A recent article in The New Yorker, Offensive Play How different are dog fighting and football? By Malcolm Gladwell, explores the effect of extreme contact sports like football and boxing on the human brain.
For an American male, I’m a bit of an anomaly. I do not really follow sports, except professional golf mildly. There are several reasons for this.
One would be that for me personally sports are more for the doing rather than the watching. I engage in several at a fairly incompetent level, but I enjoy them nevertheless.
Secondly, a while back, I just got bored with them. Maybe that is from moving around so much and not having a significant attachment to any one team. My brothers all get season tickets to OU football games. I did the same one year, and ended up feeling like it was a waste of a good autumn afternoon. I could have been out golfing, camping, or any number of other activities. But that is me.
Thirdly, with professional sports, the salaries have become obscene. It galls me that professional sport franchises hold up cities to get them to build sports arenas. If they can afford the salaries, they can afford the arenas. The money could be better spent in so many other areas. Have you been to a professional sporting event lately? The ticket price for most major league venues is sky high. You get inside and beer is $8 a can. Food is similarly priced in the rip off range. While I enjoy the occasional game, those factors leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Fourthly, for me the violence is too much. I used to enjoy boxing, but if you step back and analyze what it is you are enjoying it should give you pause. It is a very base human urge for blood, violence and to enjoy pain inflected on another human.
Football is not far behind. Philosophically, I find both sports promulgating these unworthy influences. If you ask yourself the philosophical question is this Right Conduct, how could it be answered? Should we not be aspiring to higher things? The other college/high school sports do not inspire the fanaticism that football does. My theory that it is the blood lust that plays a key component in this. Why else would they replay a “hit” “good” or bad over and over? Is it milking the blood lust for all it is worth?
Mr. Gladwell quotes some scenes on dog fighting in his article. Read those and you may feel that Michael Vicks should have gotten a sentence several times more than he did.
If you have a child engaged in football the studies on brain injures and their consequences down the road should make you think twice, trice or more about letting them play football.
Is the permanent maiming of college and professional athletes, no matter how well paid, worth it simply for our amusement. In an ethical society I would say not.
Read the article and make up your own mind.
At least the football players have chosen what they are doing. I doubt the dogs do.