Noam Chomsky

seanyshuffler wrote: Baldrick wrote: seanyshuffler wrote: Even looking on this forum the amount of detail some people can go into when debating football is quiet remarkable. It's the equivalent of physicists or political scientists having a debate in their field. Perhaps some peoples minds on here should be put to better use in areas that actually matter.   Who determines what matters though.   Its an exisistentialist question about life.  Who is anyone to tell another person how they should conduct their life and how they should use their brain etc.  In my view the term should is a very dangerous term as it someone how indicates that there is a hierarchy of ways to spend your life.  Within reason, as long as you do not harm or hurt someone else if you wish to talk about football all day c'est la vie. What has more of an impact in life, political institutions or footballing ones?

Baldrick wrote: seanyshuffler wrote: Baldrick wrote: seanyshuffler wrote: Even looking on this forum the amount of detail some people can go into when debating football is quiet remarkable. It's the equivalent of physicists or political scientists having a debate in their field. Perhaps some peoples minds on here should be put to better use in areas that actually matter.   Who determines what matters though.   Its an exisistentialist question about life.  Who is anyone to tell another person how they should conduct their life and how they should use their brain etc.  In my view the term should is a very dangerous term as it someone how indicates that there is a hierarchy of ways to spend your life.  Within reason, as long as you do not harm or hurt someone else if you wish to talk about football all day c'est la vie. What has more of an impact in life, political institutions or footballing ones?   Well depends do you mean life or do you mean society.  I would say for someone like Messi that football has had a much bigger impact on his life than say political institutions.  However on society, political institutions has a far greater impact on life.  Knowing all of that, who says we should spend more time thinking about the things that have greater impact.  Maybe we should think about the things we enjoy and keep us sane and not hurting others.  Its a dangerous game when we have people using the term should, when it comes to people thought process and how they spend their time.

Over short time periods sport can have a significent influence on a country as anyone old enough to remember Italia 90 would testify. The amount of spontaneous goodwill and bonhomie around at that time was amazing, a once in a lifetime experience which will never be replicated........

seanyshuffler wrote: Baldrick wrote: So do you think they should or shouldn't spend time talking about football or do you not know.  People can do what they like. I just pointed out that the level of detail people can go into on here when debating matters of football that perhaps they would be better served debating politics or some other important issue.

Edited by Baldrick - 23 Apr 2013 at 12:14pm

I agree they are hypothetical statements, just like your original statement indicated by the term perhaps.  

Edited by Baldrick - 23 Apr 2013 at 12:35pm

I think most are missing the point.

That point being that the masses are distracted by sport (for example) to deflect their attention away from them being mere pawns for the elite ruling classes.

The same can be said of television, celebrity and music.

He theorises that if we weren't distracted by the above we would wake up to the utter pointless shallow existence we lead.

Marching to our end as slaves to some capitalist ideal we will never (the vast majority anyway) reach. All the while being distracted by mass media and sport as if any of them actually mean anything to our ultimate existence.

Morbid, I know, but that is the point he is trying to make. Not that sport is any better or worse than any other pastime.

Edited by eire77 - 23 Apr 2013 at 3:01pm

Sport unities people greater than any political party, policy or agenda . If we all talked about politics all day life would be pretty boring . I'm all for taking about world issues , history and politics but sometimes ye got to sit back and not take life too seriously. . that's my take on it anyway.

RogerMilla wrote: yes but the point is that sport and other distractions make the existence we lead more bearable and therefore less shallow . there will always be ruling classes , people are better off now in most countries than they were before popular media, music and before the cult of sport. the best you can hope for is a nice life.

You're actually making my point!

You've accepted your lot (not having a go - most of us have too) and will never do anything about it (this is the indoctronation) and are now happy to be distracted by something which makes the whole thing more "bearable".

Fwiw I can't agree that people are better off now. That is definitely not a given. The gap between the haves and the have nots has never been so wide. Most people just don't realise it.

Do media, television, sport (mainly viewing not participating) and consumerism really equate to a greater standard of living than the more socially inclusive communities of times gone by? I'm not so sure.

Edited by eire77 - 23 Apr 2013 at 9:19pm

Possibly but my point is that it there is a theory that the packaging of sport (and the modern phenomenon of the celebrity sports star) and indeed our news are tools used by the media, governments and big business to provide distraction to the masses.