"The heroes of declining nations are always the same—the athlete, the singer or the actor."
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2010/09/fate-of-empires-p...
Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
421–430 of 511 posts
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#422When 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 think this is getting cause and effect backwards. Many (not all) kids who became intellectuals were the last picked for the team in sports and generally suffered due to it. I went through school dreading gym class. Deciding that sports was not important to me and spending time on things I was better at was in part emotional self-defense. Of course, dividing up into different tribes is not healthy. We should ideally…
In my school, bullies even at the time justified picking on nerds by saying we were elitist and snobby. It really annoys me when people make unfair attacks against nerds or intellectuals, because it doesn't just hurt adults, it hurts children.
And my experience was exactly the same as yours: people developed a kind of snobbery as an emotional self defense.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#423i 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…
I agree that it's completely rational to care more about your neighbours or family than people far away from you, but I don't think that this completely transfers to sports. You might feel good for a short time if your "home team" wins a game, but it really doesn't matter in any sort of concrete way. It won't have any lasting effect on your life.
Your neighbours or family or country succeeding could very well make a real difference in your life. I think those that dislike sports do so not because they reject preference or a sort of tribalism, but because beyond some short-lived feeling of vicarious success, sports are completely meaningless.
Mind you, so is a huge majority of entertainment...
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#424As a person who has played many sports and specifically basketball to a college D1 level I find this article both true and troubling. This is because I also enjoy discussing things at a high level. I enjoy the fact that I can talk to a person about Turing tests (or any CS related topic) and then turn the conversation right into how the Baltimore Ravens need better defensive backs for next season (Baltimore/DC fan her…
> As a person who has played many sports and specifically basketball to a college D1 level I find this article both true and troubling. This is because I also enjoy discussing things at a high level. I enjoy the fact that I can talk to a person about Turing tests (or any CS related topic) and then turn the conversation right into how the Baltimore Ravens need better defensive backs for next season (Baltimore/DC fan h…
> I'm glad that you enjoy that, and its great for you. I'm not sure why that should dissuade anyone else from choosing not participate in the ritual of fandom in the particular professional sports that are widely popular, or why the fact that you enjoy it should make it "troubling" that other people choose not to engage with it.
I am not trying to dissuade anyone from anything. All I am saying to be more open to the way other people may think or have passion for. Also, from the actual post, the author correctly summarizes that sports can be something too bridge gaps between all types of people. So in effect, you are saying people do not want/need this capability? The ability to be able to talk to another human being able something mildy to fanatically interesting?
> No, it is easy to ask anything. It is also unreasonable. Friendship, if it is to be meaningful, is a positive commitment of time and resources. Everyone can't be friends without robbing the term of all meaning, because there are too many people.
You're right because I just asked it. Also, the definition of friend is relatively broad and I am half glass full kind of guy. Finally, you may taking my comments and possibly yourself a little to serious, my friend.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#425I think professional sports are the closest we have to real-life dramas, tragedies, or even comedies, and they have profound life lessons. I am a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan. I grew up when they were a dynasty in the 90s, and at the time it seemed like going to the Super Bowl is something they were supposed to do every year. I cried after some tough losses. Sometimes I get into other local teams when they are doing w…
You like watching sports. Some other guy likes Marvel comics. Another guy likes D&D. Another guy likes trains. Another guy likes Marxist literary analysis. Everyone finds something interesting in their own interest. It doesn't mean anything. Your source of inspiration is no better than anyone else's. The thing is, sports fans form the great majority in the US and too many of them have a habit of shaming and ostracizi…
I never said sports was a better interest than any other. The point I was trying to make is that sports is a valuable tool like many others that allows you to connect with people and enjoy life, and the basic irrational spect of it can even have some benefits.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other side of that coin is to realize that who you are, where you came from, what you believe often (but not always especially in the last case) is something you have no control over. Sports is the perfect example of this in that you can and should take great pride and joy in everything that makes you, you, but also realize that there's someone on the other side of the TV screen that has the same reasons for taki…
So does your reasoning break down when you have people that like sports teams for reasons other than locality?
Not at all. Your passion for something is obviously not tied down to locality.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
High school athletics is a problem in some ways, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Robert Putnam is a political scientist of some renown. One of his major contributions was a study he did in Italy over 40 years. His question was why was government in in the north generally more efficient and just all around better than politics in the southern portion of the country. His conclusion was that northern It…
Well there's putnam for ya, letting the obvious visual difference between southern and northern italians sail right over his head.
I must admit your point is going over my head, too. Do you mind explaining?
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think those effects are good, but I also recognize that because these effects are unmoored from anything real we're dealing with nearly pure social signaling amongst a mass responding to tribal tendencies. Of course, having something that serves as a community focal point that crosses faith boundaries is invaluable - nearly any time new people meet powerful things happen. However, I take issue with your point about…
Your argument is cogent and expresses my own thoughts well. >> having something that serves as a community focal point that crosses faith boundaries is invaluable This is true up to the point that team allegiance is weaker tribalism than faith. Growing up in Manchester and not swearing fealty to red/blue, admittedly less so than orange/green in Belfast, was still more troublesome than it needed to be. Yet all this se…
I think that's a very sad and depressive way to look at sports fans, and indeed I think the argument that they're part of some fascist tribal conspiracy is silly and immature. I guess my experience growing up as a baseball fan was less "tribal" than football fans in Europe, but I don't think that's reason to decide that the whole experience is without value...which I think is what's being implied here and elsewhere on this thread: that if you haven't experienced this terrible tribal nature of sports fanatics then you've been duped and don't know it yet.
On the whole, I think everyone is reading into this wayyyy to deeply. If anyone wants to enjoy a beer and a hotdog at the ballpark of their choosing, let's do it. 20 days until pitchers and catchers report.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#429There seems to be an assumption in this article that the baseline "normal" behavior is to be interested in sports.
Where I grew up (the rural South) sports is huge and the default topic of conversation. I always felt that there was something wrong with me because I wasn't that interested.
Then as an adult I moved to Vietnam, where people are only occasionally interested in football(soccer) and that's pretty much it. By default people don't care about sports. If took soccer fanatic and dropped them here, I think their behavior would be perceived as pretty peculiar.
So to me this article is:
"You should agree my cultural assumptions because that is normal baseline human behavior and if you don't then you are deliberately being a jerk."
Which is pretty silly.
Just like what you like and don't worry about it.
Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What I heard was that college football tends to pay for all of the other sports at a school. Yeah, at the most successful football schools. That's a minority among schools that have football programs. [1] [2] >If anything sports creates a lot of opportunities for students that otherwise could be done due to budgets. No, sports diverts scholarship funds from scholars to athletes, and the athletes rarely take full ad…
>Yeah, at the most successful football schools. And it's the successful (at pulliung NCAA TV money) football schools that have coaches with million dollar contracts. It's a nice bait and switch you constructed. A "trick play" if you will.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--xeKPpMFq...
Feel free to search that image from other sources too.
And the data backing it.
And yes, this is not the same as it being paid for by academics...but then you have to deal with the fact that most top-tier sports departments also fail to break even, and it's extremely murky if they contribute anything back to academics at all - whereas it's pretty visible that they are allocated money out of the academic takings. [http://www.ethosreview.org/intellectual-spaces/is-college-fo...]
EDIT: All of which again, would probably be worth turning a blind eye to if it were a good thing for the players...except it isn't. Because they don't get paid.