Nothing says America like the Super Bowl (except, maybe, Apollo Creed versus Ivan Drago). And that means that the Super Bowl ought to be an occasion to reflect on who we are. I don’t have anything penetrating to say about this year’s game, but here is my colleague Isaac Kramnick, writing with Harvey J. Kaye in the Washington Post, about the 1997 Super Bowl between the Packers and the Patriots.

On one side is the besieged tradition, represented by the Packers, in which sports is an organic extension of civic and social life. On the other side is the newer, ascendant postmodern corporate ideology represented by the Patriots, in which sports, freed from place and loyalty, is merely an extension of the market.

Wow…and this is even before the Brady/Belichick era. Full text here.