Ok, so let me ground the philosophical musings of last week …

AFL is a better code than NRL, Macs are better than PCs, and Spooks is the best spy drama on TV.

Pronouncements like these litter our conversation. We get passionate about our beliefs and can even get into arguments. This happens because we make leaps in logic …

We go from: “I really enjoy AFL” to “NRL is a rubbish game”. What we don’t necessarily acknowledge is: “AFL is all I’ve known and it has provided me with extraordinary satisfaction and a sense of community. As for NRL, I’ve only ever seen it on TV and I’ve actually got no idea what it feels like to play rugby league or support an NRL team.”

In one sense, all we’ve got is our point of view. There’s nothing wrong with not having grown up with NRL, but why do we insist on limiting our appreciation of life by wanting to look at everything through our own blinkered experience? Why do we leap from, “I’ve experienced this to be true,” to “my experience is universally true for everyone”, and it’s corollary, “your experience of truth is invalid.”

Despite the passion involved, the relative merits of football codes don’t matter in the scheme of things. Other things matter more. Justice for people in society who get marginalised or are victims of indiscriminate power or carelessness matters more. Asylum seekers and people with disabilities are just two groups that come to mind. We should be very wary about forming views about people until we have experienced their plight first hand. Until then, listen intently.

The point is simply this: if we want to grow and develop, immersion in a situation that challenges our preconceived ideas about what is good and right is the way to go. Feeding ourselves with content and people that affirm what we already think puts our roots down deeper, but doesn’t help us figure out if we’re in the right spot in the first place.

… but Collingwood supporters really are morons.