Bioethicist Puts Boston in its Place

Out in the real world, seriously enhanced twenty-something people are intentionally injuring themselves on football fields for fame and money. And nothing says fame and money like Superbowl. Naturally, when it comes to the complexities of the rivalry, between the social orders constructed to support this odd activity, you'd want the commentary of a bioethicist. Especially when the two cities are Boston (the 'Patriots') and Philadelphia (the Eagles) Art Caplan is there for you:

Arthur Caplan, a bio-ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, is Boston-born. There's no question whom he's rooting for in the Super Bowl.

"Boston is snobby," he said. "It has Harvard and MIT and a beautiful harbor and its art museum and Gardner museum. Philly is anxious. It is not New York, Washington or Boston and it sure as hell does not want to be lumped in with Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit or, heaven forbid, Baltimore. "Philadelphians worry that their city is not good enough: 'Is it too raucous? Is it too working-class? Is it too parochial? Is it too second-rate?' "

Bostonians will try to lord their sports primacy over Philadelphians, Caplan said. Philadelphians, he added, should not confuse their lack of a recent championship with any sort of inferiority. Philadelphians "live in a real city with real attractions, not an overblown college town adjacent to a set of nutty neighborhoods which no one has left for the past 100 years. We are sophisticated. Bostonians are just lucky to be in the midst of sophistication - but they are not part of it.

"As for sports... well, yeah, umm, well - our crew teams can beat theirs. I think."