Modern Sports, Modern Politics
A product of mass-media’s zero-sum mentality
Winner takes all
The transformation of pastimes into a form of non-participatory entertainment is a product of the mass-media. Before literacy became widespread, newspapers were more like political periodicals. They were read by a minority of the community who were more or less respected by the community for their scholarship.
It is not until William Randolph Hearst that sports became a staple of publication. Certainly, sports had been a method of loyalty building for the elite for decades in secondary and collegiate education. And, it carried over to politics as various schools were allied with opposing political philosophies. But it was through the media that this was brought to a wider audience and began to undermine both education and the political system itself.
The U. S. winner-take-all voting system is vulnerable to vindictive behavior in the winners of a contest. Early in the rise of collegiate and professional sports (and continuing until well into the post-war era) the ideal of grace in victory and dignity in defeat were enshrined in the concept of ‘good sportsmanship’ and was indeed a reflection of the democratic values that supported civil debate and eschewing tyranny over minority viewpoints. I say “ideal” as there is ample evidence that it was rarely achieved; however, it was undoubtedly a cherished ideal that all strived to claim for themselves no matter how tyrannical their behavior.
Win at any cost
Sports has virtually killed it. “Win at any cost” began in professional sports through gambling initially. Gladiator style competitions, especially, are antithetical to respect for the opponent. Boxing, wrestling, dog fighting, chicken fighting are at their base blood sports aimed at debilitating or even killing an opponent. All of the traditional Olympic sports are martial -either directly like fencing or as physical tests of related skills like the marathon, sprinting, pole vault, and gymnastics. Might makes right. To the victor go the spoils. These concepts are anti-democratic. They deny the value of debate and compromise by creating a zero-sum contest.
The creeping invasion of sports into the educational system began not long after the newspaper became more a vehicle of entertainment than of information (thank you Mr. Hearst). By the 1920’s collegiate sports became a staple of big city reporting and culture. And by the 1950’s it had spread to the rest of the country and spawned a mania for competitive sports that engulfed even elementary age children, beginning with baseball’s Little League. Adult volunteers soon became paid staff and those staff attached to education through the elementary school system.
All this while football and basketball became centers of high school and then junior high school social life. At all levels funding, initially from participants, was taken over by the institutions and then gradually expanded as the popularity of the entertainment increased. Volunteer coaching positions became part-time stipends became salaried positions and finally the position receiving the highest levels of compensation in academia. While the various sports teams became institutions that combined consumed the majority of resources starving actual educational endeavors of the monies and facilities necessary to educate citizens to participate in both the governing of the country and supporting its economy.
With the gradual take-over of academia and social life came a growth of interpreting the world through the lens of sports using sports metaphor. So the zero sum game became conventional wisdom. ‘Loser’ has become the ultimate insult. And, with this, truly corrosive and harmful social behavior has become admired.
Trolls and frauds are praised for their cleverness when they succeed and escape unpunished. Donald Trump is the most recent (and until now the most successful) symptom of the cancer of academic sports. Division and ignorance are the unavoidable result of turning academic institutions in to arenas of entertainment especially in the realm of raising our nation’s children.
yers,
AccordingToJoe
