DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

Read it.

People often dismiss philosophical disputes as mere quibbles about words.   But shifts in terminology can turn the tide in public debates.

Which is why ‘progressives’ fight so hard to control the terms of debate, ‘gay marriage’ being the poster child for this struggle — their desperate attempts to shoehorn a relationship that isn’t marriage into the term ‘marriage’ is the linchpin of their program; if they can succeed at that, then the rest is just a matter of time. The attempts to paint everything from pointing out that black people commit more crimes than white people to cutting off welfare benefits to goldbricks (who — I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked — tend to be black more than white) as ‘racism’ is the long-term effort that has proven the most rewarding in this respect.

(Of course, this article, being by a Voice of the Crust — as if anyone else would be printed in the New York Times — uses an anti-Republican example, but the point remains valid.)

There are, of course, many cases of athletes who are primarily students, particularly in “minor” (i.e., non-revenue producing) sports.  But what about Division I football and men’s basketball, the big-time programs with revenues in the tens of millions of dollars that are a major source of their schools’ national reputation?  Are the members of these teams typically students first?

Quit snickering.

The N.C.A.A.’s own 2011 survey showed that by a wide variety of measures the answer is no.  For example, football and men’s basketball players (who are my primary focus here) identify themselves more strongly as athletes than as students, gave more weight in choosing their college to athletics than to academics, and, at least in season, spend more time on athletics than on their studies (and a large majority say they spend as much or more time on sports during the off-season).

I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

It’s clear, then, that on the whole members of these teams are athletes first and students second, both from their own standpoint and from that of their schools.

Which comes from using colleges as the farm team system for football and basketball. I suppose the only reason it’s not used for baseball as well is the historical fluke that school tends to be out during the baseball season.

At a minimum, there’s the harm of saying that players are primarily students when they are not.  This is a falsehood institutionalized for the benefit of a profit-making system, and educational institutions should have no part in it.

Oh, are we drawing up a list of ‘falsehoods institutionalized for the benefit of a profit-making system’? Let’s start with Congress….

The deeper harm, however, lies in the fact that, in the United States, there is a strong strain of anti-intellectualism that undervalues intellectual culture and overvalues athletics.

… from the point of view of the Crust, of course, of which (memorandum) this writer is a Voice. The Crust is stuffed full with effete faineant intellectuals (think Dick Cavett, or maybe Truman Capote) who are the spiritual heirs of Oscar Wilde and regard sweating (except in the pursuit of sexual gratification) to be distinctly Lower Class.

This, mind you, is in marked contrast to the Classical tradition — you know, Greeks, Romans, those kinds of people — of which the Crust pretend to be the curators, who took seriously the ‘in corpore sano’ half of their educational program. Correctly understood, there is nothing anti-intellectual about participating in, or even enjoying watching, athletics. Indeed, professional sports are among the most intellectual activities available to modern man … at least, if one wants to win on a consistent basis.

As a result, intellectual culture receives far less support than it should, and is generally regarded as at best the idiosyncratic interest of an eccentric minority.

… which, in modern times, it obviously is.

Athletics, by contrast, is more than generously funded and embraced as an essential part of our national life.

… which it certainly ought to be … and, thank God, still hangs in there. When people put their money where their mouths are, more of them are willing to shell out to watch the Steelers play the Pats than are willing to spring for what passes for art, literature, or any of the other quasi-intellectual pursuits that occupy the culture pages of such Establishment bastions as, oh, say, the New York Times.

Anyone who finds this author’s suggestions attractive need only look at the Ivy League schools, who follow it about as strictly as any American colleges could be expected to. How many Ivy League graduates, certifiably students first and athletes second, wind up in the pros? You could certainly count the number without resorting to taking your shoes off. And I’m sure this Professor of Philosophy is perfectly comfortable with that, despite the agita it would undoubtedly cause Plato or Aristotle.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2012 at 09:18 and is filed under Think about it.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.