Fetish of the Lobotomy
Brain-dead NBA “boycott” reveals pro sports cannot handle Critical Theory demands
Jeff A. Taylor
To be radical is to grasp things by the root. ― Karl Marx
Nonsensical terminology is often a tip-off to some underlying cognitive dissonance. So it was when reports began to trickle in on Wednesday that National Basketball Association players were prepared to “boycott” playoff games in response to a police shooting of a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I immediately thought, “Boycott? That is a strange word to use.”
I did not see the correct terminology, a wildcat, or unauthorized, strike, used anywhere to describe the situation until I saw it in a Thursday column for In These Times. Of course a labor-centric, socialist magazine would not shy away from using the correct term. Writer Hamilton Nolan was exultant:
Yes they were. Soon the Milwaukee Brewers and the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball would join the strike, with their own memorable declaration:
Any time you see the phrase “systemic oppression” or “systemic racism” understand it is terminology from a very specific world view, that of the neo Marxism critical theorists of the mid 20th century. The central tenet of critical theory in all of its various permutations is that Western civilization is fundamentally unjust and not just unjust, but illegitimate. Such societies are divided into the oppressed and their oppressors and so it shall forever be unless and until the “systems” of oppression, defined as every single institution in society including the nuclear family (especially the family), is torn asunder and remade to reflect social justice.
In a delightful bit of synchronicity that would make even Jung tingle, one of the primary architects of neo Marxism and the leading light of critical theory on Western campuses for decades was German philosopher Herbert Marcuse. The same Herbert Marcuse who was one of the founders of In These Times magazine back in 1976. His 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance is the ur-text of cancel culture, rejecting the notion of a marketplace of ideas in favor of active censorship of voices critical theory deems to represent the oppressor class.
The flip side of critical theory’s suppression of wrong speech is its compulsion of right speech, the “silence is violence” dialectic. You must denounce oppression or you are complicit in it. We saw the logical, dialectical expression of this concept on the streets of Washington, DC a few nights ago. A mob demanding that a woman raise her fist to “stand” with them.
This is the unhappy place America’s pro sports leagues have backed themselves into over recent months. By granting the critical theory premise that America is a nation of the oppressed and their oppressors, owners, commissioners, and TV execs are just along for the ride down the dialectic. No concession or compromise is possible as their very systems are illegitimate.
Not only do pro sports leagues not understand this meta, they do not seem to grasp what easy targets they are for disruption and shakedown by critical theory attackers. Critical theory holds that meritocracy is an “ideology,” just another rigged system of oppression. However, sports cannot function without merit, the idea that there is an objective measure of human performance. Think of the tireless man hours and billions of dollars that leagues pour into to discovering which player is better than another. Yet here in the dystopian summer of 2020 those same leagues have tied themselves into knots trying to appease critics, and their own players, who believe that the organizing principle of their endeavors is an illusion, a fraud, a prison.
The final disconnect is so obvious it almost always escapes mention. If America is truly a country of “systemic oppression,” should we not suspend all professional sportball activities until such time as the oppression is eradicated and we can once again enjoy frivolous pastimes with a clear, socially aware conscious? ##
Taylor writes from Upstate South Carolina
