After the Eagles win at the Super Bowl, I was struck by the accolades that poured out of Philadelphians. One person said, “It’s the greatest feeling in the world.” The parade which occurred had everything one could experience. There were fans on statues getting a better view, someone threw a beer can to Howie Roseman and cut his face open, people chanted as one singing the Eagles Fight Song, and a lot of passion was expressed, bottled at times in beer. Jeffrey Laurie felt redeemed after all these years because the victory was so decisive, and Coach Sirianni, Jalen Hurts, and other players got their due respect finally.
It was fitting that the speeches came from the steps where Rocky oversees the action, as Philly and most people love the Underdog. Everyone was on fire with too many off color expressions of language, which was not necessary, but was done to show their emotion. I don’t like it for I don’t think it’s good for kids who see the players as heroes, and they may imitate it to be like them.
There are two dimensions of ethics that I taught. There are individual ethics which is what one person does and group ethics which is the dynamic of what occurs in a group. I taught how relationships are important to understand what happens when any group, historical and present create significant experiences that yield statements from within the groups that result in it’s “the greatest feeling in the world.” Ethics is a part of an individual’s life and a group’s life. You can control it if you understand it. This is true for the positive such as peoples’ response to the Eagles as well as the negative such as the rise to power of Hitler.
We can look at this group and individual ethic through the lens of the Greek language and how it relates to psychology and theology.
We have four words in the Greek for love which capture more than the English word, Love. Let’s take the Eagles Victory through this process as I would do in an ethics class.
Storge is the Greek word for a nurturing love most often seen between parent and child. The love for the Eagles is an extension of what you want for them such as a parent’s unconditional love of a child. The Eagles become an extension of what we see as important such as a well-played game or victory. Storge wants to possess as a parent would want the child to be what they, the parent, think is important. Our relationship with the Eagles is the emotion that they are mine, not someone else’s team.
The most important Greek love in this case is Philia which is love of a group such as a love of friends or love of team. Philia begins with a shared purpose like a team with a goal to win the Super Bowl or an orchestra and their conductor performing a piece of music for the audience. There are two things that are the most important human needs, things that we need in extreme like a starving person in a desert. Fans want the food of self-esteem and a sense of belonging. These are two of the strongest loves that human beings need to thrive. They define Philia. They also can make good intentioned people better and bad intentioned people worse. The Eagles and their fans made good intentioned people better while a bad intentioned group such as robbers make bad intentioned people worse. One person can’t do as much good or bad as a group can do. Philia love is like buy one get one free when you go to the store.
Through Philia and the Eagles, we get two loves for the price of one. When the Eagles win, our self-esteem goes up. When they lose, our self-esteem goes down. When we are with the Eagles, we feel magnificent because we are part of the Eagles Nation. Every group has a moral code that the group understands, what they can do and what they shouldn’t do. Philia is a resistance movement. Every time we say Eagles is America’s Team, we have to say that the Dallas Cowboys are not. To feel that we belong, we must push other groups (teams) out. That dynamic is the basis of scapegoating. This is the basis of all the isms. The basis of the last election at its root was for either political party to claim that they were right and the other was wrong. We are good. They are bad.
The last group love is Eros which is more than just the basis of erotic or sexual experience.
It implies that when passion such as the players and fans of the Eagles display, reason leaves consideration. This is why the Temple student climbed the pole but slipped and fell to his death. When reason leaves a situation involving groups, passion enters. With passionate fans right thinking goes out the window.
This explains the Eagles actions for the good, but it also explains why January 6 occurred for life is a two-edged sword. Every group action has two possible sides to it. For example, think of California. When the rain came to solve the problem of the drought, people were killed because it was too much rain.
These issues named above, Storge, Phila, and Eros, can help us to understand the nature of groups in actions.
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