Noam Chomsky on the role of sports in propaganda-based authority

[LooseWilly]

22. He never said they weren't fun.

He just said "Why should I care if my school team wins?"

Watch or play fun sports. No need to delude yourself into thinking the winning or losing of "your" team "really matters". Enjoy all you want though.

Also no need to get defensive. Just realize that what he's commenting on are the vast numbers of people who can cite game statistics of dozens or more of players in multiple sports but can't follow the no-more-abstract numerical details of things like marginal tax rates and consequences of property tax-increment revenue diversions inherent in (CA) Redevelopment Agency project-funding revenue streams... to name a couple of similarly abstract knowledge bases which "do matter".

If you don't know anyone who has mastered the details of the former without thinking the latter are worth even thinking about... then you don't know the people that are being referred to. I suspect that is unlikely, however.

I doubt sports, without the misconception that they are more important that other subjects with similarly complex statistical analyses performable, are any basis for criticism in-and-of-themselves by Chomsky.

Just saying...