Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports • Hacker News Board

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#251

Post by jackmaney » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

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…

> When a kids says, "Hockey. Meh. It is a bunch grown men with sticks chasing a black piece of rubber around a sheet of ice" he is saying in effect "What you love is obtuse and low brow and I don't care how that makes you feel." And that is just rude.

Kids who openly show their disdain for STEM disciplines--especially mathematics--are legion. At a societal scale, courtesy is a two-way street.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#252

Post by JoshTriplett » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #86

scotch_drinker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is contempt. It implies that there is no valid reason for liking X. You may not look down on them but when someone says "I don't see how anybody...", that is contempt. Not understanding is vastly different from expressing disbelief that anyone would do a particular thing.

> "It implies that there is no valid reason for liking X." Taken more charitably, it merely implies that one does not understand the valid reasons for liking X. There's a difference between saying "there's nothing of value here" and "I don't see why this is of value" -- one is phrased as an objective statement, while the other is a statement of perspective. Long ago, my wife told me she didn't understand why people l…

That does work up to a point, although that can be taken too far as well. When people interpret any expression of disinterest as "you must not understand it well enough or you'd like it", that's painfully wrong in the other direction, too.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#253

Post by pyre » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

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…

Things that you're ignoring:

- At least in America, there is a disdain among the working class for intellectual pursuits, and that manifests itself in their children leading to the more athletic (and therefore more likely to be on a sports team) students pushing the less athletic (and therefore more likely to be into intellectual pursuits) students around. It's hardly surprising that the students on the receiving end of this will reject sports as it seems to celebrate the very people that push them around.

- All of those "small towns" out there where excelling at sports is grounds for even the adults of the community to engage in academic fraud and cover-ups of criminal behaviour so that the sports team (and said students' future sports prospects) aren't affected.

I don't think that this is a good reason to just paint all of sports with the same brush. There are plenty of students that end up on sports teams that aren't necessarily one of the "cool kids" or bullies. To paint them with the same brush by association isn't a good thing, but it's understandable why this happens (and why it propagates into adult-hood).

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#254

Post by logicalmind » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

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…

In my opinion, most people want to be part of their "team". Where the definition of team is highly dependent on the context. When you're a teenager, you're team is typically your high school. But you can abstract this "team" concept upwards. If two states (in the US) were competing, then you'd support your state. If it was your country competing against another country, you'd support your country. Hypothetically, if aliens attacked earth, it would be quite interesting to watch the earthly team spirit arise and would likely change the perspective of many people and countries. In this hypothetical scenario would Chomsky still not support his "team"? Being part of team high school is bad? But being part of team earth is good?

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#255

Post by wcummings » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

bglazer wrote: post #84

I'm not sure how I feel about this article. On the one hand, it had a weird highbrow tone. It reads a bit like an ivory tower academic discovering what "the poors" are up to. Some choice quotes: "Albert suggested that sports reflect the go-to topic for small talk and building rapport across class and context" "Sports are popular because people, in general, find them fun to watch". No shit! Lots of people like sports.…

An impressive robot is just so much more novel and interesting than a feat of human strength. Not to say sports aren't impressive, or that professional athletes aren't incredibly dedicated and talented, but someone hitting a baseball isn't very interesting.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#256

Post by jplahn » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

I find this a fascinating topic to think about because I've had so much experience with it.

Sports have been a significant part of my life ever since I was in 1st grade. I played several varsity sports throughout high school and had opportunities for scholarships in two different sports. One of those sports was golf and I find that it elicits the opposite response in a way that I hate (but also understand).

When I've been at interviews for Google, Facebook, Amazon, wherever, I inevitably talk about sports with the other undergrads that are interviewing with me. In an effort to avoid the perception that I'm some sort of country club WASP, I rarely mention that I played extremely high level golf throughout high school. I fear that it won't fit into the "culture" of various places that I've applied to and likely won't mesh with those I'm talking to. So instead, I let my "hipster"-ish clothing, love of post-hardcore metal, and interest in all books not found on the NYT Bestseller list, craft whatever perception people may have of me.

But despite this, I can talk about the NBA and NFL with the best of them and I'm getting to the point where I don't care what people think because I've found it's too hard to worry about it. If I want to go throw some iron over my head 4 times a week and people consider me a meathead, so be it. But it's a whole lot easier to have them think that than to try to hide it for ridiculous reasons.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#257

Post by jules » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

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…

For every person who proudly says that they don't know anything about the NFL there are 1000 people who proudly say that they don't know anything about math.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#258

Post by siegecraft » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

Let me just quote Bob Ryan for a moment (a great, old school sportswriter -- another reason to enjoy sports is that there are some great writers in that field) "Literature, music, art, film, theatre and sport are ALL part of a fulfilling leisure time life. Each pushes a specific emotional button"

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#259

Post by toby » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:35 PM UTC

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 think what he's referring to is people who are proud of their ignorance, which it doesn't sound like you are doing. You've certainly encountered people who believe saying things like "Oh, I don't even know who Kim Kardashian is" or "I haven't read a book since college" is bragging.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#260

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:36 PM UTC

disbelief wrote: post #168

guelo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with Chomsky. It is indoctrination. I always found the routine military displays especially troubling. The American version of the communist dictator's military parade. And then there's the weird government/corporate partnership on stadiums. And the protected monopoly status.

I think you're equating all sports with American Football. Which, granted, is more or less what the original article did as well. I totally agree about the military displays, the nationalism and religious overtones that get mixed in with Football in the US. But that's one sport. There are many others, and aside from probably Nascar, none of them come close to Football in those terms.

> I think you're equating all sports with American Football.

The article is titled as about "professional sports", the social effect it discusses is about socially-popular professional sports in general, and in discussing them the specific example used throughout is American football.

It should not be surprised that the discussion of the articles thesis centers, then, around the same things as the article itself. "Sport" in some vague, general sense is not really the subject.

> I totally agree about the military displays, the nationalism and religious overtones that get mixed in with Football in the US. But that's one sport. There are many others, and aside from probably Nascar, none of them come close to Football in those terms.

Major League Baseball's pretty similar to Football in those regards.