[lbo-talk] RE: Chomsky/Sports

Jon Johanning jjohanning at igc.org
Tue Oct 28 05:05:53 PST 2003


On Monday, October 27, 2003, at 07:50 PM, joanna bujes wrote:


> Yes, yes. But don't you think it's very odd that we accept this absurd
> redefinition from the git-go? I mean, we agree that "sports" means
> nothing other than the production and consumption of a billion-dollar
> spectacle industry product called "sports." (Then, poof, we forget
> this distinction instantly.) Then, if the left comments upon the human
> energy/time/mindlessness absorbed in the production/consumption of
> this product, they are accused of being stalinists/joyless elitists
> who won't let the American people have their innocent baseball,
> basketball, etc.

In any case, zillions of Americans enjoy watching the spectacle -- that's the point. It's not that the rulers of the land are holding guns to their heads forcing them to watch, or have used some subtle hypnotic technique to take over their brains. It's really fun for them to watch games on TV. It's as much fun as watching them in the stadium, which humans have been doing since at least the ancient Olympics, and you don't have to leave your easy chair. So pronouncing that it will not be allowed in the future Socialist Heaven-on-Earth because it wastes time and is mindless doesn't exactly recommend socialism to the masses.

Socialist agitator: "You will no longer have Monday Night Football. Your time will be much more productively and intelligently employed." American worker: "Gee, sounds great to me! Where do I sign up?"

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ After the Buddha died, people still kept pointing to his shadow in a cave for centuries—an enormous, dreadful shadow. God is dead: but the way people are, there may be, for millennia, caves in which his shadow is still pointed to. — And we — we must still overcome his shadow! —Friedrich Nietzsche



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list