[lbo-talk] RE: Film Notes

Thomas Seay entheogens at yahoo.com
Fri Oct 24 09:27:54 PDT 2003



> At a recent talk Terry Eagleton said that, in a
> future
> 'socialist' society, 'we have to get rid of sport',
> because sport, with its generation of (artificial?)
> passions, competition, ebb and flow, replaces our
> desire for politics and social change.

What good are politics and social change if we are left in an arid, joyless world? Anecdotally, my little baby spontaneously initiates something resembling the game of tag with her little friends when they come to the house. Some of my fondest memories are of playing different sports. People play games even when there is no chance of remuneration or gain (except perhaps a nominal increase of status in a particular gaming community). If you are going to eliminate competition, hence games, you better have a police state, fully equipped with the most intrusive surveillance devices, because otherwise people are going to find a way to compete and play games. You might as well ask people to give up their appetite.

An appetite is a good example. Just as noone would argue against eliminating appetite or nourishment, so noone should argue against competition. Nonetheless, just as there are exagerated appetites and bad food, so is there a bad type of competition...a competition that causes people to have heart attacks from overwork or competition that deprives a great number of citizens from access to the wealth of society.

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