On February 2, 2011, a National Hockey League game turned ugly. Two professional ice hockey teams, the New York Islanders and the host Pittsburgh Penguins, were nearing the end of a game which the former team was on the verge of winning when tempers began to rise.
After a questionable play in which Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro was clipped by a Penguins forward, a gloves-off fistfight ensued between DiPietro and Penguins goalie Brent Johnson. The scuffle did not last long, however, as Johnson sent DiPietro crumpling to the ice with just one punch, causing facial fractures. The Islanders, intensely protective of their fallen goaltender, anticipated their revenge.
Their chance came nine days later, when the two teams met again, this time on Long Island. Halfway through the first period, after having already drawn a penalty for roughing, Michael Healey of the Islanders dropped his gloves and started punching the Penguins’ Craig Adams. Scenes like this repeated over and over throughout the game, which finished as a 9-3 Islanders win amidst almost nonstop fighting.
In all, sixty-five penalties were called in the game, including sixteen major penalties for fighting and another twenty-one game misconduct penalties triggering automatic ejections (with ejected Islanders receiving standing ovations from the partisan crowd as they were escorted to the locker room). The total number of penalty minutes assessed for the sixty-minute game was an overwhelming 346 (209 of which came in the final 15:13), the second-most since 2001.
In the wake of the bloody game, forward John Tavares of the officially victorious Islanders made two interesting and telling comments to the media. First, he said, “It was a pretty entertaining affair.”
With his next breath, he added, “It just shows that we’ll do anything for each other.”
Many who denounce ice hockey and other violent sports cite Tavares’s first observation – that rage-fueled slug-fests excite voyeuristic audiences à-la spectators in the ancient Roman Coliseum – as the root of the problem. In their judgment, the morbid pleasure of witnessing the fisticuffs of opposing warring factions either detracts from the sport’s subliminal purity or, more cynically, simply exposes the sport as an excuse for sanctioned violence. But while Tavares’s apparent gloating over the teams’ ability to provide their audience with a spectacular show represents a phenomenon which is often criticized, comments like his about tribal honor are frequently overlooked and deserve closer attention.
I wear many hats. I am a Christian and an aspiring theologian, but I am also a devout fan of ice hockey. I enjoy playing it, watching it, and even rooting for certain teams with admittedly partisan prejudice. My allegiances are largely arbitrary and ultimately inconsequential (cheering for the Cornell Big Red, for example, does very little to impact the substance of my life), but they do form at least part of my human identity. I can offer no moral justification for this, but it is who I am, and it is largely harmless. However, partisan affiliations – even those which are typically benign – have the potential to serve as the basis for violence.
The formula for what anthropologists call “tribal warfare” (loosely derivative of what evolutionary biologists call “kin selection”) rarely changes. Humans tend to form groups based on common identities. I can identify myself by my language, religion, ethnicity, skin color, political preference, etc., and then feel a special bond with others sharing my characteristic.
Someone (or some ones) from my group has a confrontation – accidental or otherwise – with someone from a different group. The confrontation is narrated in such a way that the identifiers become central to the understanding of the conflict. One group (or both of the groups) feels wronged, betrayed, insulted, disrespected, or injured, so other members of the group rally to the defense of the afflicted member and the ideology of the group as a whole. The conflict escalates and the between-group division grows.
In the case of the hockey rivalry, one group (the New York Islanders) felt compelled to defend the honor of (and avenge the injustice to) its goaltender, and the result was one of the most violent hockey games in recent memory.
As groups define themselves in opposition to other groups, narratives of superiority and confraternity typically go hand-in-hand. I will defend my group (and serve as its foot soldier) because (a) my group is better than the opposing group and (b) I feel a special connection to my comrades which I do not feel to members of the other group.
Whether or not we are biologically related, the other members of my group are my family, and family honor trumps all else. It was precisely this notion which led the focus on small-group solidarity in modern armies. Military strategists discovered that while many people are hesitant to kill others in order to advance some abstract principle or to defend themselves, they are relatively more likely to kill in order to protect or avenge close comrades.
Hockey teams and military squads are only two examples of the slippery slope between group identification and intergroup animosity. Christianity, originally a Jewish sect, came to define itself over-and-against Judaism, and the resultant supersessionism has led to unspeakable acts of violence. The Inquisition and the Shoah come immediately to mind, and there have been many other long periods of systemic Christian violence against Judaism through the centuries.
In one telling example, medieval Christians in many parts of Europe commemorated Good Friday each year by marching to the Jewish quarter of their town and hurling stones at the synagogue in symbolic retaliation for the perception that the Jews had murdered Christ – this “Holy Week violence” frequently turned deadly. Though the earliest Christian texts admonish Christians to approach Jews with humility, reverence, and respect, the narrative of superiority soon won the day. And as in sports and armies, the religious world does not thrive when group solidarity mixes with a sense of superiority.
In the wake of the fight-filled Islanders-Penguins rematch, the NHL handed down a limited number of fines and suspensions, trying to convey the message that retaliatory violence is not an acceptable part of the game. This lesson was lost on at least one player. Islanders forward Trevor Gillies received a nine-game suspension for his role in the brawls. In his first game back, one of his teammates was hit hard by an opponent, drawing a minor penalty. Gillies responded by sucker-punching that opponent in the back of the head, which earned him a ten-game suspension. Clearly, Gillies, whose role on the team is often described as “enforcer” or “goon” (a player whose job it is to be particularly physical and avenge perceived injustices) still believes that the appropriate response to violence against one’s own clan is to avenge the pain and impugned honor through retaliatory violence.
How then is violence (physical and other) between groups to be avoided? Do we all need to focus on our common humanity and to deconstruct the artificial identities, like my partisan interest in Cornell hockey?
I suspect that we should not, and am certain that we cannot. We are social creatures and have a natural tendency to organize ourselves. The solution to intergroup violence, therefore, is not to eliminate groups. It is, rather, to challenge the assumption that because the group is mine it is therefore better. If someone from my group feuds with someone from another group, I should not rush to attack the other in order to defend the honor of my compatriot. My group is not superior, only different.
Or, put the other way, my group may be special, but so is the other group. And while members of my group may seem to be more genuinely human than members of the other group, that is simply because I know the people in my group better. The truly noble act is not to jump at any excuse to counterattack, but rather to see every conflict as an opportunity for learning. I should jump at the chance to humanize – rather than to demonize – the combative other. In short, we need to rewrite the code of honor. The best gift I can give my group is not to vanquish its enemies, but to introduce it to them. Honor – and dignity – demands it.