The other day I typed in "gifts for men" into Amazon, hoping to spark an idea for my husband's stocking on Christmas. It was depressing.
Pages, and pages and pages of gag gifts more appropriate for a teenager, "funny" gifts featuring sixth-grade humor references to poop and balls and farts, and an utterly ENDLESS list of pocket knives, flashlights, and references to bourbon/whiskey.
As I kept trying a new page hoping for something else it hit me. This is incredibly... juvenile. It's one big infantilization of men, as if they are incapable of wanting anything other than beef jerky and gadgets.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with pocket knives and hats with lights on them, and socks that say "do not disturb, I'm gaming"....but come on..... nothing BUT that crap? It's all presented as if men have no depth, no nuance or individual personality, no maturity. Didn't see one thing worth giving my most excellent husband.
American football serves as a useful stereotype of a fat armchair quarterback who is at best reliving his teenage glory days. I used to in what feels like another lifetime ago attend Michigan football parties. Boy if they lost, especially to arch enemy Ohio State, people were depressed for weeks. I suppose it gave people in the area a camraderie and a common talking point as everyone saw the game. But having no TV and living away from there for decades I couldn't tell you a thing about it. I suppose we all want heroes and to identify with the winning team. It does seem immature but then again they've been dumbing people down for decades
I, too, was once a follower. I had a team, and God Dammit, the team from my geographical area was superior to the one from yours. Eventually, I recognized it as misspent passion for a cause I could not aid in any way, apart from being needlessly happy of needlessly sad - wash, rinse, repeat. Then, they did me a solid and painted BLM on the end-zones and introduced the “Black National Anthem” before every game. Thank you, NFL, you woke me from my slumber. I have not voluntarily watched a game since. I wonder how the team from my geographical area is doing? Actually, no, I don’t. Piss off, overpaid woke warriors!
I agree 100%. Let me try to extend the argument: Having lived outside of the US, you might be familiar with the role that "soccer" (i.e. real football, haha) plays in Europe. It has become a peculiar surrogate for patriotism, in that it is permitted to be a most intolerant local-patriot for you local football team, with a particular emphasis on tradition, anti-commerce and hatred for rivals from other cities. My theory is that the regime needs it to channel energies into this consequenceless and ultimately uninspiring (beyond city borders) type of "nationalism", to not endanger globohomo spirit. The US system of franchises, in my opinion, offers this also, but to a much lesser extend, as a franchise can move from city to city and change "owner" hands from one day to the next. Although I understand that there a still legacy teams in the US.
I used to enjoy watching Wimbledon back in the Borg and Nastasi days but since the wooden rackets were ditched and the ball speeds thereby increased Wimbledon hasn't been worth watching, the skill has gone out of it, and that was long before the inherent unfairness came along to further ruin it of the women getting the same prize money as the men when people only go to watch the men and the men play games on average three times longer.
Aside from my once a year dalliance with Wimbledon back in the 1970's I can't see the point of sport. except to feel part of a crowd of like minded people and that is probably why the powers that be feel the need to totally control it because crowds can do as they please and nothing the cops can do to stop them.
On a more technical/personal note I was lucky my dad took me to watch our local team, Dundee, getting hammered a couple of times back in the 1960's while we stood freezing in the stands getting soaked in the middle of Winter and I thought what is the earthly point of standing here freezing to death to watch crap football when they could be playing it in the middle of Summer where Dundee gets up to a balmy 20DegC on a good year? I have never understood the concept of playing sport in the worst weather possible rather than the best weather possible. Those few freezing visits to the stands at Dens road made me a lifelong avoider of all things sport and I haven't wasted a millisecond of my life worrying about which person of zero consequence to me was going to do something of complete "irrelevance" better than another person of zero consequence to me but as I say by avoiding that crowd revelling in those "irrelevancies" I have essentially handed power over to the powers that be that would once have feared me as part of the crowd. I remember hearing the roar of the crowd from a couple of miles away and that power went away when they cut down the "permitted" sizes of the crowds "for safety reasons". Whose safety I wonder and who has the right to tell people how many of them should be "permitted" to gather together to enjoy shared "irrelevancies"?
I think football season is intentionally scheduled for fall and winter because weathering the harsh conditions is part of the simulation of war. The struggle is the point.
Thanks very much for mentioning Jules Henry's 1963 book "Culture Against Man". I cannot find a PDF anywhere, but all page images can be viewed in a one hour at a time (for one person at a time in the world, I think) "loan" arrangement via several scanned copies at https://archive.org. For instance: https://archive.org/details/cultureagainstma0000jule/ .
"And Henry understands why we have become so indifferent, why the banality of culture can spill over into the 'banality of evil.' It is because
this is what we are taught to be: by slick ad-men, by innocent magazines for teen-agers, by deluded politicians and mistrustful academics. This is not an expose, since the deluders are themselves deluded, since the cruel are themselves mistreated. The dialectic is that no one escapes unscathed, The cultural machine claims as its
victims the myth-makers no less than the mass-market. . . . the process of dehumanization claims its perpetrators no less than the victimized.
... confusion of left and right, I'm probably the only living social scientist in the Milky Way galaxy, capable of objectively articulating, differentiating, intellectualizing philosophy of change. Similarly so, I am probably the only living soul able to objectively slice 'n dice these peculiar American pastimes intended, for our diversionary amusement and merriment; boil the thing down to what they really are. That obsessions with these pastimes became so artificially inflated, they've been insulated from our axiom to intellectualize exactly what it is we're actually watching. Example which serves to underline my contention? Football? In and of itself, what is it? Let me ask you, if you please: how many people does it take, to legally rob a bank? Put you in a time capsule to the 1930s, Thompson sub-machine guns, they shot Dillinger down, like a dog, so we know, simple environmental reasoning, the sum we seek isn't going to be 1. Let's say, act of illegal asset acquisition boiled down, to several separate specialized tasks, each definitive task wholly innocent unto itself? Crafting a simulation, one guy blocks, one guy kicks, one guy throws, one guy runs, one guy catches (e.g., sound familiar?), the didactic nature of such a simulation (e.g., illegal ground acqquisition) would inevitably become hopelessly obscured, by those entrusted its commentation. The thought of American football, a clever parody on the question of unethical property rights incursions, those viewing (e.g., as George Orwell foretold) intellectually benumbed to such extent, they paint their faces, scream and shout, in abject approval. The answer we seek, how many people does it take to legally loot a city? In the vernacular, it would be more than the 11 we see, on a football squad. Rising from the trees for a look at the forest, we'd slice and dice this two ways, differentiating sport from game. Anything didactic (e.g., subliminal messages to reinforce your programming), are a game, and cannot be considered sport. Baseball, football, basketball are games. They are not (NOT) sport. Ground acquisition, parody of an enclosure movement, a parody of America's manifest destiny, football is anything but a sport. They're obsessed by these games, because they've been programmed to be - asj.
Homework assignment for you: connect the dots, Formula 1, a parody on prostitution? About this time? Such blasphemy, I'm likely to be burned, at the stake - qud, asj.
I've spent over 50 years marveling at this bizarre devotion to spectator sports. I find it repulsive. I understand the desire to *play*, but the desire to sit and scream at someone else playing totally eludes me.
It's an ego trip by association to something they want to be a part of. Same thing with nationalism, race or other group. It's an old bias where cavemen needed to be in a group to survive. Because lonely cavemen died young!
Well, I'm a Dallas Cowboy and we will get our sixth ring this year cause the wait has been too long... but you have a point, for some people there seems more interest in football that in turning into a totalitarian regime which I guess is pretty sad even though wanted by the masters of puppets!
The other day I typed in "gifts for men" into Amazon, hoping to spark an idea for my husband's stocking on Christmas. It was depressing.
Pages, and pages and pages of gag gifts more appropriate for a teenager, "funny" gifts featuring sixth-grade humor references to poop and balls and farts, and an utterly ENDLESS list of pocket knives, flashlights, and references to bourbon/whiskey.
As I kept trying a new page hoping for something else it hit me. This is incredibly... juvenile. It's one big infantilization of men, as if they are incapable of wanting anything other than beef jerky and gadgets.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with pocket knives and hats with lights on them, and socks that say "do not disturb, I'm gaming"....but come on..... nothing BUT that crap? It's all presented as if men have no depth, no nuance or individual personality, no maturity. Didn't see one thing worth giving my most excellent husband.
it's really an indictment of our culture. hence its inclusion in the "This Is America" series
Bread and circuses. Because heaven forbid the juveniles wake up and realize what the hell has been going on.
American football serves as a useful stereotype of a fat armchair quarterback who is at best reliving his teenage glory days. I used to in what feels like another lifetime ago attend Michigan football parties. Boy if they lost, especially to arch enemy Ohio State, people were depressed for weeks. I suppose it gave people in the area a camraderie and a common talking point as everyone saw the game. But having no TV and living away from there for decades I couldn't tell you a thing about it. I suppose we all want heroes and to identify with the winning team. It does seem immature but then again they've been dumbing people down for decades
I, too, was once a follower. I had a team, and God Dammit, the team from my geographical area was superior to the one from yours. Eventually, I recognized it as misspent passion for a cause I could not aid in any way, apart from being needlessly happy of needlessly sad - wash, rinse, repeat. Then, they did me a solid and painted BLM on the end-zones and introduced the “Black National Anthem” before every game. Thank you, NFL, you woke me from my slumber. I have not voluntarily watched a game since. I wonder how the team from my geographical area is doing? Actually, no, I don’t. Piss off, overpaid woke warriors!
I agree 100%. Let me try to extend the argument: Having lived outside of the US, you might be familiar with the role that "soccer" (i.e. real football, haha) plays in Europe. It has become a peculiar surrogate for patriotism, in that it is permitted to be a most intolerant local-patriot for you local football team, with a particular emphasis on tradition, anti-commerce and hatred for rivals from other cities. My theory is that the regime needs it to channel energies into this consequenceless and ultimately uninspiring (beyond city borders) type of "nationalism", to not endanger globohomo spirit. The US system of franchises, in my opinion, offers this also, but to a much lesser extend, as a franchise can move from city to city and change "owner" hands from one day to the next. Although I understand that there a still legacy teams in the US.
I also believe it's an intentional suck of essential male energy for political and social engineering purposes
Modern men and the idolatry of sports, video games, and porn.
Summed up succinctly by the quote -
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
I used to enjoy watching Wimbledon back in the Borg and Nastasi days but since the wooden rackets were ditched and the ball speeds thereby increased Wimbledon hasn't been worth watching, the skill has gone out of it, and that was long before the inherent unfairness came along to further ruin it of the women getting the same prize money as the men when people only go to watch the men and the men play games on average three times longer.
Aside from my once a year dalliance with Wimbledon back in the 1970's I can't see the point of sport. except to feel part of a crowd of like minded people and that is probably why the powers that be feel the need to totally control it because crowds can do as they please and nothing the cops can do to stop them.
On a more technical/personal note I was lucky my dad took me to watch our local team, Dundee, getting hammered a couple of times back in the 1960's while we stood freezing in the stands getting soaked in the middle of Winter and I thought what is the earthly point of standing here freezing to death to watch crap football when they could be playing it in the middle of Summer where Dundee gets up to a balmy 20DegC on a good year? I have never understood the concept of playing sport in the worst weather possible rather than the best weather possible. Those few freezing visits to the stands at Dens road made me a lifelong avoider of all things sport and I haven't wasted a millisecond of my life worrying about which person of zero consequence to me was going to do something of complete "irrelevance" better than another person of zero consequence to me but as I say by avoiding that crowd revelling in those "irrelevancies" I have essentially handed power over to the powers that be that would once have feared me as part of the crowd. I remember hearing the roar of the crowd from a couple of miles away and that power went away when they cut down the "permitted" sizes of the crowds "for safety reasons". Whose safety I wonder and who has the right to tell people how many of them should be "permitted" to gather together to enjoy shared "irrelevancies"?
I think football season is intentionally scheduled for fall and winter because weathering the harsh conditions is part of the simulation of war. The struggle is the point.
Thanks very much for mentioning Jules Henry's 1963 book "Culture Against Man". I cannot find a PDF anywhere, but all page images can be viewed in a one hour at a time (for one person at a time in the world, I think) "loan" arrangement via several scanned copies at https://archive.org. For instance: https://archive.org/details/cultureagainstma0000jule/ .
Margaret Mead gave it a good rap: PDF > https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1965.tb02281.x as did Irving Louis Horowitz: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1964.tb01625.x PDF > https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1964.tb01625.x . From the latter:
"And Henry understands why we have become so indifferent, why the banality of culture can spill over into the 'banality of evil.' It is because
this is what we are taught to be: by slick ad-men, by innocent magazines for teen-agers, by deluded politicians and mistrustful academics. This is not an expose, since the deluders are themselves deluded, since the cruel are themselves mistreated. The dialectic is that no one escapes unscathed, The cultural machine claims as its
victims the myth-makers no less than the mass-market. . . . the process of dehumanization claims its perpetrators no less than the victimized.
I have not yet read the reviews at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Against-Man-Jules-Henry/dp/0075536854 or Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2071611.Culture_Against_Man.
Second hand copies are available at https://bookfinder.com - I will order one.
I had never heard of it before coming upon it in a Mexican used bookstore. But I'm glad I was drawn to it. It's pretty interesting.
... confusion of left and right, I'm probably the only living social scientist in the Milky Way galaxy, capable of objectively articulating, differentiating, intellectualizing philosophy of change. Similarly so, I am probably the only living soul able to objectively slice 'n dice these peculiar American pastimes intended, for our diversionary amusement and merriment; boil the thing down to what they really are. That obsessions with these pastimes became so artificially inflated, they've been insulated from our axiom to intellectualize exactly what it is we're actually watching. Example which serves to underline my contention? Football? In and of itself, what is it? Let me ask you, if you please: how many people does it take, to legally rob a bank? Put you in a time capsule to the 1930s, Thompson sub-machine guns, they shot Dillinger down, like a dog, so we know, simple environmental reasoning, the sum we seek isn't going to be 1. Let's say, act of illegal asset acquisition boiled down, to several separate specialized tasks, each definitive task wholly innocent unto itself? Crafting a simulation, one guy blocks, one guy kicks, one guy throws, one guy runs, one guy catches (e.g., sound familiar?), the didactic nature of such a simulation (e.g., illegal ground acqquisition) would inevitably become hopelessly obscured, by those entrusted its commentation. The thought of American football, a clever parody on the question of unethical property rights incursions, those viewing (e.g., as George Orwell foretold) intellectually benumbed to such extent, they paint their faces, scream and shout, in abject approval. The answer we seek, how many people does it take to legally loot a city? In the vernacular, it would be more than the 11 we see, on a football squad. Rising from the trees for a look at the forest, we'd slice and dice this two ways, differentiating sport from game. Anything didactic (e.g., subliminal messages to reinforce your programming), are a game, and cannot be considered sport. Baseball, football, basketball are games. They are not (NOT) sport. Ground acquisition, parody of an enclosure movement, a parody of America's manifest destiny, football is anything but a sport. They're obsessed by these games, because they've been programmed to be - asj.
Homework assignment for you: connect the dots, Formula 1, a parody on prostitution? About this time? Such blasphemy, I'm likely to be burned, at the stake - qud, asj.
I've spent over 50 years marveling at this bizarre devotion to spectator sports. I find it repulsive. I understand the desire to *play*, but the desire to sit and scream at someone else playing totally eludes me.
Check out the group conformity experiment. People are dumb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4
It's an ego trip by association to something they want to be a part of. Same thing with nationalism, race or other group. It's an old bias where cavemen needed to be in a group to survive. Because lonely cavemen died young!
https://centralsun.substack.com/p/the-greatest-con
Well, I'm a Dallas Cowboy and we will get our sixth ring this year cause the wait has been too long... but you have a point, for some people there seems more interest in football that in turning into a totalitarian regime which I guess is pretty sad even though wanted by the masters of puppets!