Jon Johanning wrote:
>
> And if you want a theory about why they watch sports: it's
> because they find it a fun way to spend their free time.
>
I'm perfectly content with the way in which any given person finds entertainment. (Probably one can find exceptions, but I simply want to clear the deck a bit for the point I really want to make.)
Your theory as stated here is that people like X because they like X. How is that an explanation? An explanation would explain why X is a fun way to spend time. I'm not sure that this is a particularly crucial question -- I'm certainly not going to try to answer it. But if one does offer an answer it ought to be an answer and not merely a restatement of the question.
A more interesting question -- perhaps, I haven't thought very deeply on the matter -- might be arrived at (the question, not an answer) in the following way.
We observe as an empirical fact that many (but not all -- perhaps not even a majority) u.s. citizens give varying amounts of time to viewing certain sports on tv. A smaller number give varying amounts of time viewing certain sports in the stadiums and playing fields. (I don't know what the figures are now. The most popular sport in terms of sheer numbers watching games each year has always been high school basketball. Is this still the case?) Yet a third category, greatly but by no means wholly overlapping the first two) consists of those who seldom if ever watch sports, either on tv or in the flesh, but who regularly read the sports pages. A sub-category extending across all three of these categories are those who make themselves extensively familiar with various statistical information in reference to one or more of these sports at one or more levels. And of course the sports-page readers do so with varying levels of intensity or interest. Among the watchers of tv sportscasts are those whose visiting daughter or son must watch the Cubs. So before we start asking questions or passing judgments (though I am bewildered as to why we think we need to pass judgment) quite a bit of empirical information has to be gathered before we have the slightest idea what is that we are asking questions about. "Watching sports" is clearly too vague a concept to say anything about.
Now in reference to the _individuals_ (taken as individuals) in these various categories, one would probably have to say its noone's fucking business why they are there. It's their own private affair. Moreover, I don't know of any method by which such information could be determined, in part because there are probably innumerable different motives involved, and no one is going to spend the money to do exhaustive surveys in depth to find out much about it. (Clearly posts in this thread have been grounded either on the poster's explaining his/her own reason for caring or not caring, or to making wild and utterly unconfirmable guesses as to why others might be there, said guess reflecting mostly what the poster wants to believe for one or another reason (also probably unspecifiable).
(A leftist, Mark Naison [?] did write extensively on sports in u.s. life 20 or 30 years ago. Has anyone read any of his articles or books?)
So the first question to ask has to be "Why do we want to ask questions about this?" What do we expect to gain? On all these threads involving u.s. culture there is one, quite immediate and wholly legitimate reason for many of the posts: the writer is getting a kick out of writing about his/her favorite violinist, poet, first baseman, jazz trombonist, what have you.
Yah. I'm getting tired and don't know where to go next. But it is pretty clear that nothing in this whole thread has (nor should it necessarily have) contributed to any analytic knowledge of u.s. culture or to any "judgments" either about that culture or about leftist responses to it.
Carrol