I don't really assume that "the politics of sports" is necessarily either reactionary or progressive. It really depends on historical circumstances doesn't it? And may be part of the problem is that I am trying to take a longer view than you are. You are focusing on the present and I am thinking more in historical terms. But I am also trying to point out that team sports in the context of mass media is by necessity propagandistic. I don't think that there is anyway around this, no matter what an individual spectator might believe.
So let me tell you what I don't mean: I do not mean that "sand lot" pick-up games, non-professional and self-organized sports - team or individual sports that are participated in for fun, necessarily participate in this propagandistic project that seems to adhere to professional sports in the mass media. I do not mean that individual fans are necessarily unthinking victims of this propaganda. I do not mean that any of this is necessarily "intentional." For instance it seems to me that organized team sports on the high-school level continually models or rehearses war and nationalism and jingoism. Was this the intention of such high school team sports. I doubt it. It is simply a result of the location of power in society and of a certain militaristic tendency in our culture. Interestingly, the biggest change in sports, and in some of these attitudes in sports in general, is increased participation of girls and women in sports, including team sports. This was a huge cultural change and I do think it has made a difference in some of the militaristic attitudes on the high school level.
I have many reflections here but I must end this now.
Jerry
> You'll recall the CP publications, at their zenith, had lively sports
> sections. They quite properly saw nothing wrong with covering the
> commercial
> leagues, though of course they encouraged their readers - as a healthy
> society would do - to get out and play rather than just watch. I think
> that
> was the right attitude to have.
>
>
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>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/