Sport/Leisure

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I agree with Noam in that for the most part society is largely being distracted from the things that matter in an autonomous sense. Where I disagree with him is in what I perceive to be a nonsensical idealist stance. I mean, if sports or other such leisure activities are distracting from ‘the things that matter’ (becoming informed, excersizing different actions/jobs) then I guess I have to ask the question, ‘Noam, how much time will you allot us you read 24/7 bastard’

No, sports must have a place within our hearts. By sport I mean, some sort of collective event - competitive or non.

Competitive activities operate on a more baser instinctual level, but that level is, after all, what it is to be human. Do we fight this urge to compete? To be subjugated as Chomsky would put it. This is a problem I have not yet found a satisfactory answer for. Sports is the best way to establish a very close ear to your body while at the same time trying to forget that link. It leads to something strange and inexplicable, the only true addiction in my life.

Collective spirituality must stem from the irrational as it is the confrontation of mirrors of unique reflection. In other words, the harmony you see in nature – in the universe, is one that disapears into a cloud of emotion and baser when two of such come into close proximity for the same purpose. The same purpose is an equation which cannot be balanced. But there are glimpses of brilliance, not of God but of free will acting within. All balanced percariously on the heels of those athletes involved in the dance.

Music is slightly different in that it is the same thing, only from the audio enviroment. It takes much for a band to come together in a perfect groove. Sometimes this is money, sometimes it’s conflict of interets, sometimes it’s lack of ability to express what’s in a particular person’s head. Whatever the case, when it happens it is of course amplified for everyone else to bask in the brilliance.

My point here is that most things are a greased up grapple with the mullet haired freak of irrationality; be it actions for the man, mind, or soul, it all depends on how you tie it all together.

2

HI OG. I think Chomsky’s a chumpsky. He’s not idealist, he’s elitist. Maybe if he just took his shirt off and shot some hoops, he’d calm down. It’s fun. What does he have against fun?

I watch very little television - tonight a little Red Sox / Yankees - if you can’t enjoy that on some level, I mean, c’mon. I am an american, of course. Don’t really care who wins. But I am at my father’s, and so root for the home team. It’s fun. And Stephen Colbert. He’s fun-ny and so, fun. When I retire to Maine for the next six or seven months, I will watch almost no television - don’t have one there. So, I am not a big fan of TV, I guess. But so what?

I’m not sure what the BFD (big filosophical deal) is. Sports is fun for those who think sports is fun. Chomsky’s a nerd. He knew no one on the team? How can that be? I was in the friggin’ band and had friends on the team. I really hate that guy.

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3

:laughing:

Nice.

Well, at what point do we look around and say 'Come on, guys, hitting a bat with a peice of wood? Should we revel in sweat and emotion like animals or try and move beyond? Essentially, we’re human, yes, but do we want to stay that way? Think longterm for a sec.

You like baseball, I like basketball… that’s alright to just say but what does it mean? If I know that because of location and monetary reasons, no matter how much I practice or train I will not make enough money from playing basketball to live ‘intellectually’ (a manner where I wouldn’t have to spend almost all of the day trying to find food/shelter/etc) then what sense does it make to continue doing it? And even more importantly: You to watch it?

That was sort of what I was trying to get at.

4

OG - Because it’s fun.

In fact, I don’t watch much sports. My father watches baseball. I am staying with him right now.

But what more meaning should it have? There is nothing wrong with entertainment. I find the Metropolitan Museum of Art entertaining. And the opera. But it’s still entertainment. Fun.

I have just spent the winter working six and seven days a week. Very productive. Made some money. I read deep, intellectual books. I play the flute. Classical only. I used to be more of a musician. I write some. I have, when I had the time, been involved in amateur theater. I know the arts, and literature. I can hold my own with really smart people (maybe not something_else).

I also smoke, drink, spit, swear, scratch my balls, use drugs, have casual sex and yes, enjoy sports to some extent.

It’s fun. That’s all I can tell you. Noam Chumpsky isn’t going to tell me how to have fun. Small children know how to have fun. So do I, in my way. I see no reason to live any particular way, if I can’t have some fun. Even if Noam looks down his nose at it. It’s my fun, and yours is yours.

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5

hey, I’m all for the fun argument

Alright, take the museum for instance. Art is a social commentary in many instances, it’s engaging on an intellectual level wheras sports is not. Sure you can toy around in the statistical number crunch but that’s just a game-derivative if anything.

Some people find killing fun or… watching caroline in the city. My question is should sports be something that dies out, or is there always going to be a need to find that animalistic sense of being ‘right’ or victorious over someone else. It’s barbaric in a certain sense, yet that is the reason we watch, albiet at the most skilled venue.

6

Well, what you say about sports may be true. What you say about art may be true. Myself, I can usually ignore the politics in art - in fact, I usually don’t like art wherein I can’t ignore the politics. I go to the museum because it’s fun to.

How about the strategy involved in sports? How about the sheer effort to excel as an athlete - to train to be one - before you get onto the court? The discipline, the concentration required in many cases? Testing your own limits? I am speaking here about athletes and not spectators, of course. The archetype of the champion (by which I do not mean hero). This archetype does require spectators. What is so wrong with physicality? Are we not just that? Physical entities?

Should we, can we, exterminate an archetype? Is Noam Chumpsky not competitive? Don’t kid yourself. I think you know more about academia than that, my friend. The greatest athletes are commonly heard to say that their main competition is themselves, or themselves yesterday. There is nothing inherently evil about competition. I suppose you know that I wil say that.

Even with all that, I think it’s easy to get carried away with a sort of “gladiator” imagery. I don’t really mean that. There is competition in every field, most notably in art, science, academia, intellectual pursuits. You think successful artists don’t compete? Authors? You know well where I am going, or by this point, have been.

The only reason to single out athletics is that many who control the intellectual media - and yes, it exists, even if not on television, have a hard-on for the coach of the football team, who gets paid a lot more than they do.

But athletes at the highest level invariably say that it is the mental challenge that is the most important to focus on. I can’t help thinking that I am telling you only what you already know. Perhaps I am missing your point even as I try to address it.

Caroline in the City? I am only vaguely aware of this, but you have forced me to concede that it is okay to watch it, if you can find it. If that’s fun for you. It’s only fun. Murder, well, that has a moral component that I do not ascribe to watching reruns of unfunny old sitcoms. Even I have to draw the line somewhere with morality.

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7

No caroline in the city isn’t… arg, I’m gonna have to continue this tomorrow. I’m probably not making much sense.

8

How many times have you heard X person say that “baseball is my religion”? Or heard people throw out their favorite sports metaphors and aphorisms? There’s a lot in sports to prompt philosophical inquiry–the aesthetic experience, ethics–hence, the philosophy and pop culture series. Sports is just as good as any place to leap into higher levels of thought.

I think I’ve deviated from the point. Should sports die out because it brings out our most human, animal instincts? Nah. Life is indeed a competition, eliminate it and you eliminate what it is to be human. Besides, sports is healthier–we could be literally killing each other, sports allows us to simulate that same thrill.

9

It’s hard for people who don’t play sports, to understand why people play sports. Football has had a greater impact on my character, and life philosophy than anything I have ever done, or participated in. Football has taught me how to work with others, how to lead, and how to have confidence to tackle (no pun intended) challenges that look impossible to the untrained eye. Throughout my three years playing varsity football, I have been stuck at a steady playing weight of 195 pounds. This is incredibly small for an interior lineman. Every game that I have ever played in I have been undersized, dwarfed by my opposition by at least twenty pounds, and sometimes over one hundred pounds. With me being this small, I was forced to make up for my lack of size with an abundance of toughness, both mental and physical. I was elected team captain by my teammates. Not because I was the most physically gifted athlete, but because I was a leader, who could make the right decisions on the line of scrimmage, and off the field. I constantly had to come to the line of scrimmage, analyze the opposing defense in a split second, and relay my findings to my fellow lineman and change various blocking schemes all in a span of 5 seconds. And my fellow lineman trusted me. They trusted that my calculations and decisions would be flawless. And for the most part, they were. I learned to maximize my size, using the laws of physics to gain leverage and geometry to choose the best angles to attack the opposition. I learned how to use science, to maximize my adrenaline out put, thus completely blocking out any physical pain that was inflicted on me. I would play through broken fingers, dislocated shoulders, and concussions. I learned how to use what I was taught in English, to talk trash so poetically and use language so descriptive that I would not draw a penalty, but I would completely demoralize my opponent.

10

Gobbo,

Good post, certainly a good point on which to open a conversation. Personally I’ve tired of Chomsky, I used to read his stuff frequently but I’ve moved beyond it both in terms of criticising the media (Chomsky’s Five Filters are essentially accurate but his appreciation of how they interrelate is comically simple) and in terms of political attitudes. All that I feel that Chomsky is saying here is “I think that sports aren’t as important as ‘political/social issues’” and taking a roundabout way of saying it so that no one notices how simple his bias really is. When more people go to football matches (and/or play football) than vote then football becomes (democratically speaking) more important, politically, than voting.

Personally I think that Chomsky should stop jacking off in his ivory tower and embrace the possibility of political change via mass culture. Balls (sic) to representative democracy, particularly in the US. It’s a joke. There are far, far more important political grounds these days and the basketball court or the football pitch can subvert and create change just as easily (if not more easily) as the ballot box.

The fact is that Chomsky doesn’t know the first thing about politics outside of his elitist, white middle class Jewish sense of politics. I don’t mean to say that any of these traits (being Jewish, white or middle class) are bad, but in Chomsky’s particular combination they are patronising. Chomsky himself is little more intelligent that the idiots to whom he preaches. His linguistics are neo-Platonic nonsense, too.

11

saitd - well-spoken. Myself, I don’t have enough respect for Chumpsky to articulate my opinion as well. But you are right on the mark.

Philosophical - also quite eloquent. There are those (like my profs when I was at school) who claim that personal examples have no place in philosophical discourse. The case you present here gives the lie to that assertion. I hope O_G reads this. I hope it inspires him. It should.

I also hope he stops reading Chumpsky - that stuff’ll rot your brain.

12

Such Ad Hominem; you guys must be the ones with the hate relationship with philosophy.

You’re either very manipulative or; i would suggest you’re being manipulated.

My team is winning right now; i feel the joy, in moderation. :slight_smile:

It is also very true that my fellow citizens read at a grade 8 level, for the most part, and ought to spend more time thinking about the mess they’re in and how to get out of it; no disclaimer will remove the responsibility of intelligent people to say so.

13

I’ve been a bit busy with my new job so I’ll get back to this thread.

Let’s try and get off chomsky though. I’ve read his stuff but I wasn’t ‘reading’ him when I had this idea, i just remembered that passage.

I like this. Especially when you see things like American/Britain Idol getting more votes than the presedential election.

Anyways. I just woke up and I’m sort of just writing sentences. I’ll be back.

14

I both agree and disagree with Mr. Chomsky on this point.

Yes, sport is - along with pop music, television etc. - part of a system that keeps everyone placid and stagnant. (This, by the way, is not a conspiracy imposed on the public by guys at the top; it’s something the public have asked for and bought into enthusiastically. But I digress.) Sport is also a vital part of human culture. We need sports. Team games like football provide the heart with the exact pattern of stimulation it needs to stay healthy. (Was anyone just watching the FA cup final? Best game I’ve seen in years. But I digress.) The noblility and excitement of competition will always be desired by humans. Sport acts as a reasonable, civilised substitute for the fighting and hunting these bodies were designed for. Play is an essential activity for forming social bonds, learning about the world and oneself and sharpening the body and mind.
The problem is not with sport itself, but with how it has been corrupted.

In short, Chomsky is no more correct to dismiss all sport on the basis of the commercialised mediashow it has become than he would be to dismiss all music on the basis of manufactured pop.

15

It’s not ‘all or nothing,’ it’s a matter of degree.

In some parts of the world people are politically astute; in other parts they are not so. There’s a reason for that; i’m sure posters have their opinions about why and, i don’t imagine it would be a popular topic.

16

Sure sure, I was simply offering a couple of dimes on what I made of him after several years of being embroiled in these debates.

Over here it’s called Pop Idol, not to be confused with Pope Idol, the Reality TV series dedicated to finding the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church. My money is on the spastic Chinese kid who really, really can’t dance. :wink:

But that’s the issue here for me; just as philosophers have to yield to factual conditions and modify their language to be able to explain things to people less read or intelligent than them, so should political writers and activists. Chomsky’s an Englightenment-era anarchist stuck in the early 21st century. We should invent a time machine, send him back abotu 300 years, he’d be right at home.

But sure, there’s no more rationality in science or philosophy or politics than in sports. Many would like to portray sports as a bastion of cavemen (and women, though less so) culture and some expression of primal desires and maybe at some times, for some people, it is. But there’s a hell of a lot more to it than that.

17

It was certainly the best FA cup final that I’ve seen in years but I’ve seen better games this season. Gabbidon and Reo-Coker for West Ham were magnificent, Gerrard and Carragher likewise for Liverpool. None of the forwards had a particularly good game but we still saw 6 goals, including a last minute thunderbolt from Gerrard that had me swearing like a gypsy.

youtube.com/watch?v=GmkJQNLql5Y

18

This is true, and I didn’t really equate the lack of rationality in science/philosophy with sports right away. Or at least in the sense that you are talking about.

The thing is I find that while there is a lot more to sports than most people realize, it’s slightly isolated. For instance when I’m not in the gym I’m not really utilizing that human competitive/hunting/primal mode. And this is what bothers me because I feel like it’s a good thing; staying calm and rational - even if it is only an illusionary cover for that which disapates at it’s more subtle definitions.

I flip out, I yell at refs, etc. People say competition is ‘natural’, ‘healthy’ but is it really?

Alright I sat here for quite a while trying to figure out where to go with this but I’m not sure. I feel like you’re all right: Chomsky’s an elistist simplifier (in this case) and that sports are healthy to a varying degree.

Still though, as we move into the spiritual age again and we get ready to make first contact… I feel like this isn’t enough. Do we stay human, do we embrace our nature and hold onto it, or do we move on to the cerebral?

It seems like everything has to change eventually…

19

Of course, the sun is going to die in 4.5 billion years time and if we haven’t worked some of this out by that point then we’re screwed. See Lyotard’s essay Can Thought go on without a body? in The Inhuman.

20

I will