Overzealous Linguists

While waiting in my LV hotel room to go to dinner, I browsed ol AlDaily.com, an amazing website if you have never been to it-- one which I would recommend going to on an almost daily basis. I found an article about sports. You can find it in The Nation here. It quotes Noam Chomsky. Here's an excerpt:

"Sports keeps people from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in--they have the most exotic information and understanding about all kinds of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this...Sports is a major factor in controlling people. Workers have minds; they have to be involved in something and it's important to make sure they're involved in things that have absolutely no significance. So professional sports is perfect. It instills total passivity."

Chomsky correctly highlights how people use sports as a balm to protect themselves from the harsh realities of the world. He is also right that the intelligence and analysis many of us invest in sports far outstrips our dissecting of the broader world. It is truly amazing how we can be moved to fits of fury by a missed call or a blown play, but remain too under-confident to raise our voices in anger when we are laid off, lose our healthcare, or suffer the slings and arrows of everyday life in the United States.

The weakness in Chomsky's argument, however, is that it disregards how the very passion we invest in sports can transform it from a kind of mindless escape into a site of resistance. It can become an arena where the ideas of our society are not only presented but also challenged. Just as sports can reflect the dominant ideas of our society, they can also reflect struggle. The story of the women's movement is incomplete without mention of Billie Jean King's match against Bobby Riggs. The struggle for gay rights has to include a chapter on Martina Navratilova. When we think about the Black freedom struggle, we picture Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali along with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. And, of course, when remembering the movement for Black Power, we can't help but visualize one of the most stirring sights of our sports century: Tommie Smith and John Carlos's black-gloved medal stand salute at the 1968 Olympics.

I can't begin to tell you how repulsively stupid this column is to me. Check that. I can. First of all, you'd have to be a complete and utter idiot to talk about slings and arrows of life in the United States. Regardless of class, life in the US is much better than almost anywhere else in the world. MUCH much better. This whole column is an exercise in whining about existence, really. Moaning about life because he can. Oh, and because we have a Republican administration, let's not forget that. Sports is not a major factor in controlling people because when people do not constantly think about sports. They may like them, be obsessed with them, even adopt a team or league or something as part of their identity-- but they are not CONTROLLED by them. If they are controlled by sports, they are controlled by art of all types, books of all stripes, and I'd argue to a far more pervasive extent, news media.

But, you see, this is not true unless you live in a world like Chomsky's, where everything is a construct design to oppress- um, except for HIS constructs, which are benevolent. As benevolent as Pol Pot, according to Chomsky. Or Mao, according to O.J. Simpson ( I refer you to the groundbreaking interview currently on ESPN.com ).

People do not use sports IN ORDER TO INSULATE THEMSELVES from the world. It is something that is merely available to them, and they can be adopted, sometimes as social custom, sometimes to fill the day-- not everyone likes reading Homer or Shakespeare. Apparently only the "higher intellectual activities" are not insulating people from something since academics and intellectuals surely have no insecurities at all.

Further, people do not watch or participate in sports because it reflects something some intellectual sees in their lives. It's probably quite the opposite. Also, people surely find the social progress in sports heartening, but to say it's one of the best things about sports? Good lord...

I know this has seemed incoherent, but I'm at a complete loss to explain how leftists produce this nonsense.