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Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

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Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#341

Post by wutbrodo »

sirmarksalot wrote: post #273
kulak wrote: post #243

To my ears, this "cultivated disinterest" label comes off as something of a cheap stereotype. Simply put, not everyone who lacks interest in professional sports nurtures a "cultivated distinterest" in the subject, nor are we driven by some need to display this disinterest as some kind of marker of class rank or intellectual superiority. We simply lack interest in the subject, period. And when pressed on the subject,…

I know a lot of people who take their lack of interest in sports as a point of pride. I've been in bars where everybody immediately starts cheering after some amazing play, and my table gets up and ironically yells "FOOTBALL!" I still think it's amusing, but there's definitely an element of elitism to it.

I've seen what you're talking about, but when I've seen it, it usually seems more like an acknowledgement of the amusing mild awkwardness inherent in being surrounded by people who are REALLY passionate about something and not being able to partake. I can see it having elitist intent in some cases, but in a lot of cases it's just poking fun at oneself for being so out of touch with whatever all the people around you are into.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#343

Post by ansible »

dragonwriter wrote: post #283
ansible wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love sports, but every time I watch or support them I feel like I'm destroying civil society and undermining democracy and helping to destroy the last vestiges of effective public education. I'm not a big sports fan, but pro sports does serve a purpose. Sports in general is ritualized hunting / warfare. A civilized and less brutal version of war, but the roots are clear. The skills used are the same as our ancestor…

> Sports in general is ritualized hunting / warfare. Ritualized, sure. Hunting / warfare? Depends on the sport. Dancesport is a thing, and its assuredly not ritualized hunting / warfare. > Sports is highly preferable to the small-scale skirmishes that frequently occurred in centuries past. Sports is -- and has been for quite some time -- a frequent focus of the small-scale skirmishes much the same as those you paint…

Dancesport is a thing, and its assuredly not ritualized hunting / warfare.

The main topic of conversation is the widely popular professional sports such as Football, American Football, etc. These sports have attackers, defenders, and so on.

Sports is -- and has been for quite some time -- a frequent focus of the small-scale skirmishes much the same as those you paint it as an alternative to.

I don't see that as the proximate cause of most conflicts throughout history. Mostly, it seems to be about resources, and sometimes ideology too.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#345

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Kudos to this author for making an effort at establishing common ground for small talk. Watching the culture change over the past several decades, I worry that there are less and less points of common interest in American society.

Having said that, I don't like watching professional sports. I don't like watching games; I'd rather play them myself. I don't like supporting huge monopolies of multi-millionaires playing other multi-millionaires while ruining their bodies. It's just not my value system.

I watch 1 or 2 footballs games a year, usually the Superbowl, and usually for the same reason this author decided to become a fan.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#346

Post by dbtc »

BurgerEarmuffs wrote: post #48

Thank zeus for this article. Sports is a 4 letter word in a lot of social circles (academia, tech to a decent extent) and it usually just reeks of pretentiousness. I find myself having to be unusually careful not to bring up sports when talking to anyone in tech I don't know well, whereas I rarely have that issue outside of it. Congratulations, you dismissed the entirety of American football as "roid rage violence".…

Can we agree that internet memes, video games, and watching sports are all not inherently harmful but are still pretty much a waste of time?

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#347

Post by arjn »

I don't know if its "cultivated" disinterest but I've found my self becoming less interested in sports as i've grown older. I was never a fan of football or soccer but the one or two sports I liked in my younger days do not hold my interest any longer. I just dont find them interesting any more and I don't really understand how so many people do.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#348

Post by dragonwriter »

ansible wrote: post #343
dragonwriter wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sports in general is ritualized hunting / warfare. Ritualized, sure. Hunting / warfare? Depends on the sport. Dancesport is a thing, and its assuredly not ritualized hunting / warfare. > Sports is highly preferable to the small-scale skirmishes that frequently occurred in centuries past. Sports is -- and has been for quite some time -- a frequent focus of the small-scale skirmishes much the same as those you paint…

Dancesport is a thing, and its assuredly not ritualized hunting / warfare. The main topic of conversation is the widely popular professional sports such as Football, American Football, etc. These sports have attackers, defenders, and so on. Sports is -- and has been for quite some time -- a frequent focus of the small-scale skirmishes much the same as those you paint it as an alternative to. I don't see that as the p…

> I don't see that as the proximate cause of most conflicts throughout history.

No one said it was the proximate cause of most conflicts throughout history. Nor have conflicts in general stopped since sports became popular, nor were conflicts in general part of the discussion.

What was asserted upthread was that sports was an outlet that prevented "small-scale skirmishes". I simply pointed out that, in fact, professional sports are -- and this is true globally -- well-known as focuses of small-scale skirmishes and social violence, rather than an outlet which prevents them.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#349

Post by [deleted] »

oofabz wrote: post #244
mundizzle wrote: post #129

i always found Chomsky's take on sports to be quite interesting... "Take, say, sports -- that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it -- you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about -- [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might…

This position taken by Chomsky is exactly what the article is denouncing, and I think Chomsky comes off as a smug jerk here. If Chomsky believes cheering for your classmates is stupid, then he must believe that we should be perfectly objective and treat everyone exactly the same. If you're a judge or President, you have an obligation to the public to act that way. But me, I'm glad I have the luxury of showing prefere…

[deleted]

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#350

Post by SapphireSun »

pjwal wrote: post #317
SapphireSun wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the coming together / tribalism part that unnerves me. There's no rational reason for people to get so excited about it, so it rubs me the wrong way the same way most political rallies do. Small scale sports don't have quite the same effect on me, but large heavily marketed ones do as there is a pressure to conform (i.e. care, participate, hold certain opinions that positively reflect on the enterprise).

"tribalism part that unnerves me... it rubs me the wrong way the same way most political rallies do" Jr, ear muffs! "U! C! L! A! Fight! Fight! Fight!" Yeah...I'm not quite getting how this invokes visions of Nuremberg, may I politely suggest a bit of therapy perhaps?

You said Nuremberg, not me. ;) That's an extreme case.

It's more that when I see that effect, I have an uneasy feeling that a trigger could set things off the rails or shut off critical thinking or modify social standards for certain acts. I'm a bit of a contrarian at heart, so it's something of a non-specific mental immune response.

In fact, at (EU) football events, soccer hooligans are widely known for being violent. In the US, commercial and government propaganda are often dispensed in a socially validated environment. An alarming trigger (or a home-run that lands in the stands) can cause a stampede at stadia. I recognize that the more extreme examples are relatively rare occurrences, but they are more common than on say the street per square foot.

The irrationality of the crowd is something that unnerves me. I've been to games, so it's not like it's some paralyzing anxiety, but I feel some creepy crawlies at times.

Let me give you an example of a cohesive social situation that wouldn't creep me out: A town coming together for disaster recovery, where the people signaling cohesiveness are actually directly affected or are participating in the recovery effort. On the contrary, when people that are totally unaffected come together, it feels more uneasy to me because they are responding to a story being told on the news and are in a condition where simple manipulation is possible as they are not responding to advance their own interests (so certain sanity checks are disabled) and they do not have a good way to verify the story they heard.

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