Sports reinforce cultural value systems

PREFACE: This is the second of six articles that I wrote as a guest columnist for the Anchorage Daily News "Voices from the Community" series, it was printed Wednesday, November 13?, 1991 (http://www.adn.com/). The pictures weren't included in the article.

"A lot can be learned about a society by the games it plays. In the U.S., some sports share the prestige of national pastimes, such as football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. A society's games are more than mere opportunities for testing athletic prowess, wit and striving for excel lance: they reinforce value systems and survival skills. It's interesting and insightful to look at what values are reinforced in American games [sports], then look at how Inupiat societies used games to do the same.

This country [USA] was founded by colonists escaping from the European tyranny of the 17th century. Intellectually gifted, they drafted and later ratified a set of laws, or rules -- the Constitution. It was created in defiance to 'taxation without representation' and established socioeconomic autonomy and home rule over land they occupied.

As the Industrial Revolution started, America embraced a fiercely competitive free-market economy. Here, suppliers of goods and services compete against each other for consumer dollars. Success is measured not so much by how much money one attains, but who holds the largest share of the consumer market. Cliches like, 'It doesn't matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game' mean little here. For Americans in free enterprise it's better to quote Vince Lombardi's dictum, 'Winning isn't everything: it's the only thing.'

What's fascinating about popular American sports is that they reflect the competitiveness needed to succeed in the free market. The rules of basketball, hockey, and football suggest that domination over another's territory while defending one's own is OK - within mutual rules of agreement. Under the rules, the team with the most strength, wit and speed can rightfully claim its rewards.

While having a successful sports team requires collective effort to a common goal -- and promotes values like discipline, perseverance, hard work and fair play -- the competition between teams can reinforce the 'might makes right' syndrome.

Early Americans fought to claim and defend territory under the Constitution and won. Following this pattern, they drafted more terms of agreement with neighbors [i.e., First Nations], moved westward, and established an industrial economy. Is anyone...surprised the popular sports today deal with the competitive zeal valued in the free market economy?

As for Inupiat people, they've historically occupied all lands above the Arctic Circle. Inherently creative, they've adapted successfully living in the harsh climates of North America, Greenland, Europe, and Siberia. Using a subsistence-based economy, they live in small villages making it easier, if not more practical, to feed a few people when food is scarce.

The unforgiving Arctic made mandatory for everyone to be cooperative. Everyone had a role in the survival of the village. Having a supportive attitude was important to the Inupiat -- it could often well make the difference between life or death in the village.

The elders, living testimonial blueprints of each village, passed on their wisdom through stories, songs, dances, and games to illustrate life's lessons. The games were played most often during peak seasons when food was plentiful and when two or three villages gathered to celebrate a common occasion. The equipment, if any, was conservatively simple. Nothing was taken for granted.

The Inupiat people have been visionaries of enthusiasm. They derived over 200 games, and always found ways to improve on them. You see, living in 24-hour darkness six months of the year can easily discourage anyone. The Inupiat understood enthusiasm and used its contagious and healing properties to ward off the evils of depression.

In time, every conceivable means of testing the human body, having fun, learning a lesson, passing on a value, was imagined. The games mimicked a variety of things observed in the environment, such as the way animals were caught, how they walked, wrestled or fought with each other -- even ways which simultaneously tested the skills and attributes possessed by successful hunters, like good balance, agility, concentration, strength and the endurance to pain.

The games played today are carry-overs from the past. The Eskimo Stick Pull, where two people sit across from each other, feet together, attempt to pull a stick out of each other's hands, simulates the pulling strength needed to pull a seal out of the water [from a hole in the ice]. The Seal Hop, hopping on knuckles and toes simultaneously in a push-up position, tests strength and endurance to pain. The high kicking events, where it's not uncommon to see both men and women kicking a ball with one or both feet above their heads, were first used as signals to communicate over great distances.

Today the kicking events have the most spectator appeal, and are a good example of the mutually supportive coaching between competitive athletes. As if their lives depended on it, the athletes practice the lesson from the old cliche -- 'what goes around comes around.'

Looking at these two societies, how their economic histories relate to their games, it's interesting to have witnessed how they reached a settlement on a territorial issue - ANCSA (Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act).

In this 'agreement,' there's an attempt to use values from both societies. Competitive corporate structures were borrowed from American society. Reflecting the mutually supportive values of Native cultures, ANCSA built in profit sharing among Native corporations.

However, there still remains a mystery, at least in part, as a few [Native] corporations file for bankruptcy - who is going to have dominion over the lands. Who can really say? Someday a game may reflect this composite -- maybe it already has: TRUMP.

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