Posting Guidelines and Insulting Behavior


Philip Coates

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Mark Twain:

"Golf is a good walk spoiled [ruined]."

Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious. ~P.G. Wodehouse, A Mixed Threesome, 1922

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_0YeHgK314

One of Wodehouse's genres was the Golf story, I haven't gotten into those ones much.

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Do we see adults with serious expressions on their faces organizing tournaments and world championships and TV extravaganzas built around the game Go Fish? Or Tic Tac Toe? If I play a game like that now, it's because I'm entertaining one of my grandchildren - or some other little kid.

Story time and make-believe are also for entertaining children, no? Do we see adults with serious expressions on their faces critically analyzing The Three Little Pigs or Hansel and Gretel? And yet we have adults dedicating large portions of their lives to talking about their favorite stories.

I had zero talent for either of them and was repelled by the very idea of a game like football, in which one's goal (if one is a linesman, at least) is to knock one's opponent down and trample him. This is a "game"? This is "fun"? Maybe for barbarians, or for people with the intelligence of a mule or an ape.

Yes, I think that the proper definition of "barbarian" should be "anyone who has a talent for anything which JR does not, or who enjoys that which he does not."

Sitting in an uncomfortable seat among a bunch of sweating, grunting morons, watching other people (grown men, if you can believe it) playing a game devised for and suitable for people about 10 years old - why would I want to do something like that?

I think it would be quite entertaining to watch you trying analyze the structure of an NFL offense or defense, and then tell us again that it's a game for morons and 10 year olds.

Why would I want to watch something like that on television, when I could watch a theatrical film or a documentary instead - or put on some music and read a book?

You really love your story time! Do you still do show and tell as well?

J

It's no fair to slice and dice a rant. A rant gets all it's strength and cohesiveness from its completeness. It's like this Easter stuff all over the television today. WTF? If you slice and dice Easter you'll have the left-over rabbit for diner; all else will be gone except the over-cooked eggs.

--Brant

Don't discourage Jonathan, Brant, I beg of you. He has insights into my dislike for sports that rival the insights of the great Austrian economists, Mises and Hayek, in their subtlety and well nigh universal applicability.

For example, thanks to Jonathan's insights, I now realize that my own lack of talent for murder, rape, and dismemberment - and my lack of enjoyment when I watch these things - completely explains my tendency to label as a "barbarian" anyone who does have a talent for these activities and does enjoy either committing them or watching them. Thanks to Jonathan's brilliant insights, I now realize that there are no grounds for criticizing these people at all - unless, like me, one is consumed by an irrational prejudice against anything I don't do well and don't find interesting.

Surely OL desperately needs analysis of this caliber on its site!

JR

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One further comment on Jonathan's brilliant insights may be appropriate. The child's interest in games like baseball and basketball and football is not directly comparable to his interest in stories. This is because not all stories are simple enough to appeal to children, while all baseball, basketball, and football games inescapably are. It would thus be more useful to say that children like games and children like stories. Adults often continue to like stories after they have grown up, but typically they like somewhat more complex and intricate stories than the ones that appeal to children. There are, of course, many adults who go right on reading superhero comicbooks and other material of the same sort they read at the age of 10. Some of these adults never read anything any more complex or challenging than that. I think such adults may fairly be described as "stupid" or "retarded." An adult who reads a story like Atlas Shrugged or The Fifth Head of Cerberus is not exhibiting childishness. An adult who reads the story of the three bears is doing so - unless s/he is reading it aloud to a small child, or re-reading some favorites from childhood in anticipation of entertaining a small child in the near future, or perhaps re-reading some childhood favorites to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. If the adult is reading the story of the three bears because he or she still finds it as compelling and interesting and entertaining as s/he did when s/he was four, then the adult in question is displaying a quality I would call childishness.

Similarly, adults often continue to like games after they have grown up, but typically they like somewhat more complex and intricate games than the ones that appeal to children. I can understand an adult playing bridge, but I have difficulty understanding an adult playing baseball or basketball, unless it's in the process of entertaining a child or to kill time during an exercise period, etc., etc., etc. The idea of an adult playing these games because, after all these years, s/he still finds them interesting is extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around - unless, of course, the adult we're talking about is retarded in some way.

None of this is to deny or deprecate the various kinds of social reasons that might lead someone to attend sporting events or house parties where sporting events are displayed on a big screen TV. People like to get together. A sporting event is sufficiently mindless that you can sort of half pay attention to it and still make reasonably intelligent conversation about it with the people around you. It's not intrusive, like something you'd actually have to think about or pay close attention to. It can serve as a kind of noisy centerpiece to the gathering - the thing that nominally has brought all these people together, when in fact the thing that has brought them together is their desire to get together, and the "game" or "race" or whatever it is serves more as a symbol of that desire or as a pretext for acting on it.

Now, have I thoroughly offended everyone?

JR

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One further comment on Jonathan's brilliant insights may be appropriate. The child's interest in games like baseball and basketball and football is not directly comparable to his interest in stories. This is because not all stories are simple enough to appeal to children, while all baseball, basketball, and football games inescapably are. It would thus be more useful to say that children like games and children like stories. Adults often continue to like stories after they have grown up, but typically they like somewhat more complex and intricate stories than the ones that appeal to children. There are, of course, many adults who go right on reading superhero comicbooks and other material of the same sort they read at the age of 10. Some of these adults never read anything any more complex or challenging than that. I think such adults may fairly be described as "stupid" or "retarded." An adult who reads a story like Atlas Shrugged or The Fifth Head of Cerberus is not exhibiting childishness. An adult who reads the story of the three bears is doing so - unless s/he is reading it aloud to a small child, or re-reading some favorites from childhood in anticipation of entertaining a small child in the near future, or perhaps re-reading some childhood favorites to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. If the adult is reading the story of the three bears because he or she still finds it as compelling and interesting and entertaining as s/he did when s/he was four, then the adult in question is displaying a quality I would call childishness.

Similarly, adults often continue to like games after they have grown up, but typically they like somewhat more complex and intricate games than the ones that appeal to children. I can understand an adult playing bridge, but I have difficulty understanding an adult playing baseball or basketball, unless it's in the process of entertaining a child or to kill time during an exercise period, etc., etc., etc. The idea of an adult playing these games because, after all these years, s/he still finds them interesting is extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around - unless, of course, the adult we're talking about is retarded in some way.

None of this is to deny or deprecate the various kinds of social reasons that might lead someone to attend sporting events or house parties where sporting events are displayed on a big screen TV. People like to get together. A sporting event is sufficiently mindless that you can sort of half pay attention to it and still make reasonably intelligent conversation about it with the people around you. It's not intrusive, like something you'd actually have to think about or pay close attention to. It can serve as a kind of noisy centerpiece to the gathering - the thing that nominally has brought all these people together, when in fact the thing that has brought them together is their desire to get together, and the "game" or "race" or whatever it is serves more as a symbol of that desire or as a pretext for acting on it.

Now, have I thoroughly offended everyone?

JR

Finally! President Obama is explained!

--Brant

you'll get this only on OL

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As a kid, I enjoyed playing neighborhood baseball on a diamond a group of us neighborhood kids built in a vacant lot at one end of my street. I even had a small talent for baseball. I couldn't throw, catch, or run worth a damn, but I could bat. And, as I say, I enjoyed it - up to the age of maybe around 12. Starting about then, I lost interest. This is, after all, a children's game. Why would it go on interesting an adult or even an adolescent? Do we see adults with serious expressions on their faces organizing tournaments and world championships and TV extravaganzas built around the game Go Fish? Or Tic Tac Toe? If I play a game like that now, it's because I'm entertaining one of my grandchildren - or some other little kid.

But is baseball only a children's game? Where do its roots lie? Isn't it the other way round actually, in that the little boys still have in them the genetical disposition to play these kind of games because for many millenia, being good at things like running, targeting, 'scoring a hit' in killing the prey was of crucial importance for the hunters who were our evolutionary ancestors?

The other major sports - which, where I grew up, meant football and basketball, never really interested me at all. I had zero talent for either of them and was repelled by the very idea of a game like football, in which one's goal (if one is a linesman, at least) is to knock one's opponent down and trample him. This is a "game"? This is "fun"? Maybe for barbarians, or for people with the intelligence of a mule or an ape.

Again, consider our evolutionary heritage factoring in. I too loathe certain sports (I cannot watch boxing matches for example), but the ability "to knock an opponent out" was probably a survival advantage as well.

And the only interest I ever had in any sport was in playing it. If I didn't want to play it, I had no interest in it whatever. Sitting in an uncomfortable seat among a bunch of sweating, grunting morons, watching other people (grown men, if you can believe it) playing a game devised for and suitable for people about 10 years old - why would I want to do something like that?

I don't think baseball was devised for 10 year-olds.

And, yes, grown men do enjoy the thrill of vicariously participating in the fight because being in fights is our evolutionary heritage. The trophy the team they root for wins is "their" trophy too in some way.

Why aren't you a little more lenient to your fellow males here, JR?

If this is one's take on the whole sweaty subject and one has the misfortune to grow up in a place where it is believed that people without athletic talent or at least a strong interest in sports are utterly worthless and probably sexually deviant and definitely in need of a good beating - if one goes through the formative years of one's life having sports forced down one's throat in rather like the way corn is forcefed to a goose whose liver is going to become foie gras - one develops, over time, a fairly intense hatred of the whole sweaty, drunken, proudly meatheaded phenomenon.

Of course it can be a very disagreeable experience for a non-sports-obsessed youngster who grows up in a sports-obsessed environment where those who aren't into sports are disvalued.

Edited by Xray
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Why aren't you a little more lenient to your fellow males here, JR?

Why should I be? Have they been "lenient" with me? I don't suffer fools gladly. Which means I don't suffer the majority of human beings gladly.

JR

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Angela:

I guess it is really great that women do not play baseball [Tiffany signs professional baseball contract 2009], basketball[ ending Tittle XI] on a college, community or professional level then...

or tennis Billy Jean Won For All Women

or golf LPGA

or boxing Take That You Chauvinist

hmm seems like the pursuit of sports is human

Adam

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Why aren't you a little more lenient to your fellow males here, JR?

Why should I be? Have they been "lenient" with me? I don't suffer fools gladly. Which means I don't suffer the majority of human beings gladly.

JR

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” Mark Twain

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Why aren't you a little more lenient to your fellow males here, JR?

Why should I be? Have they been "lenient" with me? I don't suffer fools gladly. Which means I don't suffer the majority of human beings gladly.

JR

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” Mark Twain

Oh, I think our Dr J. Swift Riggenbach gets a good deal of amusement out of his "suffering."

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Oh, I think our Dr J. Swift Riggenbach gets a good deal of amusement out of his "suffering."

Daunce,

Be careful with saying truth that can easily be obfuscated.

You never know what reaction you get.

It's like if I say that, underneath, I think Jeff actually is a humanity-lover and is hurt beyond measure inside.

(Was that cruel?)

:)

Michael

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Similarly, adults often continue to like games after they have grown up, but typically they like somewhat more complex and intricate games than the ones that appeal to children. I can understand an adult playing bridge, but I have difficulty understanding an adult playing baseball or basketball, unless it's in the process of entertaining a child or to kill time during an exercise period, etc., etc., etc. The idea of an adult playing these games because, after all these years, s/he still finds them interesting is extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around - unless, of course, the adult we're talking about is retarded in some way.

Do you really not understand that the basketball or football games that an adult plays are much more complex than those which a child plays, or that adults who watch them are experiencing them on a level of complexity that children can't grasp? You apparently still have a child's understanding of the games, and never realized that there can be very complex structures and strategies involved.

J

Edited by Jonathan
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It's like if I say that, underneath, I think Jeff actually is a humanity-lover and is hurt beyond measure inside.

I was thinking the same thing. In seeing JR's anger about others' enjoyment of sports, and his comparing it to the enjoyment of rape, murder and dismemberment, what popped into my mind was Hannibal Lecter's asking, "What did they do to you, Clarice?" Apparently someone badly hurt JR, and all these years later he's still lashing out at anyone who likes the things that his tormentors liked.

J

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It's like if I say that, underneath, I think Jeff actually is a humanity-lover and is hurt beyond measure inside.

I was thinking the same thing. In seeing JR's anger about others' enjoyment of sports, and his comparing it to the enjoyment of rape, murder and dismemberment, what popped into my mind was Hannibal Lecter's asking, "What did they do to you, Clarice?" Apparently someone badly hurt JR, and all these years later he's still lashing out at anyone who likes the things that his tormentors liked.

J

Yikes. I thought JR was just being polemical. Sports apply the mind to the body in specific focused ways for intense short periods - this kind of theme is addressed by literature, including some writers he admires-- though I see he thinks Roth is mediocre and obviously he did not enjoy The Great American Novel as much as I did, especially pitcher Gil Gamesh.

I think of the non-enjoyment of sports as I do my non-enjoyment of jazz. But I don't think of the perpetrators and appreciators of that intensely irritating noise as subhuman or malevolent. I know they are highly intelligent and I just wish they had gone into a more agreeable line of work.

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I think of the non-enjoyment of sports as I do my non-enjoyment of jazz. But I don't think of the perpetrators and appreciators of that intensely irritating noise as subhuman or malevolent. I know they are highly intelligent and I just wish they had gone into a more agreeable line of work.

I understand your sentiment because I experienced it for a fairly long time. This may sound impossible, but no matter how much of it you have listened to, it is a very viable prospect that you simply might not have run into the right jazz, yet. I dunno . . .maybe something light? Here's one where emerging jazz ubergoddess Esperanza Spalding does a piece set to William Blake. But there's all kinds of new stuff out . . .

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In seeing JR's anger about others' enjoyment of sports . . . .

Well, of course, you know more about what my anger is directed at and what its sources are than I do, but I'd

say I don't really care what other people like. Given what other people are, what they like will probably strike me as fairly stupid - somewhere on the scale from laughable to repugnant - but I don't really care. Short of rights-violating activities, I'm perfectly happy to let them like whatever they want. (I mean, it would be nice to live in a world that wasn't populated mostly by ignorant, tasteless clods, but I don't ask for perfection.) Back in the days when the majority were able, to varying extents, to ram their tastes down my throat, I bitterly hated them for it. Now, for the most part, I never even think about either their tastes or them. I focus my attention on what I want to focus my attention on and am seldom even reminded of the existence of those (and those activities) I don't like. I remember a few years ago, when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, I heard an anecdote from a friend, Patrick. Patrick and his girlfriend, Christine, had gone to a party (they often did; Patrick was in public relations), and there was much talk at the party about the 49ers game that had taken place earlier that day. Finally someone spoke directly to Christine, saying something like, "How about those 49ers? Did you see the game?" And Christine responded, "Who are the 49ers?" Patrick looked at me in wonderment and said, "You know, I kind of envy her - that she could get that detached from the dominant culture and its distractions, that she could get that immersed in her own thing." He told me the story because he knew I would agree with him.

Now and then, I do make a passing reference to one of my more intense dislikes, as when Selene (IIRC) asked me if I had read The Natural. Since I do hold Bernard Malamud in a certain amount of esteem, I thought I ought to offer at least a sentence or two by way of explanation of why I had not read his best known novel. So I said my antipathy toward sports makes it unlikely that I would read a novel or see a film that was centered on sports. Then someone else (PDS?) asked me to elaborate. This may have been a mistake. The novelist James M. Cain said once that all his novels were really about the same thing - the worst thing in the world: getting what you want. I think people who ask me to elaborate usually wish they hadn't. When I express my views at any length, it generally causes unhappiness. People become upset. A lot of people, knowing this from bitter experience, have adopted the policy of never asking me for my views. This is probably a wise policy.

JR

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JR, in a warm and fuzzy moment:

Well, of course, you know more about what my anger is directed at and what its sources are than I do, but I'd

say I don't really care what other people like. Given what other people are, what they like will probably strike me as fairly stupid - somewhere on the scale from laughable to repugnant - but I don't really care. Short of rights-violating activities, I'm perfectly happy to let them like whatever they want. (I mean, it would be nice to live in a world that wasn't populated mostly by ignorant, tasteless clods, but I don't ask for perfection.)

I get where that can come from, but the thing I've observed both from within and without is that being in that state too much can contribute to a pretty joyless state of existence.

rde

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Btw, JR, I do agree with you that baseball is a game for mindless, retarded savages, so we actually do have some common ground here.

J

Zap to 1:50

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Tonight will be either basketball or golf, I believe. I really really don't understand watching golf, I mean aren't there glaciers melting in Greenland that are more entertaining to watch?

I feel y'all are champing at the bit, wanting to know if it turned out to be basketball or golf tonight. Well, it was both. I believe the Knicks were losing badly enough that that game wasn't interesting, so we kept switching to golf. One of the golfers was wearing pink pants, so that got some comment, mainly along the lines of: where does a guy get pink pants? Then another one was wearing a red shirt with white pants, so clever me I suggested that all he had to do was wash them together and he'd end up with pink pants, and that's probably what the first guy had done. At one point the ladies went off to see a YouTube video that one just had to show, but ahem, this is for ladies only, ooh la la. Howls of laughter soon were emanating from the next room. Later I found out what it was, enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0LvKg5aCG0

Feels like there's a hedgehog livin' in me knickers!

Edited by Ninth Doctor
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Too many people who live comfortable lives are more interested in conformity and control than acts of creation and the contemplation of man-made beauty--the power to do such long forgotten in the social swirl-wind of their stupid childhood cliquish age-mates abetted by power-mongering destroying teachers. These deluded souls are nicely adjusted to their milieu and intend to stay that way with all their midget mental might. Welcome to Earth, ET.

--Brant

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Angela:

I guess it is really great that women do not play baseball [Tiffany signs professional baseball contract 2009], basketball[ ending Tittle XI] on a college, community or professional level then...

or tennis Billy Jean Won For All Women

or golf LPGA

or boxing Take That You Chauvinist

hmm seems like the pursuit of sports is human

Adam

Adam,

It is true that women have conquered many areas in sports which had been exclusively male, but my post was about the origins of the games being tied to our evolutionary heritage.

Whenever I throw a ball onto the lawn of our kindergarten, the little boys will rush toward it, wanting to play soccer. Rarely have I seen a girl join in, although Germany is the current female soccer world champion.

It's the same with little boys playfully wrestling around to find out who is stronger. Most girls don't feel the urge to that at all. This too is an evolutionary heritage imo.

Edited by Xray
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As Daunce said earlier, "I think of the non-enjoyment of sports as I do my non-enjoyment of jazz. But I don't think of the perpetrators and appreciators of that intensely irritating noise as subhuman or malevolent. I know they are highly intelligent and I just wish they had gone into a more agreeable line of work."

This neatly sums it up, with one qualifier: anybody who, such as Jonathan, does not thoroughly enjoy baseball is a complete retard. :lol:

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