Intern_8033 wrote:My problem with sports is that they're innately competitive, meaning, in order for you to be good, someone else must be bad. You could argue that this isn't true in theory, but it certainly is in practice. Compare this to music, for example, which is regularly practiced as a self-contained process of challenging _yourself_, competing against _yourself_.

Practicing an instrument is no less competitive than playing catch with a friend or shooting a basketball. If performing music does not contain a competitive element, does that imply that one band is just as good as another? Granted, this competition might be perceived only by an audience (e.g. "the Shellac concert rocked, but the opening band was much better"). This is not so different from saying, "The Braves won the game because they are a better team than the Mets." The difference is that organized sports have more clearly-defined rules for recognizing accomplishments. Then again, the ancient Greeks wrote volumes about the rules of aesthetics, which sadly seem to have been lost on most artists today. Anyway, most musicians that I know don't really care whether they're seen as better or worse than anyone else, and as you say, they're only competing with themselves. I would reckon that most athletes feel pretty much the same way. If you are a shitty baseball player, you will likely have a hard time making a team. If you are a shitty musician, you will probably have a hard time getting people to listen to your music. In theory, music is a subjective expression of non-competitiveness; in practice, when was the last time you listened to a Toto album, or wanted to?

I think it’s better to be able to berate your team, than say, to beat your girlfriend.

Why choose one when you can have both?

Point well taken. I'll have to try that next time my team blows an 8-3 lead in the eighth inning.

i can't really speak for chomsky, but it didn't seem to me that he was stereotyping sports fans or sports culture. or anyway, he would be unjustified in doing that.

there is a certain amount of energy that people have, and where we live a lot of that energy gets focused on seemingly complex subjects like sports. i don't necessarily think that's an all-together bad thing, but it is interesting to note that when people are effectively cut off from political participation, they have energy left over and they focus it on things like sports. people in some circles stand to get very rich off that while perpetuating the system that disconnected people from political activity in the first place. i personally think that people getting together and organizing games/leagues themselves (ala the electrons) goes beyond the sports culture to which chomsky was referring.

just a side note: i'm a cubs fan, sitting on my couch and watching the games with the rest of them.

greasygoose wrote:

Intern_8033 wrote:when was the last time you listened to a Toto album, or wanted to?

i actually had the song 'Africa' in my head all night saturday and part of sunday morning...does that count?

andyk

Intern_8033 wrote:My problem with sports is that they're innately competitive, meaning, in order for you to be good, someone else must be bad. You could argue that this isn't true in theory, but it certainly is in practice.

Finally, I can reply to you, because I have a counter argument.

You can be good and bad all by yourself -- it doesn't require someone else. Baseball (uniquely, I think) is littered with brilliant players, recognized as such, who have elevated the game and done all the good things baseball can do for us, while playing for resoundingly bad (hopeless even) teams.

Gary Carter
Walter Johnson
Alex Rodriguez
Mike Piazza
Ron Santo
Eric Gagne
Rocco Baldelli
Ed Delahanty
Warren Spahn

There are also great (in some sense) players who know the desperate need to hang in there in a great game. These guys are clearly good, or they wouldn't be able to play at the professional level, but they are also no longer as good as they were. In some cases, they become "bad." They are doing it for reasons beyond "winning" or "competition," which escapes everyone over a long-enough career:

Ricky Henderson
Jesse Orosco
Wilber Wood
Satchel Paige

There is something special about baseball, and it has only a little bit to do with competition.

best,

So beauty is natural then? Surely you meant to say not that human nature is interfering with logic but that primitive-frat-boy-socialization is interfering with more "enlightened" socialization. There is nothing natural about beauty. Animals don't fuck each other because they're beautiful.

Plus why are you working in a damn bank if you're living in a corn growing town? My god, get into corn.

Intern_8033 wrote:I hate that it is happening to me, the same way I hate when I am nice to a girl just because she is pretty. I feel like human nature is interfering with logic.

I don't understand why it is necessary to have a logical basis for an unconscious act. What's wrong with "human nature?" It has served our species well for millenia.

I haven't reasoned-out why I prefer the company of cats to dogs, but I do. I find myself happier when I share time with a cat, even though my life hasn't improved any.

I am also nicer to women than I am to men, to old people than post-collegiate bohemians, to kids than adults, to policemen than civilians. I think only a small part of this behavior is learned. The cops thing is, for sure.

I am questioning my tastes less and less as I age. Perhaps this is a weakness.

"Swifty Swifterson?" Jesus.

If the Cubs make it to the World Series, I have agreed to "root" for them. This is because I believe they will be in it against the Yankees, who I hate with a passion I reserve for them and this purpose alone.

best,

possessing an intelligence that allows him to divide the opposite sex into two distinct classes: Those which he would fuck, and those he would not.

And women aren't superficial, right? Have you read any of these online rock and roll tour diaries? Nine times out of ten it's the homely band member sitting forlornly post show at a kitchen table lamenting his failure to score while his bandmates get it on in the next room.

None of this changes the fact that discerning beauty is a learned behavior. When I think of my earliest infatuations they were not based on anything visual. I probably developed that social behavior, like most bad things, in junior high school. And don't give me any of these supposedly cross cultural studies that end up with everyone "blindly" choosing the same features as ideal. If you're cultured enough to understand the rules for these studies than you're by definition not "blind".

As for the second part of your post I can only say the term "human nature" has been bandied about far too loosely in this thread. The things you list are precisely the most artificial, de-natured or social manifestations of humanity. And I am in no way shape or form a hippy.

I guess it's God's way of telling us that we aren't supposed to be questioning these things.

You are Rush Limbaugh and I claim my five pounds.

Intern_8033 wrote:This has really gotten off subject...

But if I'm going to treat a human being different from another human being based on some kind of external substance, I better have a reason. Likewise, if I'm going to get excited about a baseball team, which is just a variation of the human tendency to be jingoistic, it's unsettling to not have a reason.

You have a reason: She was pretty. You have a reason for preferring one marble to another, and so steal it from my collection: It was a blue glasseye, and you like blue glasseyes.

I agree with you, I don't think it's learned for a man to treat an unfamiliar woman better than an unfamiliar man -- I think it's awful and I don't think there is a way to deal with it, this dichotomy of intellectual reason and human nature.

You think it's awful that you were nice to a lady? What kind of an asshole would feel awful about being nice to someone?

If it implies to you that you could be nicer to other people as well (but aren't), then maybe you could feel awful about that.

Work being a generally nicer, more positive influence on the world: Steal fewer marbles, be conciously nicer to other people, take a wrench and fuck-up a rowdy "lifelong" Cubs fan... The possibiilities are endless.

best,

steve wrote:I haven't reasoned-out why I prefer the company of cats to dogs, but I do. I find myself happier when I share time with a cat, even though my life hasn't improved any.

I like dogs just fine, but sometimes their behavior patterns remind me of certain types of people whom I dislike, which bugs me a little. They are pack animals after all. Still, I prefer an animal that serves as “man’s best friend” to a human being who feigns to act as such. I tend to prefer the personalities of most cats—independent, low key and normally reserved, but incredibly loyal and loving to their companions when treated likewise.

My girlfriend made me watch that animated “Cats and Dogs” movie. What a crock of shit (no surprise there). The neighborhood cats want to take over the world at the behest of an evil white-haired Persian mastermind, and only the local gang of dogs can prevent it from happening. That kind of fundamental misunderstanding and mistrust of the feline really pisses me off.

It’s also pretty repugnant that both cats and dogs have suffered the injustice of having their namesakes utilized as popular slang terms for people, as in “Where my dogs (dawgs?) at?” or “Those cats that played at the Blue Note were on a whole other level.” I think I’m going to start referring to my friends as fishes or chinchillas or some other domesticated animal, just to be fair.

-greasygoose