"Sports is another crucial example of the indoctrination system . . . It offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance . . . It keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have an idea of something about . . . People have the most exotic information and understanding about all sorts of arcane issues . . . It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements, in fact its training in irrational jingoism . . . That's why energy is devoted to supporting them . . . and advertisers are willing to pay for them."-Noam Chomsky, preeminent intellectual and highly distinguished professor of linguistics at MIT
Why does our society pay so much attention to professional sports, when they give virtually nothing back to the world? Just imagine if all the energy, time, and money we spent on sports were instead used to improve education, healthcare, and quality of life overall. There's no question that professional sports teams are luxuries and that they detract from the well-being of those among our society that are struggling to survive while we sit idle, consume junk food, and cheer for players we've never met.
Recently, The Daily Show hosted sports commentator Bob Costas. He has always struck me as a very kind and intelligent man, but talk about your exotic information and understanding about arcane issues. It's this guy's job to research and talk about sports ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. I believe he could easily be contributing something much more useful to society.
Now don't get me wrong...I'm not against sports altogether. Sports are tremendously valuable in that they build friendships, get people to enjoy exercise, and teach them how to work as a team. For this reason I am a proponent of intramural sports, because the focus is more on getting active than on passively observing the activity. Everyone should be encouraged to get out there and play his/her heart out. It is a shame that many college-level and even high school-level sports have lost sight of this goal, and have forsaken the concepts of fun and participation for unhealthy levels of stress and competition.
But most of all, it should not be seen as the duty of the public to pay taxes for constructing and maintaining extravagant stadiums, arenas, and the like.
That's all I have for now. As always, post if you disagree or have a problem with any of the ideas presented. Should you agree, you might want to print this out for future protests/demonstrations.
10 Comments:
The first time I read this post I read it quickly and thought the whole thing was a quote from Chomsky. It is very well-reasoned, organized and expressed.
I completely agree. And I like the clear distinction between professional sports and participatory sports. The anthropology, sociology and political science of sports and games is an interesting thing.
Clearly people (and quite possibly more specificly males) have pre-set mental circuits that make them predisposed to playing games and sports, perhaps as a remnant of old hunting expedition habits or the like. [The earliest known sport originated in Central Asia and involved teams riding around on horses fighting over a dead goat.]
I know that I frequently find myself very drawn to organized group activities. In this light is easy to understand the male obsession with military things. I myself, though morally and politically opposed to war and armies, find the thought of spending a few years living an austere existence doing something important and physically demanding with a large group of people my age, living in barrack-like housing, etc to be a good way to spend a few years in my early adult life. Something like a Community Service Corps or non-military Labor Army may actually have positive societal affects.
It is also interesting how we play games. Why do our games have losers? Why don't we play cooperative games like hackysack. Why don't we set challenges or obstacles in the way of normal games and reverse the rules to make them cooperative. Tennis for example: why not try to go for as long a volley as possible rather than to defeat the opponent (of course this would be easy for skilled players, making it necessary to make the rackets smaller, the ball faster, the court longer and narrower, changing rules to make the players stand farther and farther away from eachother). I don't even play tennis, but I chose it at random and could imagine other ways it could be played. But I now that when I played soccer I preferred getting the ball and looking up the field for a team-mate rather than having an opposing player coming at me with the ball when I'm the last defender.
Of games I find football to be the worst. Most of the players follow set, memorized plays that require little innovation or creativity and don't allow for task variation. And the most exciting part of the game is people running into eachother with the intention to hurt one another. On the professional level it not only diverts money and time away from useful pursuits and creates a negative fan culture, but it also makes role models out of people who are often far heavier than is healthy, weighing more than 300 pounds, and are often poorly educated and/or violent criminals. Now of course they work hard and are very strong, but they aren't smart, creative, useful, healthy. Not that they are worthless as individuals, but they simply do not deserve millions of dollars and fame for their accomplishments. The fact that the most popular sport in America is football says a lot to me.
I didn't mean to sound opposed to all competitive sports and games. I just don't think all the games kids are taught to play should be competitive ones.
John Paul, check your school email address to join the revolution.
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Thanks for the high compliments. Your kind words reassure me that this blog isn't entirely pointless.
Sports are indeed perplexing phenomena, including both their origins, evolution, and survival throughout the ages. As it turns out, the state that athletes describe as "being in the zone" is an extremely similar state to that of "aesthetic rapture" experienced by artists/musicians and also resembles the state of "ecstasy" that religious mystics undergo. When someone is in such a state, they are said to be experiencing "flow." I recently encountered an analysis of how humans feel when we play sports and games compared to other leisure activities such as hobbies, socializing, thinking, listening to music, and watching TV. Though games and sports caused the most anxiety of all those activities, they were clearly the best at both inducing "flow" and reducing apathy. This clearly demonstrates that sports and games can be very rewarding activities, provided that people remember why they are being played in the first place: to stay happy and healthy. That, I think, is the fundamental problem with many of today's athletic insitutions...they have simply lost sight of what sports were meant to be. I say it is in order for us to entirely reevaluate what sports mean to us, why they are good, and what we should be getting out of them. For instance, should they not promote things such as creativity, innovation, and task varitation? Do we worry about them too much, and if so, are we using them as things to hide us from facing our real lives that have real concerns?
As for why we play competitive games, I think the reason stems from our animal roots. It might be caused by natural selection, in which case it would pay to compete and prove oneself to be the leader and the one most fit to survive. It seems that is one reason why Chomsky dislikes competition, because it ultimately causes the weaker individuals to follow blindly behind the "leader of the pack," which inevitably inhibits the growth of the group as a whole and instead gives much undue power and authority to the fittest, the "alpha male" figure.
For reasons why I think football institutions like the NFL and the Big 10 are negative, see above. Again, a reevaluation is necessary to understand and overcome the problems surrounding this and all other pro sports.
The transcendentalists thought hard physical labor helped one to focus.
Also, I think managed stress, accomplishable challenges, are good for people.
BTW, I altered the CMP, which is now public and can be shown.
so . . . ever thought about updating again?
I don't see you updating YOUR blog
Dude, you totally stole your argument with me by e-mail. You may as well post both sides. It'll also probably motivate me to finish.
-PS
That was really very clear, hehe. What I'm saying is you ought to post our whole argument and it'll make things more interesting.
-PS
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