he's mostly right, but he's usually mostly right. what he's drawing on is historical imperial policy. there was a time in the history of rome when sports teams didn't just function as a distraction but were controlled by the state specifically as a distraction. there was some blowback to that. the nika riots. but the idea of "bread and circuses" was very entrenched imperial policy for hundreds of years.
what he's missing is a sort of bigger context of people that are obsessed with sports largely having a lot of boredom to pass over due to the trivial nature of modern existence. if there weren't sports to distract the disinterested middle class with, then they would invent them. worse, if they lacked the imagination to invent sports then they'd drink themselves into criminality. there's no need to distract people when they're already oblivious. there is, however, a need to keep them occupied, in order and in line with the proper work ethic. the focus on the myth that hard work has results strikes me as the primary propaganda purpose of sports culture.
if they were hungry, it would be a different issue, but walk into a sports bar some time and get an eyeful of what these people actually eat. chomsky, the muted optimist, wants to believe that people would take a greater interest if they weren't so deeply controlled, but misses that the real basis of their disinterest is that they're well-fed.
but, he's mostly right.
i remember seeing images of this after 9/11:
DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.
...and almost barfing.
james
i would disagree, to a degree. many people are slaving away, day after day, leading lives that are hardly trivial but more hand to mouth and on the edge. sports, celebrity culture, tv and movies (the latter two to a lesser extent, since people are nowhere as passionate about them) are all diverting peoples attention from the absurd lifestyles and endless greed of the rich. at the same time these distractions could be a form of coping. regarding your food analogy, it truly hope that isnt what motivates people because when in 50/100 years we wont have anything to eat it will probably be too late
deathtokoalas
what i've noticed is that if you go to a soup kitchen then the people eating there don't have time for trivialities like baseball. yet, if you go to a software company where the janitor makes 60K, you can't go five minutes without hearing about the "local sports team". the idea that people that ought not be distracted are being distracted doesn't seem right; it's not the poor that are distracted by sports, or that could benefit from spending less time fawning over idiots, but rather the upper middle classes that fuel the obsession.
and, take a look at ticket prices or the cost of memorabilia or even the price of cable. the poor cannot afford to be sports fans.
perhaps things were different fifty years ago, but sports, today, are out of the reach of the poor that people suppose are being distracted by them.
what the people you're describing are actually distracted by are the three jobs they need to pay their bills.
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deathtokoalas
umm, i think the massive protests against the world cup demonstrate my correction rather profoundly. as the wealthy glue national flags on to their suvs, the poor carry out massive, popular revolts and endure incredible police violence.
the thing is that the people that are supposedly being "distracted" have approximately zero revolutionary potential in the first place. i didn't say that there's no reason to distract the poor, i said there's no reason to distract the wealthy (or "middle class") because they benefit from the exploitation. the poor, on the other hand, do need to be distracted - but cannot be by something so trivial as sports.