Social Bonding and Violence in Sport: A Theoretical-Empirical Analysis

Abstract

It is widely believed that we are living today in one of the most violent periods in history. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that, in Western societies at least, the fear that we are currently undergoing a process of “decivilization”-with regard to physical violence if not in other respects—is deeply imprinted in the contemporary Zeitgeist, one of the dominant beliefs of our time. Eysenck and Nias (1978), for example, refer to “a number of acknowledged facts” which, they claim, “have helped to persuade many people that the civilization in which we live may be in danger of being submerged under a deluge of crime and violence.” The psychologist Peter Marsh (1979), similarly contends that recent attempts to eradicate violence have led to a decline in opportunities for socially constructive ritual violence-what he calls “aggro” with the consequence that uncontrolled and destructive violence has increased. There has been, he writes, “a drift from ‘good’ violence into ‘bad’ violence. Men are about as aggressive as they always were but aggression, as its expression becomes less orderly, has more blood as its consequence.”