professional sports and the demise of culture
“Do you know the word ”transcendentalist”? [This] is German romantic philosophy. We throw off all our constraints and we come to know ourselves through insight and experience. … It’s just that with all of this transcendence comes much emphasis on perfecting oneself.”
~ Little Women
i hate professional sports. and not just in a “this is my personal opinion” kind of way, but in a “this is contributing to the downfall of society” kind of a way. for the point of this post, i’m going to give college sports a pass, since i get that there’s more of a reason to have a vested interest. i still think people take it too far, but i get the idea of camaraderie and fraternity. my college didn’t have a football team so it’s hard for me to understand this completely, but i can identify with the concept.
by way of background, i did not grow up in a professional sports-loving family. it wasn’t a huge issue for us or anything, but more just the understanding that there were far better things to do with your time than get wrapped up in pro sports culture. that’s not to say my dad didn’t have his teams (the broncos and the dolphins), but instead of sitting down to watch a game, he would record said game and watch the major plays later, fastforwarding through the bulk of the antics on and off the field. it would usually take him an hour, max, to get through a game in this way again reinforcing the idea that life is too valuable to waste sitting in front of a TV.
as much as i dislike professional sports, i don’t know what the solutions is. one of ryan’s family friends pointed out that without any such enterprise, jobs would be lost, industries would suffer and likely hundreds of micro-economies would break down. that’s true, and for this reason i venture to say that i have more problems with the FANS and IDOLIZATION of sports than i do with the sport itself. the short answer for me is: “everything in moderation.” but since we as a culture can’t seem to handle that (SUVS, Wal-Mart and McMansions, anyone?!) i don’t know if it’s possible to find a happy medium. economics and industry aside, i do know that i have an ever-growing list of reasons why professional sports is nothing but a blight on society:
* loss/waste of intellectual capital: think of all the brain capacity spent memorizing a lot of relatively meaningless information - stats, plays, names, dates, and so on. i’m always amazed at the volume of information die-hard sports fans can rattle off - even (especially?!) kids. i get it - we all have some useless knowledge rolling around in our heads, but we are a nation with an education system slipping further and further down the ranks, with a lot of problems to solve, and we’re prioritizing SPORTS?!
i hate to sound so “when-i-was-a-kid-and-walked-to-school-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow,” but … when i was a kid, my brain was so crammed full of education each day, i didn’t have any time, room, or energy for extemporaneous information! it started before i even went to school (running, piano practice and bible study), continued after the school day ended (tutoring, volunteering, clubs, piano lessons, dance), and ventured on beyond dinner (homework, studying, reading through lists of books) until i literally fell into bed! grueling, perhaps, yet these are standards and practices i’ve carried into adulthood, for which i’m extremely grateful.
but - i also get that it shouldn’t be all work and no play. again, the problem seems to be that we as a culture can’t handle the idea of moderation very well. so we sacrifice what could potentially be a dramatic intellectual capacity in favor of a few names and dates - and most of us don’t realize we’ve even done it because it’s come to be the norm.
* relationship breakdown: i went to a party and watched a football game last weekend. that’s right. McSnobbyPants herself hung out with friends, drank beer out of a keg and watched a (college) game. in this way, sports enhances my relationships with my friends - it was fun to spend time with them, eat good (REALLY GOOD!) food, chat, and get excited every once in a while when someone made a touchdown. that’s not the type of breakdown i’m talking about.
i’m talking about something else. when sports becomes an escape beyond just a way to have fun and turns into something so important and ingrained in a person’s life that they exclude people because of it. either inadvertently - by prioritizing sports over the people in their lives they care about - or purposely - by cutting people out or damaging relationships because of sports preferences that don’t align. extreme, yes, but i’ve seen it happen.
we need to be jolted back to the here and now. we need to wake up to the fact that priorities are powerful and pay attention to what we’re telling our kids, our friends, our communities, the world - and ourselves! - with our idolization of professional sports. there is PLENTY to be engaged with and passionate about - things that will actually go a long way toward having an impact on peoples’ lives, the future. sports is not one of them. have we become SO complacent that we’re content to believe this is the best life has to offer? that we’re happy to live vicariously through other peoples’ successes (or failures) which really don’t change anything about the world we live in? if we don’t get out there and create our OWN successes, other people will, and once again we’ll be left on the sidelines, watching. i know that’s a far cry from the kind of life i plan to have.
October 01 2009 01:28 pm | soapbox
October 1st, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Interesting post, Alexis.
While your sports rant is interesting, I would have found your argument much more compelling if you had lead with your last paragraph about resetting priorities and used professional sports obsession as an example of priorities run amuck.
Because, while I sympathize with your dismay at sports obsession, I can think of dozens of other obsessions that equally are corroding peoples’ personal and family lives.
Some folks spend every waking moment chasing dimes, quarters, and dollars in that attempt to become financially “secure”. Some are flat out cheap. Some overleverage. Others work too hard in search of promotion. While some job hop in search for the new, new thing.
Some folks live vicariously through pop media. Why else do Vogue, Cosmopolitan, People, Ok!, and InStyle exist?
Some folks shop in search of the perfect “it” that will make them better. Why are 40 billion catalogs shipped each year in the US? Think some priorities are out of whack there?
So while I agree with you that there are too many narcissistic whack jobs running with a ball in their hands who believe that that talent gives them the right to wax eloquent on anything and everything and an even more unruly number of more whacky people worshipping at their feet. I disagree that pro sports deserves the rap you are giving it.
Pro sports gives many communities a bond that could never exist otherwise. Without pro sports, Green Bay, Wisconsin should turn in its incorporation papers. Without pro sports, I know dozens of fathers and sons/daughters that would have exactly zero things to bond over. Without pro sports, communities would have lost a key rallying point and emotional salve to help sooth the wounds of local and national tragedies. Dig up an article on the NFL’s response to the Kennedy assassination or 9/11.
When was the last time you saw someone bond over a Gap sale or Octomom expose?
Pro sports and its followers are far from perfect. But, in your hunt for helping Americans and other sports loving countries reset their priorities, you should stop your needle search in the haystack and grab a pitchfork instead because there is a lot of crap to toss out.
Love to the beagles…. =)
October 1st, 2009 at 8:49 pm
thanks for your well-thought out response. i definitely agree there are TONS of things taking up more time in our lives than they should - for me it’s probably facebook and blogging
(shocking, i know!) i feel similarly about pop culture, celebrities of any ilk (sports or otherwise) and many other things - some of which i’m guilty of. i structured the post in the way i did to help illustrate where i was coming from - that sports had never played a role in my life, which is perhaps why it’s one of the things that most raises my ire. i just don’t GET it!
i did try to give a nod to the “bond” created - or whatever you want to call it - by acknowledging time spent with friends as well as the jobs, etc it helps create (and i don’t mean for the athletes). HOWEVER here’s what i always think about: what MORE could have been accomplished with that time/money/energy/mental capacity if it had been put toward things that will have a lasting cultural impact. what if, instead of turning to sports (or sitcoms or whatever) during times of national tragedy, or as a son/father or as a community, we turned to creativity, to intellectual pursuit, to volunteering in our communities, finding solutions for problems … and the list goes on and on. these things bring people/families/communities together as well, but the bonus is they allow us to get outside ourselves and make a difference. i can’t say the same for sports.
perhaps i’m too idealistic or too niave about human nature. maybe so. but that’s the type of world i want to spend my time creating.