When Alexander the Great, who was himself a product of a mixed Greco-Macedonian culture, conquered virtually the entire Western world, he saw to it that any hard feelings among the defeated cultures could be sublimated through organized sport. That has remained true since before the birth of Jesus.
Except, as often is the case in a society that is declining and attempting to use the rock of nihilism as a flotation device, we have decided to politicize the last free-thinking portion of our culture in order to, once again, disrupt any form of social cohesion. Hence, this:
Week One NFL Rating Drop Over 8%
I don't care what some millionaire athlete, raised by a white family on a Wisconsin dairy farm, wants to do during the National Anthem now that he's become aware that he's black. It hardly needs to be the focus of so much attention or the source of yet another "national conversation about [blank]". As with anyone, he may do as he pleases during the National Anthem. There is nothing new or particular about whatever issue he thinks he's going to overturn through his choice of posture or footwear, and he certainly isn't going to do anything other than draw attention to himself.
All I want to do on a Sunday afternoon is watch the Cleveland Browns lose.
[Ever notice that "national conversations" are generally one-sided and designed really just to promote one world view into the public square? They exist to teach us correct thinking, as we must all use the same words and have the same thoughts. It reminds me of those Brown University students I would encounter during my days living and working adjacent to their campus. Purple and green-haired people carrying clipboards would approach to ask me survey questions about some social issue ostensibly for some classroom project. In each case, the questions' theme devolved into, "Do you completely agree with me or are you evil?" Every single time.]
Consider what's happening in "amateur" sports in the wake of the Obama administration's oddly Freudian obsession with toilets. It seems that the competition isn't about athletic skill as much as it is about who may be the larger hypocrite:
Before I turn to the larger issues, can we just take a moment to ponder the pathetic absurdity that is the NCAA? This is an organization, mind you, that reaps billions of dollars of rewards off the labor of disproportionately poor and minority students while imposing on them — as a condition for even participating in college sports — economic restrictions not imposed on any other college student. So-called student-athletes don’t own their time, or even the rights to their own names. The vast majority of them don’t go on to play pro sports, so they’re effectively prevented from making money during the time when their earning potential is at its highest. But the NCAA is now suddenly discovering social justice? Please.
While the NCAA — as perhaps the peak representative of progressive hypocrisy and cheap virtue signaling — is an easy target, its action raises a much more significant concern. Simply put, there are not many cultural spaces remaining where Americans can meet on more or less neutral ground — where Americans of all faiths and political beliefs can meet, unite, and share a positive communal experience.If I were a politician, I could see the advantage of keeping our society at odds and on the verge of chaos. Historically, the easiest path to power is to create disruption and a fictional enemy, then present oneself as the solution and the savior. It greatly aids the powerful; it destroys the common and the society they seek to enjoy.
One of the reasons that I prefer watching European and Australian sports over the American counterparts in recent years [well, except for the Cavs, you understand] is because they tend not to be as political and, besides, I'm mostly ignorant of and apart from their politics, anyway.
I recall the work I did, the sights I saw, and the emotionally disrupting sounds I heard in the direct aftermath of the Sandy Hook slaughter. Even though I'm basically a walking piece of gristle by this time in my life, it was having its effect. I recall turning on the television later that week to watch some game, thinking that I didn't have to dwell on death for a few hours, when a diminutive sportscaster appeared to explain to me, in his wonderfully privileged Caucasian manner, not about the nuance of the teams' rushing strategy, but about the killings and how gun control would have prevented them. Thanks, Bob. Now, go back to your mansion.
Since his comments directly reflected those spoken from the White House and by other members of the Episcopal Church's preferred political party, and were clearly well-coordinated by the government's media office and their counterparts at NBC, I realized that sports, that place I went to escape from the horror of an elementary classroom covered in arterial blood and brain matter, was now just another tool in the production of correct thought. Here was Bob teaching me how to think about what I'd witnessed, what attitude to have towards the "other", and what words I was to use.
No, thanks. It is inevitable that my views will be influenced and programmed through the political/media matrix, but at least do so with some subtlety, will you?
Anyway, the Sydney Swans are in the playoffs, or whatever they're called in the Australian Football League, so I'll have at least ninety minutes of respite this weekend.