There were so many things I learned sophomore year. Almost none of them came from school. Actually, I’d be hard-pressed to think of any, in absolute terms. They all came from my own reading on the net, primarily of politics and philosophy. This year, my interests lay in the sciences.
Not coincidentally, the one tidbit of information I did learn from school wasn’t even part of the curriculum, necessarily. The class was going over World War 2 and the motivations behind it. There are the political and legal stimuli that were necessary, but what was far more interesting had to be the psychological underpinnings. This was obviously not reviewed in fantastic depth; however, when we did review this material I tended to agree with my teacher. He noted that the individuals in post WW1 Germany were no different than ourselves, outside of unfortunate political circumstances. There is obviously a bit more to it than that; the Germans may have had more of a proclivity towards authoritarianism than ourselves. Actually, we know this to be true by virtue of our founding principles. But as a general piece of wisdom, my teacher was correct: it’s easy to think of Germany and particularly Hitler as outliers, when similar events might spur our own nation down that same path. He noted that many aspects of life can be described as having fascist tendencies. The most striking have to be sports. Many high school sports end off practice (I know mine does) by having all participants congregate in a circle and chanting some sort of colloquialism. There is a reason it is done, and that is to remind the team that they are fighting for something beyond themselves, the collective. Your shitty performance is detrimental to the entire team, and you don’t want to let that happen. Conversely, you are fighting for something bigger than yourself, and if you perform well it does not go unnoticed. You will gain recognition for your service towards achieving a collective goal.
Punitive measures also revolve around this idea of the collective. If you fuck up and are subsequently sent to run a few miles in atonement, it sucks, but you perservere. But if you fuck up and the entire team needs to run a few miles as a result, the physical pain is the last of your problems. The associated psychological damage is far more compelling: you are to be shunned by your team, reminded constantly that you are the sinner. Word gets round and you might be the butt of a few jokes. Are you going to fuck up again after that? Hell no.
Coaches know this. And though I understand their tactics, I wholly disagree with them.
Brutal 