Brain Bucket: The American Game of War
Brain Bucket: The American Game of War
An annotated link repost
Writing the essay that made up this series convinced me to pursue military history as a profession several years ago. I have removed the posts from the archives to make them all free.
The autumnal ritual of American football and mass fire warfare produce the same characteristic form of brain injury. This is not really an accident, for the game has always been a cultural celebration of the values and tactics of modern battle — one that has traditionally denied or minimized the harms of concussion.
First: what do we mean by “modern battle”? To understand why American Civil War veterans invented football, one must see their experiences in the context of a global armaments revolution that was taking place in parallel development across five continents.
Instant high-explosive blast is a very different force from the repeated bodily impacts of tackling and blocking, but their profound effect on human brain cells is the same. Ironically, this realization has given us new insight into the supposed mysteries of “shell shock” in the First World War.
Helmet technology has also changed with the new rules. Instead of preventing skull fracture, football helmets are now designed to reduce the angular momentum of impact that causes brain injury. However, the history of helmets on gridiron and battlefield suggests that all attempted technological fixes will create new problems.
Finally, the politics of the possible are set by the trends of the time. Major football programs can be compared to the military-industrial activities of modern states — indeed, they are top line items in many American university budgets, while professional clubs are billion-dollar concerns. What does it say of the “exceptional nation” that this high-tech pastime demands so much?