Is the Super Bowl stupid?

Connor Wood writes that

all culture – not just the United States – requires regular suspension of disbelief, and acceptance of absurdity, in order to survive.

By taking part in the absurd ritual of the Super Bowl, Americans agree to behave as if we were all characters in this strange, intangible, infuriating, fascinating farce called “the United States.”

What matters is that we agree to take part in the ritual, whatever it is, together. And the ritual’s rules need to be arbitrary – made up by humans – or it won’t work. We participants have to consent to participate, you see – not be forced into it.

If we want the Culture Wars to continue raging – if we want our national culture to be positively drenched in entertaining, unwinnable conflict – then by all means, we should continue fanning the flames of derision, showing off our superiority, disdaining the absurdities of the groups we don’t want to identify with.

Instead of rejecting everything crass or nonsensical or uncool about the majority culture, either jump in and participate in their world or, for God’s sake, be polite about ignoring it. Don’t snark proudly about how superior you are to them.

Is the Super Bowl stupid? Sure. There’s too much money in it, the game usually isn’t a very good matchup, and sports networks hype it up way too much. I agree that it’s silly. But unlike the Holden Caulfields of the world, I want us to recognize the value of the absurd. Let’s at least respect those last few remaining rituals that give Americans the chance to all be American – in all our ridiculousness – together. Because athletics is ritual. It’s subjunctive play. And like life, sports are a brotherhood of the absurd. Do you have to play along? No. But you might miss out on something when you don’t. And you’re certainly no better – no more intellectually or morally upright – than those of us who do.

Clowning around

Yesterday I wrote a post that was full of snark. Tom Scocca writes that being snarky is a bad thing. In fact, there is a whole new word, smarm, to describe those who disapprove of snark. Scocca defines smarm as

Smarm is a kind of performance—an assumption of the forms of seriousness, of virtue, of constructiveness, without the substance. Smarm is concerned with appropriateness and with tone. Smarm disapproves.

Smarm would rather talk about anything other than smarm. Why, smarm asks, can't everyone just be nicer?

Smarmy people don't lay down rules for themselves, only for everyone else. Scocca writes,

But let's get at the deeper substance. What defines smarm, as it functions in our culture? "Smarm" and "smarmy" go back to the older "smalm," meaning to smooth something down with grease—and by extension to be unctuous or flattering, or smug. Smarm aspires to smother opposition or criticism, to cover everything over with an artificial, oily gloss.

Falsity and hypocrisy are important to this, but they are pieces of something larger. But let's get at the deeper substance. What defines smarm, as it functions in our culture? "Smarm" and "smarmy" go back to the older "smalm," meaning to smooth something down with grease—and by extension to be unctuous or flattering, or smug. Smarm aspires to smother opposition or criticism, to cover everything over with an artificial, oily gloss.

Smarm should be understood as a type of bullshit, then — it expresses one agenda, while actually pursuing a different one. It is a kind of moral and ethical misdirection. Its genuine purposes lie beneath the greased-over surface.

The old systems of prestige—the literary inner circles, the top-ranking daily newspapers, the party leadership—are rickety and insecure. Everyone has a publishing platform and no one has a career.

At some point, in a piece like this, convention calls for the admission that the complaints against snark are not entirely without merit. Fine. Some snark is harmful and rotten and stupid. Just as, to various degrees, some poems and Page-One newspaper stories and sermons and football gambling advice columns are harmful and rotten and stupid. Like every other mode, snark can sometimes be done badly or to bad purposes.

Anger is upsetting to smarm—real anger, not umbrage. But so is humor and confidence. Smarm, with its fixation on respect and respectability, has trouble handling it when the snarkers start clowning around.

I feel better now.