[lbo-talk] lefty on futbol

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jul 2 12:34:15 PDT 2010


On Jul 2, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Dennis Perrin wrote:


>> Noam Chomsky's take is the same as Eagleton's, almost word for word:
>>
>> Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way--so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff; political and social life are out of your range, they're in the hands of the rich folk. So what's left? Well, one thing that's left is sports--
>
> Etc.
>
> Noam is right. This is exactly sports' function in the US. And yet, I'm a big sports fan. Willing dupe? Slave to nostalgia

You could say something similar about art, but it wouldn't have the same looking-down-on quality.

Doug



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