TimmyBoy
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I would like to quote from Noam Chomsky's book "Understanding Power" on sports:
"Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way- so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff; political and social life are out of your range, they're in the hands of the rich folk. So what's left? Well, one thing that's left is sports- so you put alot of the intelligence and the thought and the self confidence into that. And I suppose that's also one of the basic functions it serves in the society in general: it occupies the population, and keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that's part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions.
And spectator sports also have other useful functions too. For one thing, they're a great way to build up chauvinism- you start by developing these totally irrational loyalties early in life, and they translate very nicely to other areas. I mean, I remember very well in high school having a sudden kind of Erlebnis, you know, a sudden insight, and asking myself, why do I care? Why do I get all excited if the football team wins and all downcast if it loses? And it's true, you do: you're taught from childhood that you've got to worry about the Philadelphia Phillies, where I was....
But the point is, this sense of irrational loyalty to some sort of meaningless community is training for subordination to power, and for chauvinism."
"Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way- so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff; political and social life are out of your range, they're in the hands of the rich folk. So what's left? Well, one thing that's left is sports- so you put alot of the intelligence and the thought and the self confidence into that. And I suppose that's also one of the basic functions it serves in the society in general: it occupies the population, and keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that's part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions.
And spectator sports also have other useful functions too. For one thing, they're a great way to build up chauvinism- you start by developing these totally irrational loyalties early in life, and they translate very nicely to other areas. I mean, I remember very well in high school having a sudden kind of Erlebnis, you know, a sudden insight, and asking myself, why do I care? Why do I get all excited if the football team wins and all downcast if it loses? And it's true, you do: you're taught from childhood that you've got to worry about the Philadelphia Phillies, where I was....
But the point is, this sense of irrational loyalty to some sort of meaningless community is training for subordination to power, and for chauvinism."