The Chicago Cubs and Isomorphic Mimicry

I've been reflecting on the Cub's recent success and their ongoing campaign to become a "championship" team. I'm afraid it will end in tears.

I say this not as a resentful Cardinal fan but as a concerned citizen who wants to help others avoid terrible, humiliating mistakes.  Because I've been reading Frank Fukuyama (of Fuk! It's the End of History Fame) and I've learned a Big Word - well actually two: "Isomorphic mimicry" which he nicked from a gang of developmental economists gone bad. IM refers to the tendency of less developed non western cultures to adopt the forms of western institutions (parliaments, bills of rights, welfare states and so on) without possessing the underlying cultural attributes from which these institutions sprang. Which results in a mess. I suppose the answer is for everyone to live their own lives and quit sticking their noses into other people's business which of course is the answer to most things. But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

What I wanted to say was this: I'm worried that the Cubs and their legions of Old Style besotted fans are committing the mistake of sports Isomorphic mimicry. You see the Cubs have recently advanced to the National League Championship series - which is a form characteristic of championship cultures like the St. Louis Cardinals. And the problem is that the Cubs represent a "loser" culture. According to developmental economists, trying to graft a championship team onto a loser culture is destined to fail. Recall the last time the Cubs wandered into the playoffs: they had almost won their first trip to the World Championship since God knows when and what happened? A desperately loyal fan reached out and interfered with an easy pop foul which resulted in their loss. It's almost as if the loser culture as embodied in that hapless pawn of a fan reached out and thwarted the attempt by Cub elites to impose an inappropriate isomorph on an institution known the world over for hopeless haplessness (or is that hapless hoplenessness, hmm).

It's better if indigenous cultures develop their own organic sports team forms. For example the Cubs could really build on their league leading "Worst Franchise Ever".....franchise. It is so much easier to go with the grain.

What? You come here and say that! Well then back off man, this is science!