An Alarming Appropriation

Dear Readers,

Please forgive the typography of this post. I am writing to you via Blackberry on my way to the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth in the atoll lagoons off the Western coast of Mauritania. And wish me luck: aquatic labyrinths are among the most challenging and perilous. I will share with you my navijournal when I return.

We labyrinthians at the CLP hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards, and thus we always strive to eschew any editorialization in our threads. However, we must also uphold the integrity of the labyrinth, and therefore we believe it is our sacred duty to report any disquieting and undignified labyrinthine phenomena.

As many of you know, the best of this nation's college football squads have squared off in the various matches of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).  Advertisers and corporate sponsors lacked no creativity this year in their commercial promotions of the BCS. Yet, one advertisement employed an outrageous conceit: linemen, in caricatured lust for victory, careering the corridors of labyrinths to tackle their ways to the center.  

Watch the video, if you can stomach this egregious appropriation:

We at the CLP avoid prescriptivism, but this promotion displays two sinister misrepresentations which we cannot condone. First, navigation is not a competitive activity. Certainly, navigation has its athletic demands, but congression is not a gladiatorial sport in which one "wins" or "defeats" an opponent. Second, centers do not present the navigator with any kind of trophy. Arrival is its own reward, and there is no prize or treasure awaiting the navigator.

Labyrinths can indeed serve as rich metaphors, but, fellow labyrinthians, we cannot tolerate such co-option.