpture of Sabina, the emperor’s consort.

Here is the official website of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. You’ll find a selection of photos from the dig.

Faustina the Elder (AD 100-141)

The marble bust of Faustina the Elder, uncovered at Sagalassos

Annia Galeria Faustina, more familiarly referred to as Faustina the Elder (Latin: Faustina Major; born September 21 about 100, died 141), was a Roman Empress and wife of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius.

Faustina was the only daughter of consul and prefect Marcus Annius Verus and Rupilia Faustina. Her younger brothers were consul Marcus Annius Libo and praetor Marcus Annius Verus. Her maternal aunts were Matidia Minor, Roman Empress Vibia Sabina and Rupilia Annia. Her paternal grandfather had the same name as her father and her maternal grandparents were Salonina Matidia (niece of Roman Emperor Trajan) and consul Lucius Scribonius Libo Rupilio Frugi or Bonus. As far it is known, she seems to be the only known granddaughter to Salonina Matidia. Faustina was born and raised in Rome.

On July 10, 138, her uncle emperor Hadrian had died and her husband became the new emperor. Antoninus was Hadrian’s adopted son and heir. Faustina became Roman Empress and the senate accorded her the title of Augusta. Faustina as an empress was well respected and this beautiful woman was renowned for her wisdom. The Augustan History impugned her character, criticizing her as having “excessive frankness” and “levity”. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case with her character. Throughout her life, Faustina – as a private citizen and an empress – was involved in assisting with charities, assisting the poor, and sponsoring and assisting in the education of Roman children, particularly of Roman girls.

She can be viewed as one of the most moral, stable and respected empresses in the history of the Roman Empire. When Faustina died, Antoninus was in complete mourning for Faustina.

Emperor Hadrian (AD 76-138)

The Statue of Emperor Hadrian found in Sagalassos

Publius Aelius Hadrianus (January 24, 76 – July 10, 138), as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English, was emperor of Rome from 117 to 138 AD, as well as a Stoic and Epicurean philosopher. A member of the gens Aelia, Hadrian was the third of the Five Good Emperors, or the second of the recently proposed ulpio-aelian dynasty. His reign had a faltering beginning, a glorious middle, and a tragic conclusion.

click this link to read more about Emperor Hadrian.