A(n un)rrested Development?
The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature”
--Thorstein Veblen
While I expect that quote to be unpopular, I must confess to thinking a lot lately about the function of sports in society. I have been contemplating the ways that the rules of sports reflect the values of society, especially in terms of looking at the variations in rules that one sees in similar games across a wide variety of cultures. Surely these differences in rules reflect the conceptions of "fairness" for each particular region and in some ways echo and reinforce the sense of what is just within a particular culture or sub-culture. (Why do Australian "football" players wear no pads and have no off-sides rules? Why do American "football" players play in lines and wear body armor? Think of the ceremony and extreme gravity of Japanese Sumo "judges"
versus the earthy quality of American wrestling (not to even mention TV wrestling.)
I do not know the full context of Veblen's statement above, but I suspect for him it represents some kind of masculine ritual for determining superiority within a physical context. This is the sentiment that resonated with me, and yet to give sports and their fan(atic)s their due, one might also view sports themselves as representing a codification of rules rather than supportive of a nuanced ethical system and thus a stagnation in terms of "moral" (ethical) development.
posted by Joseph K at 9:54 AM
8 Comments:
hmm interesting stuff.
thanks for swinging by the webpage. nice of you to do so.
i'll be coming by this side more often.
veblen was just mad because he always got picked last for kickball.
So, true! Time to go kick some duckweeds (sic) in the 'nads? (smile)
;)
;)
I would say that he was stating that those who are addicted to sports are using it as a substitute for living and acting in more productive ways (and in our current society think even moreso of those that are addicted, fanatically, to mediatized sporting events)
Fucking bunch of wankers those sporting fanatics ;) a true waste of time if you ask me (not that I don't mind checking out how my favorite team is doing once a month, but fuck me if whole legions of people don't schedule their lives around games that other people play)
Perhaps apropos of Veblen's take, perhaps not: The other day, during a story on Rutgers' football game with Louisville this past Thursday, brief mention was made that Rutgers was the site of the first (American) football game. The reporter noted that on that long-ago day, a Rutgers professor kept yelling at the players, "You will come to no good Christian end!"
That aside, though, I'm intrigued by the fact that his statement appears to run directly counter to the ancient Greek notion of the gymnasium, the idea that sports was an integral part of a man's education. Maybe one of Veblen's contexts is lingering (upper-class) Victorian sensibilities?
We have visited each other's place before, by the way, but it's been a while since I last came by. I look forward to being a more regular visitor.
In response to John B., I wonder if the Rutgers Professor's reaction was to football per se rather than to sports in general. It seems possible that this person objected to the aggressive nature of the sport and would still have suppported gymnastics, track and other sports in line with what (s)he might have viewed as a Greek ideal of physical balance.
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