Argentina, World Cup & Why We Need Lucky Jerseys

Every Argentine has a superstition during the World Cup.The unwashed jersey. The forbidden word. The way in which we have to repeat, do or avoid doing something to help our team win.We are rational. We know the unwashed jersey is not moving the ball.We know. We do it anyway.So the real question is not why people engage in silly things. Rather, the question we are after in this extra episode, and before the FIFA finals this Sunday, is why human beings need to participate in outcomes they do not control.Let’s follow the superstition all the way down, past Freud, into the machinery of belonging itself: what turns "they won" into "we won,” and why we suffer during match time.Your take aways?The difference between membership and a position, and why only one of them is felt.One clean line between healthy participation and being recruited into a role.A twenty-minute experiment with a ritual you already have.References:Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Translated by James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1950. First published 1913.