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When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The

• theoh 12y ago
  A lot of academia is bullshit, and it isn't always driven by snobbery, just naïveté. But in the light of massive and increasing financial inequality, nerds and academics are NOT the problem. The corporate CEO or jock lawyer who is sucking up all the money is very likely to be a sports fan like everyone else.
  • solson 12y ago
    I'd argue that the big money in education is contributing to financial inequality as much as any CEO or attorney.
    • theoh 12y ago
      Tuition in America is crazy, which is bad for social mobility, I agree, but professors and scientists are less than 2% of the top One Percent. They are completely swamped in numerical terms by the non-geeky categories of executives, medical, finance and law: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/28/who-actually-are-the-one-percent/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/28/who-actua...
• voidlogic 12y ago
  >The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I don't have statistics, so this is all anecdotal, but most Professors I have gotten to know well have a favorite team or sport etc. The reality you present sounds more like movies than real life. For example, I can see Dr. Epps from Numb3rs being snoody about sports in a way I have never seen a real Professor be. Is it possible that it was the popular culture image portrayed of academic attitudes is what stopped you, rather than actual academic attitudes? > but I am also an academic and an intellectual. Many highly educated people have told me so, I just don't have the paper to prove it. Do you have problems getting published without "the paper to prove it"? Anyone can be an intellectual if they are intellectual, but at least in my mind, being an academic implies peer-reviewed novel research.
  • pc86 12y ago
    > Anyone can be an intellectual if they are intellectual, but at least in my mind, being an academic implies peer-reviewed novel research. I thought this as well. I had always thought that being an intellectual was just something you were regardless of education, but an academic is a vocation marked largely by publishing peer-reviewed research and (most likely) having advanced graduated degrees and/or a professorship of some sort.
  • balls187 12y ago
    > ut most Professors I have gotten to know well have a favorite team or sport etc. One of my favorite CS profs loved his Duke Blue Devils, and was an avid Bulls fan (really who wasn't). I think that the disdain people have from sports may stem from a general disdain that arises from being an outcast.
  • tjradcliffe 12y ago
    > I don't have statistics, so this is all anecdotal, but most Professors I have gotten to know well have a favorite team or sport etc. This has been my experience, up to and including a stint at a top tier American university where during the World Series I couldn't have a conversation with anyone, including my elderly Swiss-American academic supervisor, that didn't have a long preamble about how things were going for each team. I grew up in an (American) football-loving family and still enjoy the game, but knew (and still know) almost nothing about baseball. But I watched that Series just so I could communicate with my American colleagues. So to describe academics as sports-hating snobs is wildly at odds with (anecdotal) reality.
• ska 12y ago
  To be fair, disinterest and contempt are very different things. Saying "I'm not interested in X" has very different connotations from "I can't see why anybody is interested in X".
  • wutbrodo 12y ago
    Even the latter isn't contempt. I feel like I don't understand why anyone is interested in watching sports (as opposed to playing), but I certainly don't look down on them for it. At the very least, I know enough people that I respect that are into pro sports that it would be inconsistent to think something like "people who are into pro sports have nothing better to occupy their time and their minds".
    • scotch_drinker 12y ago
      It is contempt. It implies that there is no valid reason for liking X. You may not look down on them but when someone says "I don't see how anybody...", that is contempt. Not understanding is vastly different from expressing disbelief that anyone would do a particular thing.
      • lotharbot 12y ago
        > "It implies that there is no valid reason for liking X." Taken more charitably, it merely implies that one does not understand the valid reasons for liking X. There's a difference between saying "there's nothing of value here" and "I don't see why this is of value" -- one is phrased as an objective statement, while the other is a statement of perspective. Long ago, my wife told me she didn't understand why people liked a particular music genre I listened to. I had her listen to a couple of favorite songs and talked about what I thought was interesting about them, and as a result she developed a mild fondness for the genre which grew over the next several years. She wasn't expressing contempt; she was expressing a lack of understanding which was overcome as a result of experience and education.
        • ska 12y ago
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• belorn 12y ago
  > It's called being a snob I kind of disagree with that label, as it imply that its only is a problem with higher education. The working class show the same overt contempt at people who watch e-sports, snooker, and other sports which isn't directly associated with the working class culture.
  • rinon 12y ago
    Anyone can be a snob. Unfortunately it's not a problem confined to academia.
  • potatolicious 12y ago
    Like rinon said, snobbery isn't limited to academia nor educated people. It's made worse in these contexts because these are the same people who are asked to comment - and sometimes even make policy - on the working class. It's a little galling when the educated, wealthy, and powerful show contempt for core parts of the culture of groups they are supposed to represent the interests of. It's also counter-productive, since these educated, wealthy, and powerful people must necessarily engage in dialogue with the working class if their research, policy, or commentary is intended to be accurate or useful.
  • yuncun 12y ago
    I think your mistaking apathy for disdain. Just because marinekingprime isn't revered like Lionel Messi doesn't mean there is a conspiracy against egaming. People just don't care, and there is nothign wrong with that. I just finished my undergrad, and I've realized that the 'jocks hate nerds' has become severely outdated in my generation. Like the parent commentor, I grew up in both worlds; My athletic, frat-boy, 'jock' friends are often loud and obnoxious, but they don't hate quieter, 'nerd' folks. Rather, they just don't really care. On the other hand, I've found that a lot of my CS friends care a ridiculous amount, often feeling persecuted by mainstream social people for no reason. Ive had to hear a ridiculous amount of shit talk about fratboys and sorority girls (who in turn are mostly pretty cool). Nowadays I've found that the real assholes in the "jocks hate nerds" equation have become the 'nerds'.
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• thissideup 12y ago
  Many people repeat things without knowing why. Next time you hear someone say they don't like sports ask why. Personally, I really enjoy sports. What I don't like is the organizations (NFL, NCAA) and owners that sell advertising and broadcasting rights on top of them. There's far too much watching and not enough doing.
• john_b 12y ago
  I don't know if this reflects one or more widespread trends, but as someone who plays amateur hockey I've found that a very large number fellow players are engineers, programmers, market researchers, or some other white collar professional occupation. At least at non-professional levels, the sport seems to be full of very intelligent people, but not necessarily "intellectuals" per se. It could just be a self-selection effect due to playing a relatively expensive sport (since income and education are correlated), but given how popular sports of all types are (both watching and playing) among so many different types of people I am amazed that the denizens of ivory towers have been able to maintain the stereotype of sports as "low brow" for so long. Especially given that many ivy league universities have historically had popular and successful teams in sports like boxing and wrestling. It's deeply, tragically ironic when you consider that the origins of those same intellecutal bubbles are rooted in Greek and Roman classical studies, both cultures that prized a well developed body and mind, and considered a man incomplete if he lacked either: "No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > but given how popular sports of all types are (both watching and playing) among so many different types of people I am amazed that the denizens of ivory towers have been able to maintain the stereotype of sports as "low brow" for so long. I don't think that stereotype actually exists in "the denizens of ivory towers" so much as the stereotype of "denizens of ivory towers" holding that stereotype exists in the minds of people who identify themselves in opposition to "denizens of ivory towers". Actually academics, whether fairly described as "denizens of ivory towers" or not, seem, IME, to be no less interest in sport qua sport than anyone else -- plenty of them fans of the popular professional sports, and plenty of those that aren't not disdaining them so much as being busier with other things, whether academic/professional pursuits, family, or even their own personal involvement in some form of sport, and not taking time for participation in the ritual of major professional sport spectation. > It's deeply, tragically ironic when you consider that the origins of those same intellecutal bubbles are rooted in Greek and Roman classical studies, both cultures that prized a well developed body and mind, and considered a man incomplete if he lacked either I don't think tribal attachment to and spectating major professional sports has any connection to a "well-developed body and mind".
• ojbyrne 12y ago
  I have always been a sports fan, but I really dislike the giant subsidies given to billionaires, to the point where it just feels like a giant con. Not only is everything over priced, but there's a vast array of tax breaks and hidden subsidies that the working class pays for.
  • jpindar 12y ago
    Do you feel the same way about the music and movie industries?
    • ojbyrne 12y ago
      A. I don't think that whatever tax breaks those industries get, that they compare in scope to the obscenity that is the National Football League. B. I tend not to go to "tent pole" movies (well, occasionally) nor really consume a lot of blockbuster type music. Those would likely be the largest consumers of subsidies, or at least I'd guess that. C. Music and movies occasionally intersect with "art" which I mostly support some subsidy of. You did ask a good, thought provoking question. But as I said, I do like sports, and do use some of my discretionary spending to attend games. I don't support the massive subsidies that professional sports in the US gets.
• lotharbot 12y ago
  > he is saying in effect "What you love is obtuse and low brow" More than that, he is in effect saying "there is no depth to this thing" (which he hasn't studied in depth enough to know). Which is both rude and arrogant. It's one thing to say you don't understand a thing and aren't interested in it, and then politely discuss things you are (mutually) interested in. It's quite another to distill something you don't understand into an absurd caricature like "grown men with sticks chasing etc." when it actually has a tremendous amount of depth and strategy -- which every sport has at the highest levels (including things like Snooker and Starcraft.) There's a reason the weakside linebacker positions himself in a different spot against the pistol formation when the backup tight end is in versus when the starter is in. There's a reason the shooting guard makes a hard baseline cut right after swinging the ball out to the wing if he's matched up with a smaller defender. If you show contempt for people who think that stuff is cool (or even for people who merely think the end result is fun to watch though they don't understand the details) that's a serious social dysfunction.
  • toolz 12y ago
    Depth can have a real defined meaning, though. If you're in the context of discovering a process that will make electricity cheaper and cleaner, that is useful to everyone around the world in some way and then to have someone overshadow that achievement or ignore it entirely because 'the game' is on, is ridiculous. I live in the south east where when a college football coach has a problem with the university president, the president is lucky to last longer than a year. There's obviously nothing objectively bad about enjoying sports, but the ravenous obsession with sports is not exactly uncommon and to pretend we should celebrate it is not in the best interest of humanity. There is a reason a lot (most?) NFL players go bankrupt shortly after their career of being paid far more than will reflect their contribution to the future of mankind. It's because that grouping of people has a lot of backwards thinking and irresponsibility attached to it. It's very interesting to me that someone, here, in academia, is having to defend their disdain to the vocal majority about their distaste for sports culture when it does nothing long term for our species good and could easily be argued to be detrimental via opportunity cost thrown away in human potential that grew up believing it was more prestigious to be a football player than a scientist. So am I annoyed? A bit. Do I generalize based on your taste for sports? No. Do I think your choice to praise athletes over scientists is detrimental to society? Yes, I do.
• WalterBright 12y ago
  Sure, there's some of that. But it goes the other way, too, as exemplified by "The Big Bang Theory". Things "nerds" are interested in are regarded with contempt by non-intellectuals.
• deleted 12y ago
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• hockeybias 12y ago
  solson - Please check out my labor of love http://HockeyBias.com http://HockeyBias.com and let me know if you like it! Thanks!
• Zikes 12y ago
  I think what you're interpreting as contempt for sports is more of a contempt for people not being able to take the hint that not everyone is interested in same things they are.
• abandonliberty 12y ago
  Cultivated: having or showing good education, taste, and manners[1] Even the title is dripping with disdain and condescension. Seems like he has to spend a bit more time going native. [2] It's best to avoid judging people's interests, and learning a bit about them can definitely help you interact with people. Faking interest, as many do due to social pressures, is ineffective in the long run as well. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cultivated http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cultivated [2] Can someone please tell me the politically correct version of this idiom?
• timr 12y ago
  "When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills." That's nice. What other corporate products must I consume in order to be a validated member of your social caste? How about this: "when you show overt contempt for fast food, you are showing contempt for most everybody, and that is a problem with your social skills." If I don't eat at McDonalds because I care about my health, am I unfit for socialization?
  • Goronmon 12y ago
    That's nice. What other corporate products must I consume in order to be a validated member of your social caste? Whats funny is that you could actually bring up this topic with fans of mainstream sports (especially for the NFL) and probably get a decent discussion going. Just mention things like TV timeouts and you'll probably get some level of agreement on how annoying things have gotten these days. Of course, if you phrase it in a way similar to how you did above, people will most likely just think you were an asshole.
    • timr 12y ago
      "Of course, if you phrase it in a way similar to how you did above, people will most likely just think you were an asshole." Of course, a similar thought most likely crossed my mind when I read the parent comment.
      • FireBeyond 12y ago
        The difference being the parent made a valid point that you're not even willing to entertain - the notion that people can enjoy a sport, at the highest level, without enjoying the crass commercialization that might accompany it. But you couldn't respond without an indictment of how brainwashed he is, in your opinion. I love basketball. I grew up playing and refereeing it. I lost interest for about a decade, because the culture got to be too much about the personality and antics, and not the game. I've only just gotten back into it in the last year because it seems to have shifted back. And there is a lot of fun to be had attending a game.
• skybrian 12y ago
  I think this is getting cause and effect backwards. Many (not all) kids who became intellectuals were the last picked for the team in sports and generally suffered due to it. I went through school dreading gym class. Deciding that sports was not important to me and spending time on things I was better at was in part emotional self-defense. Of course, dividing up into different tribes is not healthy. We should ideally try to leave such things behind and try to get along with everyone. But the nerds versus jocks thing lingers even in programming with the "brogrammer" meme and also in many programmers' expectation that everyone else should put in the hours to learn programming on their own because that's what they did. Rather than indulging in moral shaming, I think better to say that the folks who are good at sports and at intellectual activities are in an excellent position to build bridges.
  • s_kilk 12y ago
    Ha, yeah. Some of us were abused mercilessly by the "jocks". On top of that, the school administration, and wider town culture didn't give a shit, because to them the young sports players were local superstars, and could do no wrong. And if a few young nerds kill them themselves because of the abuse, what harm right? As long as our school sports team is on form it's all cool. If not liking sports makes me a snob then ok, I can live with that. but let's not pretend working class sports culture is all good clean fun. It can be as venomous as any other culture.
    • doktrin 12y ago
      > If not liking sports makes me a snob then ok, I can live with that. but let's not pretend working class sports culture is all good clean fun. It can be as venomous as any other culture. As evidenced by the top comment in this very thread calling out non-sports fans as being elitist snobs without social skills. What a joke.
      • Rusky 12y ago
        There's a big difference between not being a sports fan, and going out of your way to be an elitist snob about it (even if that "going out of your way" stems from emotional self-defense). Same thing happens with math, or programming, or various other intellectual pursuits. People will specifically talk about how bad they are at math, and wear it like a badge of pride. Or, they can just not enjoy it without being rude.
• foobarqux 12y ago
  There is a difference between playing sports, supporting your kids playing sports and following professional sports. I think there a far more people who have disdain for pro sport fandom than participation in sports.
  • Cyranix 12y ago
    Strongly agree. Sports as a team activity, a friendly space to be physically active and competitive (with varying degrees of physical injury risk depending on the sport), are fantastic. I was a three-sport athlete in high school and consider the lessons learned in that context just as important as some of the coursework. My cross-country team was full of AP math and science kids, while my soccer team had more of the kids who smoked pot and goofed off in class. Even supporting the teams I didn't belong to meant finding common ground with those I might otherwise have never associated with. When I consider the professional sports phenomenon, I can't suppress my knowledge of its more insidious aspects. The ludicrous salaries in an age when the disparity between rich and poor is becoming more painfully exacerbated, and the effect that this allure has on the American educational system. The reinforcement of racially motivated prejudices. The disregard for players' physical and emotional well-being, as well as other more casual disgraces that Marshawn Lynch could readily identify. The vitriol frequently associated with team fandom (which I am fortunate to have escaped despite growing up in the heart of the SEC). I don't begrudge anyone their enjoyment of collegiate or professional sports. Once in a blue moon I'll even attend a football or hockey game at a friend's invitation, and I whoop and cheer and critique just like the next guy. But don't ask me to fall in line with the majority and unreservedly celebrate professional sports just so I can "identify with the common man". I don't watch the Super Bowl, despite invitations, not because I feel some elitist need to prove my refinement to others, but because it's difficult for me to support a system that contradicts my values on so many counts.
• CocaKoala 12y ago
  >When a kids says, "Hockey. Meh. It is a bunch grown men with sticks chasing a black piece of rubber around a sheet of ice" When somebody says that, you just have to rephrase them a'la T-Rex. "It's a bunch of scientists stating their hypothesis that they're the best at using wooden sticks to direct the motion of a vulcanized rubber puck across a surface with a friction coefficient of .15!" [1] and then hockey becomes a collaborative science experiment, repeated twice a week, and broadcast on television. [1]: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2421 http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2421
• chez17 12y ago
  So I'm not allowed to dislike sports? It makes me a snob?
  • FireBeyond 12y ago
    I don't believe so, per se. I think though, that if - as there are examples in this thread - you feel compelled to be sure everyone is aware of the disdain you have, replete with remarks like "overpaid gorillas" "getting paid far too much to chase a piece of rubber around with some sticks", then you do veer into snob territory, a la The Onion's Man Who Doesn't Own A TV. While there are many valid arguments to be made about sport and the importance thereof, it's also condescending for someone (not you specifically) to act like this - there's quite a degree of talent and skill and hard work that I think a lot of people don't quite realize. "Oh, he's a good player, but I could have played college ball, and made it". No, most likely you couldn't. There's a huge gap in skill. I played cricket as a teen and we had two international players come to our club for a BBQ and hit around session. The kids bowling to them, they just blocked. The adults, several of whom played at the state level themselves and to us were "very skilled"? No. Not in comparison. Everything they threw at these guys was hit out of the park. I'm not exaggerating. Fast, slow, skilled players. Every. Single. Ball. Out of the park without a bounce. It gives you a realization of the level of talent and skill to play at that level.
    • Ar-Curunir 12y ago
      Yes, this thread has been a bit depressing. I don't see why being a fan of different sports and different teams should preclude people from being also simultaneously interested in science and math and other 'intellectual' pursuits. Becoming a professional player requires as much (if not much more) hard work and talent as becoming a software engineer. These people dedicate their lives to the task, and are genuinely much much better than 99% of humans at their task, and are getting paid for their ability to entertain. I don't get why people would look down upon these players and their fans.
  • spydum 12y ago
    You are allowed to dislike sports, even hate sports. What you shouldn't do is brag about your ignorance or dislike/hate of it as a way of projecting your status. I don't follow baseball or most sports, but folks might ask me about so-and-so team, and my response is often "Oh, I don't really follow X, but <insert another topic you find interesting and may have common discussion point on>". As the article points out, for most folks just exhibiting how much you dont care to follow sports ends the conversation, and makes you seem somewhat snobbish and like you don't want to engage on any topic. However, expressing it in a more open way, where you then volley back an alternative topic keeps the conversation alive. Heck, even if you dont follow or don't care about the topic, the other person apparently does -- so try not to be too dismissive or indifferent..
• ryanmarsh 12y ago
  I just find that trying to live vicariously through other men is emasculating. I will play a pickup game with any of my working class neighbors any day of the week. But I'm not going to talk about the players like they're people I know (like men do in my barber shop). Call it what you will. I connect with working class folks better still than these (mostly) white privileged bubble inhabiting social dilettantes.
• serve_yay 12y ago
  It seems to me that rooting out and shaming "snobs" is becoming something of a cultural pastime. It really bothers people when you don't like what they like. So it must be because you're an asshole snob, not because you just don't like it. It's related to all the anti-"hipster" crap that has popped up in recent years. It's fun because skewering "hipsters" is puncturing pretensions, you're taking cultural snobs down a peg. I find all this behavior symptomatic - even if someone is being a snob, so what? Ignore them if their opinions are bad.
  • genericuser 12y ago
    It isn't about not liking what other people like, it's about being a jerk about it. I for instance don't care for sports. And that is how I phrase it when asked. If there is a sports related conversation taking place I am generally more upset at the snobs demanding to be a part of the conversation just so they can shit all over sports in general, than the people that are spending an hour talking about a specific player, game, or statistic. It very much is a social thing where you need to know how to politely excuse yourself from conversations and situations you do not want to be a part of rather than trying to evangelize your view that they suck.
    • fibonachos 12y ago
      I use the "I'm not a sports guy" variant. It just doesn't interest me. Unfortunately, most movies, music, and tv have lost my interest as well. No snobbery or moral objections, it just doesn't interest me.
    • pekk 12y ago
      A lot of people are gonna say I'm a jerk and think I'm militant if I don't like what they like. Fuck that. People decide they don't like you even if you didn't do anything wrong, all the time.
    • wtbob 12y ago
      > It isn't about not liking what other people like, it's about being a jerk about it. Well, that jerkiness is often a reaction to the jerkiness of many sports-lovers, who abuse one in grade school and raise one's taxes to pay for their hobbies in adulthood, and spend so much time expecting that everyone shares their enthusiasms. > It very much is a social thing where you need to know how to politely excuse yourself from conversations and situations you do not want to be a part of rather than trying to evangelize your view that they suck. I (eventually) learnt that not everyone shared my love of science fiction and fantasy; I don't trot out Tolkien or Asimov every time I'm talking to most folks. It would be nice if folks didn't trot out football or baseball when talking to me. If I had to learn to suppress my enthusiasms except around the like-minded, why haven't they?
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• andmarios 12y ago
  There is a difference between playing sports and watching sports. I would never think negatively of anyone doing sports. I think it is a very healthy attitude. On the other hand there are people who watch or read/talk about sports for many hours per day ignoring other aspects of personal growth.
• Glyptodon 12y ago
  I love playing sports and always have. But I have major issues with categorizing everyone who has issues with them as elitist. Some of us dislike them because they're destructive to society. I'm sure I'm not the only one who went to a high school where athletics were more important than academics, and not going to the football game was worth a couple nitpicked points off on your chemistry quiz or some teacher who became a teacher solely to coach had you spend their class taking notes from a text book every day while they jawed around with other coaches in the back room. I feel like sports culture deprives lots of regular public high school students of an education, and I don't think it's elitist at all to dislike professional sports for their contribution to this mess. I love sports, but every time I watch or support them I feel like I'm destroying civil society and undermining democracy and helping to destroy the last vestiges of effective public education. And I'm not elite or upper class.
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    • detaro 12y ago
      Nice straw man you got there. Where do you get from that he thinks sports should be banned?
    • monocasa 12y ago
      Nobody other than you said anything about banning sports.
  • sanderjd 12y ago
    That's an interesting perspective, in a similar wheelhouse to my own, but I don't blame professional sports for the many ills caused by school sports. You picked on high schools, but the problem is far worse in colleges. I much prefer the european model, which focuses on clubs rather than schools.
    • scottmcf 12y ago
      The clubs model brings a different set of problems, especially in populations already divided by religion or class. See the sectarianism and tribalism that have developed around the Old Firm derby in Glasgow, for example.
• deleted 12y ago
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• pekk 12y ago
  I don't care about sports. If you start a conversation with me about sports, it'll be short. I'm not being mean to anyone who likes sports, I just don't care. You don't get to tell me that I'm wrong for not sharing your interest. Liking sports isn't obligatory.
  • sanderjd 12y ago
    The ability to talk to people about things that interest them but not yourself is a very important skill to cultivate. The intersection of yourself with "people worth knowing and talking to" is bigger than the intersection of yourself with "people who share your interests".
    • nemo 12y ago
      I am not into most sports, and know nothing about football/basketball/baseball but somehow can manage to make conversation with whoever. It's not like the general populace is monomaniacally obsessed with sports to the point that they are incapable of communicating with people who aren't sports fans.
    • pekk 12y ago
      I have the ability to talk to people about lots of things. I talk to all kinds of people about all kinds of things. If someone only has one interest which is sports, I can politely demur or listen depending on whether I have the time, exactly the same as if I met someone who wants to monologue at me about locomotives for 6 hours. But I'm not working in sales, and I'm sure as hell not obligated to anyone to fake enthusiasm about some narrow subject that simply never had any interest for me. What's awful is that you get to inflict this interest on everyone with general social approval, and you even get to tell people on HN that they are socially defective if they don't pretend to share that interest - but by no means would the same courtesy ever be extended to some kid who wants to talk about Minecraft for hours. That's nerdy and gay, sports is for real men. Excuse me if I don't take your "advice" seriously.
      • sanderjd 12y ago
• rational-future 12y ago
  Professional sports are for the dumb - a modern version of the Roman circus to keep the unwashed masses occupied and away from the important things in life - politics, finance, economics.
  • aaron-lebo 12y ago
    You say that as though modern politics isn't a bunch of people mindlessly rooting for their favorite team.
    • rational-future 12y ago
      No, it's not. What you describe is the political theater - another form of circus. All decisions are made behind closed doors by very smart people.
      • aaron-lebo 12y ago
        The owners and general managers who run sports franchises aren't just as adept? What is the difference?
  • JoshMilo 12y ago
    You must have forgotten that Niels Bohr was an olympic athlete as well as a nobel prize winner in physics.
    • rational-future 12y ago
      Yeah, never mind the 99.99% of Nobel winners that aren't/weren't athletes.
      • remarkEon 12y ago
        The point was that being a tremendous athlete and an intellectual/scientist aren't mutually exclusive. Edit: Also, astronauts. So there's that.
• mindcrime 12y ago
  I grew up working class and was a boxer. I love Ice Hockey, Football, UFC, NASCAR, Motocross, and heavy metal, but I am also an academic and an intellectual. Many highly educated people have told me so, I just don't have the paper to prove it. I hear ya. I wrestled in high-school, did a lot of BMX biking in my younger years (and still ride a little, even now in my 40's), used to dabble in amateur power-lifting a bit, mountain-bike these days, and used to participate in some brazilian jiu-jitsu / submission wrestling / MMA stuff. I also grew up watching NASCAR and Indy Car racing, and I'm a diehard NFL fan (#PHINSUP!!!) But I'm also a pretty well educated (3 college degrees) guy who listens to both heavy-metal and classical music, reads Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Foucalt, Wittgenstein, etc. for fun, reads The Economist semi-regularly, etc. I won't use the term "intellectual" to refer to myself, but many of my friends think of me as something of an "intellectual". I just think the whole thing is silly. I'm "working class" in many ways, but I share characteristics, attributes and interests with the intellectuals. So yeah, I would say that this whole "disdain of the working class and working class interests, by intellectuals" me strikes me as pretty stupid. When a kids says, "Hockey. Meh. It is a bunch grown men with sticks chasing a black piece of rubber around a sheet of ice" he is saying in effect "What you love is obtuse and low brow and I don't care how that makes you feel." And that is just rude.* It's also ignorant. There is a lot of wisdom and truth to be learned on the hockey ice, the football field, the wrestling mat, etc. Sport is just a compressed version of life in many ways.
• copsarebastards 12y ago
  Cultivating an active ignorance about sports is stupid--knowing more things never hurt anyone. And I definitely see that trend in my peers. That said, I wouldn't go the further step to say that people should somehow be obligated to like sports. I don't like most sports--for reasons brought up, but not really expanded by the article. My main beef with sports is the effects sports have on education. My city spends millions annually on the maintenance of stadiums, simultaneously cutting budget for schools. In turn sports figures become role models for kids, and sports talent is a poor indicator of being a good role model. Even when sports figures aren't horrible people, their fame encourages children to seek careers in sports--a field where very few will be successful--at the expense of their education. Even when sports scholarships allow people to go to college who otherwise couldn't, sports scholarships rarely result in good scholars. Professional sports are directly counterproductive to increasing education. At a personal rather than societal level, I don't see a point in emotionally investing myself in something that has no actual effect on my life. I'm not above having a few beers with friends while watching the game, but I would rather have a few beers with friends without a big screen TV distracting us from actually interacting with advertisements for products I don't need or want. And I don't need another way to make small talk, regardless of class. I don't want to make small talk about things the person has only a side interest in--I want to find out what people are working on, what they care about. How is your spouse doing? What about your kids? Are you working on anything interesting? Making some progress on a hobby? Getting closer to a goal, paying off loans, buying a car or house? People actually are affected by these things--they're things that actually matter and make a difference in their lives. If you show interest in these things you're showing interest in them, in their lives. So no, when I show overt contempt for sports I am showing contempt for people. All the reasons I don't like sports are pro-social.
  • hiou 12y ago
    I would say that your comments are exactly what the article is talking about. You've decided to exclude yourself because you feel the existence and importance placed on it by others is misplaced and essentially stupid. So you are in essence calling people who like professional sports at best misinformed and at worst stupid. That's pretty much the definition of elitism as far as I know it. You think you know more than the common man.
• jackmaney 12y ago
  > When a kids says, "Hockey. Meh. It is a bunch grown men with sticks chasing a black piece of rubber around a sheet of ice" he is saying in effect "What you love is obtuse and low brow and I don't care how that makes you feel." And that is just rude. Kids who openly show their disdain for STEM disciplines--especially mathematics--are legion. At a societal scale, courtesy is a two-way street.
• pyre 12y ago
  Things that you're ignoring: - At least in America, there is a disdain among the working class for intellectual pursuits, and that manifests itself in their children leading to the more athletic (and therefore more likely to be on a sports team) students pushing the less athletic (and therefore more likely to be into intellectual pursuits) students around. It's hardly surprising that the students on the receiving end of this will reject sports as it seems to celebrate the very people that push them around. - All of those "small towns" out there where excelling at sports is grounds for even the adults of the community to engage in academic fraud and cover-ups of criminal behaviour so that the sports team (and said students' future sports prospects) aren't affected. I don't think that this is a good reason to just paint all of sports with the same brush. There are plenty of students that end up on sports teams that aren't necessarily one of the "cool kids" or bullies. To paint them with the same brush by association isn't a good thing, but it's understandable why this happens (and why it propagates into adult-hood).
• jules 12y ago
  For every person who proudly says that they don't know anything about the NFL there are 1000 people who proudly say that they don't know anything about math.
• hiou 12y ago
  I have found most people I've me that seemed to want to not like something probably had some deeper issues causing them to do so. My childhood was very encouraging and inviting so I developed many wildly different interests. Every thing, like every person, is interesting once you learn a bit about it/them.
• code_duck 12y ago
  It's definitely a sign of maturity to be able to treat sports and people who are obsessed with sports seriously when you know better. The fact is, the truth is unfortunate. Professional sports are a bunch of grown men playing little kid games who receive an incredibly and disgustingly disproportionate amount of money and adult attention. I believe that children and adolescents playing sports is fantastic. If people want to continue playing into their adulthood for fun and health, that's great too. Casual interest in sports is fine with me. I prefer to see participation to spectatorship. What I and many other people have a problem with is sports in schools and professional sports being treated as if it is intensely important, more important than direly serious things that keep people alive, fed, free and healthy.
  • skwirl 12y ago
    And what are you doing to keep people alive, fed, free, and healthy?
    • code_duck 12y ago
      Saying this is about me personally is changing the subject. The alternatives in school and life to which I am referring are pursuits such as medicine, mathematics, programming, electronics, chemistry, politics, business management and so forth. It's a cliché which I wouldn't think I would have to repeat, but I would love to see people get as excited about mathematics stars in schools as basketball players. I would love to see more people who get as excited about their city council as football drafts. I would love to see the money spent on stadiums and television sports networks spent on improving peoples lives in concrete ways other than entertainment. It's not that I don't consider sports legitimate entertainment. Clearly people feel that their lives are enriched from participating or spectating. Great. Good for them. The problem I see is a matter of priority. Society as a whole treats watching other people play sports as if it's something as critically important, heck, more important than say, hospitals.
      • skwirl 12y ago
        Why is it that so many people who say "society needs to do so-and-so" feel that they are exempt from doing anything themselves? It blows my mind that you see this as irrelevant. It's always somebody else that needs to do it. They apparently don't see themselves as part of society. Sports get attention because people choose to follow them under their own volitions. If you want mathematics stars in schools to get attention, then why aren't you attending Mathletes contests? Are you attending/watching at least 16 city council meetings a year (same as the number of games in each NFL team's regular season)? "Don't make it about me personally, it's something everyone else should be doing." Meanwhile, the very people whose lives you want the sports industries' money redistributed to are generally the ones who are deriving the greatest amount of life enjoyment out of following those very sports.
• GhotiFish 12y ago
  People I've met say the exact same about the things I love. Most have, To my face, over and over, systematically. So this kind of talk isn't just relegated to the "highly educated". You're right, that hurts, and it takes a big person to not fire back.
• jasonm23 12y ago
  On the other hand, I could not give two shits about sport. If someone wants to take personal offence at this and decided I'm a snob, I'm quite happy about my conclusions of who exactly has the social problem. Hint, it's not my problem.
• valvar 12y ago
  While I may agree that it's being snobbish, I would emphatically disagree with your view of it as being a 'problem with your social skills'. In fact, I think it is the very opposite - snobbishness, overt or otherwise, is a form of social signalling, and personal distaste for that form of social signalling does not mean that it shows a lack of social skills (though it may obviously, as mentioned, be problematic for other reasons). Social skills do not merely consist of pleasant components.
• doktrin 12y ago
  You sound like a complete snob.
• ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  Disinterest != contempt. I followed sports (pro & college football) when I had access to a television. I went to college when TVs were expensive and bulky and lost the thread of them. Discovering the college library was also a big time sink. I didn't pursue them again until I got a 1080p television, some ...25 years later. It's still not the highest priority activity. But to borrow from Richard Feynman , "why do you care what other people think?" Set your goals and do what you need to do to attain them. Some of the best people I met in school were largely autodiadicts anyway. The vast majority of those you'll met are not people of high value regardless of social markers and educational attainment.