Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

the meaningless of sport combined with how much you can make it mean is prob the greatest thing about it

xpost

xps you can argue football riots amongst regionally or sectarianally (word?) or class or whatever division of any type your 'opposing fans' identify with are as much to do with actual football as the crusades are to do with the Bible

I mean, it's not unarguable like

the meaningless of sport combined with how much you can make it mean is prob the greatest thing about it

xpost

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, November 17, 2017 10:14 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a great way of putting it

'd say our inherent capacity for violence predates a great deal.

xpost to deems

i think that's as much about being american as it is about being male

look at Italy, look at Poland right now, it's everywhere

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

the particularity of poland re: sports and masculinity is interesting. hooliganism is super popular there and hooligan groups are partly responsible for the rise of right-wing nationalism in the country, and it's really a full-fledged culture: from petty stuff like grafitti wars where they grafitti swastikas against historically jewish teams, to organized criminal activity like drug trade + fighting cops for sport. it's this nexus where sports + hypermasculinity + (proto-)fascism converge. not saying that football is responsible for the far-right marches recently, because a lot of the right-wing drift has mostly to do with how strong conservative catholicism is there (also true of italy)

"the meaningless of sport combined with how much you can make it mean" - cf. "the reason academic politics are so vicious is that the stakes are so small"

xp to lg well yeah I mean that's the thread kinda but throwing sport under a bus is.....I don't wanna say it's maybe what you'd expect a ilx poster to do while advocating we all do music instead.....but ....

women play sports too and afaict enjoy it

you brought up music and literature, not me, smart guy

xp

True but iirc twas you isolated sports as a realm that involved these bahaviours

But lookit

Behaviours that make you go bah before you ask

At the same time, cultures that prioritize zero-sum competitive success tend to downplay collaborative, cooperative, non-zero-sum activities.

― loretta swit happens (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, November 17, 2017 10:14 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like almost every modern nation, even the most communitarian countries

we've reached a point in the discussion where the philosopher is beating himself now

True but iirc twas you isolated sports as a realm that involved these bahaviours

no. please learn to read. someone else brought up sports as a good example of an outlet/channel for turning violent and aggressive behavior towards non-violent and non-aggressive activities.

to which I pointed out that sports are historically very violent. which is a fact.

So is everything

ps can't read did sports at school

turning violent and aggressive behavior towards non-violent and non-aggressive activities.

― Οὖτις, Friday, November 17, 2017 10:31 AM (twenty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i never said sport is non-violent and non-aggressive

you should take your own advice

Lads

I bumped a sports thread fyi

can't believe i'm quoting my god damn self now on ilx

some kids really do need an outlet for their anger/energy and sports is a good way to release it, especially as a referee is more or less monitoring their aggression. if done properly there are consequences for a boy overdoing it. the lack of supervision that leads to something serious is not inherent to sports. it's the responsibility of the coach, trainer, and/or parents. sports is not meant to mellow out aggressive boys or cure aggression. it's just one component

having said that, minor hockey, as an example, is restricting fighting more and more since i was a kid and they are teaching kids more about technique/finesse and overall good sportsmanship

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Friday, November 17, 2017 9:38 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp to lg well yeah I mean that's the thread kinda but throwing sport under a bus is.....I don't wanna say it's maybe what you'd expect a ilx poster to do while advocating we all do music instead.....but ....

oh yeah, i was agreeing with you by pointing that out.

Historically, opposing groups of music fans have not murdered each other en masse.

Historically, sports fans haven't either, unless you're thinking of examples I can't call to mind.

I grew up in the age of mods vs rockers, teds vs punks, that's fairly analogous to football hooliganism as far as I can tell.

I posted some links

Jack Nicholson went mental with a croquet mallet that one time

On the other hand Mick Jagger stabbed that black guy so we might be level here

lot of writers done jail time. Dostoevsky, Wilde, Jeffrey Archer

xp you did - missed that, sorry. To be fair, only the last of the three, all of which sound unbelievably awful in their different ways, seems to represent sports fans killing each other en masse.

sunday is international men's day, fyi

but then you've gotta factor in all the people who've killed themselves because Morrissey told them too

lotta people got shivved during the "Rite of Spring" riots

Stevie Gerrard kicking the shit out of that DJ probably goes down as a score draw

The only problem with sport is that people follow male-only teams or male competitors to a vastly disproportionate level & thus valourise sport as above all a clash of men, which is p patriarchal

I watched some women's cricket this morning otoh so I am pure and great j/k j/k obviously I watch way, way more men's stuff and have a Charlton men's season ticket and watch men's cricket and men's snooker and men's everything more than women's equivalent and the culture might change towards equality but the change is p glacial even with the tangible progress of the last couple decades

*makes j/k off motion*

obv the ideal is mixed teams on merit. one day perhaps

would like to devise a sport that gives men and women equal chances to be successful when pitted against each other. it's the great sport-theory challenge of our day

xp Yeah Marlowe got offed in a South London poetry beef irc.

Astor Place riots probably a more apposite example of non-sports crowds put to deadly ends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Place_Riot

ANYWAY I agree that all of these things totally suck but it doesn't make any sense to me to see mass-spectator sport based violence as anything other than a symptom of the broader problem of violence under discussion.

xp. i enjoy women's sport. i go to women's fitba sometimes, would do so more often if there were a professional team where i live. but (not to be facts don't care about your feelings) sexual dimorphism in humans is an actual thing that exists and the nature of most sports means that male sport will tend to be more interesting to watch.

integrate curling imo

would like to devise a sport that gives men and women equal chances to be successful when pitted against each other

Quidditch iirc

xps. good things about women's sport - specifically football - less bro'y crowd, families, women, queer people. less money so less sponsorship crap everywhere. less money so less cheating - i.e. PEDs which are definitely a feature of men's soccer don't seem to have trickled down.

Did you mean hurling mookie

i did not

Benefit of doubt rescinded

Hurling Mookie = underrated 90s jam band

Stevie Gerrard kicking the shit out of that DJ probably goes down as a score draw

― the intentional phallusy (Noodle Vague), Friday, November 17, 2017 7:38 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

it doesn't make any sense to me to see mass-spectator sport based violence as anything other than a symptom of the broader problem of violence under discussion.

I'm getting kind of tired of repeating myself, but this isn't what I did. I was refuting the idea that sports are a non-violent/non-aggressive outlet for that type of behavior. Which is counter-intuitive given how deeply embedded in our violent culture sports have been, historically speaking. Some people may find it adequate as a healthy outlet that prevents them from murdering people, other people will use it as outlet for murdering people. Hurray humanity.

Can't measure all the lives saved thru sport so I spose we'll have to call this.....a tie

I see what you did there

I was refuting the idea that sports are a non-violent/non-aggressive outlet for that type of behavior.

No one said it was a non-violent/non-aggressive outlet. What was said is that it is an outlet where the violence and aggression can be controlled and channeled into something positive under the correct guidance.

difference w out a distinction imo

I mean my point stands, sports often fails to control and channel violence and aggression into something positive. It's just as likely to just get channeled into actual violence and aggression.

high school jocks were some of the most psychotically violent ppl I've ever known. In contrast to the psychotic violence of the less socially adept outcasts and weirdos, jocks' violence was laughed off/approved of/explicitly condoned.