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Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

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Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#71

Post by ojbyrne »

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

I have always been a sports fan, but I really dislike the giant subsidies given to billionaires, to the point where it just feels like a giant con.

Not only is everything over priced, but there's a vast array of tax breaks and hidden subsidies that the working class pays for.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#72

Post by pivo »

jvvw wrote: post #36

This may be different in the US but in the UK, I would say that small talk about sports, especially football, is much more common among men than women and I was surprised that the article didn't mention this. I've spent a lot of time in female company the last few years and sport is very rarely mentioned, whereas working for a tech company as nearly the only woman, I ended up learning lots about football just to not…

I'm in the US and not a sports fan and I regularly find myself in groups where the topic of conversation is sports. It's a little uncomfortable for me because it's assumed that all men are sports fans in my city (Boston).

My girlfriend recently cultivated an interest in sports so that she could fit in better with her predominately male colleagues. It seems to have worked for her. I can't tell for sure how much she actually enjoys it vs. how much she enjoys watching some play that she knows she'll will be a topic of conversation at work.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#73

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nlawalker wrote: post #12

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people" - Eleanor Roosevelt Sports, in the context of the article, is 100% people and events. I don't necessarily agree with the quote, I just wanted to point out that the idea expressed here is the same. I don't think that intellectuals (to use the author's term) are necessarily disinterested in sports in general. However, it makes sense t…

The neat thing about intellectuals criticizing things is, they can say it so well.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#74

Post by JoeAltmaier »

BurgerEarmuffs wrote: post #70
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand, label nerds as pretentious and jackasses, because they dis your favorite subject. Welcome to the nerd club. You think its tiresome having somebody try to make you look stupid for liking that stuff? Imagine living it, from the age of 12 through 25. Its fucking exhausting. So give techies a break already.

"This happened to me growing up so now I get to do it to you"? What a wonderful message for the children.

How about, you've done it all your life, so your whining when it happens to you comes off as hypocritical? What a wonderful message...

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#75

Post by grandalf »

I've tried multiple times to become interested in spectator sports. To date the only ones I find even mildly interesting are:

- NBA Finals basketball

- World Series of Poker

- UFC

Football is slow-paced and disheartening b/c of all the drives that end with a punt. Baseball is slow-paced. Hockey is OK but after a watching for 10 minutes I start to get board. Tennis and Golf are both extremely frustrating as well.

I love to participate in Amateur Radio Radiosport and have done quite well at it, and also love SCUBA and snowboarding but not in a competitive way (watching or participating).

So I guess it's a mystery to me how people can find mainstream sports so worth sinking time/energy into. If I were in sales I'd certainly glance at the sports page now and then.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#76

Post by blacksmith_tb »

For someone who sets out to change their social interactions, the author is surprisingly not very aware of dynamics at work here. The 'disdainful academics' are maintaining social boundaries just as much as the fans of a local team. Of course they go to great lengths to explain that to each other, they are actively maintaining that boundary. Whether or not you personally like or dislike sports, (or 'the other team') is very different from social displays which assert your allegiances. I do think there's something to be said for refusing to conform, however - whether that's telling your fellow academics they're missing out, or telling folks at the bar that professional sports are a lot less fun that throwing a ball around in the park.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#77

Post by lotharbot »

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

> he is saying in effect "What you love is obtuse and low brow"

More than that, he is in effect saying "there is no depth to this thing" (which he hasn't studied in depth enough to know). Which is both rude and arrogant.

It's one thing to say you don't understand a thing and aren't interested in it, and then politely discuss things you are (mutually) interested in. It's quite another to distill something you don't understand into an absurd caricature like "grown men with sticks chasing etc." when it actually has a tremendous amount of depth and strategy -- which every sport has at the highest levels (including things like Snooker and Starcraft.)

There's a reason the weakside linebacker positions himself in a different spot against the pistol formation when the backup tight end is in versus when the starter is in. There's a reason the shooting guard makes a hard baseline cut right after swinging the ball out to the wing if he's matched up with a smaller defender. If you show contempt for people who think that stuff is cool (or even for people who merely think the end result is fun to watch though they don't understand the details) that's a serious social dysfunction.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#78

Post by WalterBright »

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

Sure, there's some of that. But it goes the other way, too, as exemplified by "The Big Bang Theory". Things "nerds" are interested in are regarded with contempt by non-intellectuals.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#79

Post by theoh »

solson wrote: post #45
theoh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of academia is bullshit, and it isn't always driven by snobbery, just naïveté. But in the light of massive and increasing financial inequality, nerds and academics are NOT the problem. The corporate CEO or jock lawyer who is sucking up all the money is very likely to be a sports fan like everyone else.

I'd argue that the big money in education is contributing to financial inequality as much as any CEO or attorney.

Tuition in America is crazy, which is bad for social mobility, I agree, but professors and scientists are less than 2% of the top One Percent. They are completely swamped in numerical terms by the non-geeky categories of executives, medical, finance and law: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/28/who-actua...

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#80

Post by [deleted] »

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

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