BF2S Forums EE Chats Feb

I can't believe it's been 2 years since John passed away.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Roc18 wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

sport is the secular opiate of the working class masses

I think you got picked last in gym class.

actually i played sport a lot when i was young. football, which i was pretty promising at, and got scouted for 2 teams as a forward, til about 13, when i was too lazy to get up at 8am on a sundays to go training. then i was pretty damn good at tennis - county doubles. admittedly not semi-pro or bigging up the 'star athlete' pigeonhole, but plenty above average. the difference is that i don't make sport a central part of identity, or a defining part of my life. football fans do. i don't get all angry or upset when a bunch of men kicking a ball of inflated leather around win or lose. football fans do. i don't get violent or passionate or hateful or adversarial because someone else likes a different team to me. football fans do. to these people, where sport occupies a disproportionately large part of their lives, sport is literally an opiate. it's something to distract them from the real issues/pains in their life. even if in the broadest sense that is the good 'ole 'class struggle' dime. sport is something there to keep idiots suckered into watching their tv sets, or belonging to some dumb tribal identity. i like sports, i appreciate fine athletes. but i don't make it a part of my personal identity. most football fans in this country can't honestly say that. it's a national obsession. for working class people.

You can say the same thing about any other form of entertainment. Books, music, movies etc. You think any typical person wants to mostly focus on their pains/issues? When they can focus on something positive that they share in common with other people/friends. Thats what you call an emofag.

Roc18 wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Roc18 wrote:

I think you got picked last in gym class.

actually i played sport a lot when i was young. football, which i was pretty promising at, and got scouted for 2 teams as a forward, til about 13, when i was too lazy to get up at 8am on a sundays to go training. then i was pretty damn good at tennis - county doubles. admittedly not semi-pro or bigging up the 'star athlete' pigeonhole, but plenty above average. the difference is that i don't make sport a central part of identity, or a defining part of my life. football fans do. i don't get all angry or upset when a bunch of men kicking a ball of inflated leather around win or lose. football fans do. i don't get violent or passionate or hateful or adversarial because someone else likes a different team to me. football fans do. to these people, where sport occupies a disproportionately large part of their lives, sport is literally an opiate. it's something to distract them from the real issues/pains in their life. even if in the broadest sense that is the good 'ole 'class struggle' dime. sport is something there to keep idiots suckered into watching their tv sets, or belonging to some dumb tribal identity. i like sports, i appreciate fine athletes. but i don't make it a part of my personal identity. most football fans in this country can't honestly say that. it's a national obsession. for working class people.

You can say the same thing about any other form of entertainment. Books, music, movies etc. You think any typical person wants to mostly focus on their pains/issues? When they can focus on something positive that they share in common with other people/friends. Thats what you call an emofag.

why are you so obsessed with this emofag thing? aren't you stuck in 4chan 2008 a little?

and no, books, movies etc. are not 'opiates of the masses'. books can educate you. films can enlighten you. they provoke discussion, not partisanship and pointless rivalries. nobody ever got into sectarian violence because of a disagreement over bob dylan. you are talking total shite. people over identify with sports. i'm not saying sports are bad because people spend their spare time on them. i'm saying sports are bad because people internalise them too much, take too much to heart, stake too much of their personal identity and worth on them. it's a spectacle and its a show that lures you into a sense of community/identity, whilst really its just another corporate jig, taking your money and keeping you occupied.

Shoulda gone to a basketball or baseball game when I was in the US. Next time.

Roc18 wrote:

Yes I'm eternally stuck in 2008 4chan Uzique.

That's your opinion though, I believe sports can educate you, enlighten and provoke discussion just as well as other forms of entertainment. And that movies for example can be just as bad if over internalized/obsessed. Everything is an opiate if you classify interests/hobbies that way.

no it's not. you clearly do not understand the meaning of karl marx's original phrase. sure, cheap entertainment is an opiate - and sport consumed that way falls into that category. but sport goes one further than just being 'entertainment', and becomes a sort of ideology, for some people. for some people sport is more than just another thing you have on the television to flick through. supporting a team becomes a lifestyle. in the UK, the team you support can define your social group, the pubs you drink at, your entire weekend routine, etc. it's sad and pathetic. sport-as-ideology. your team of choice as a form of personal identification/tribal belonging. that is way beyond 'entertainment'. that's more than seinfeld.

and how is sports 'educational' or 'enlightening'? provoke discussion? yeah, really meaningful discussions about sport results and matches. it's not exactly the symposium, is it? i didn't mean books and films provoke discussion in the vein of "OMG can you believe what happened to edward in twilight 4?". i mean books and films can be genuinely thought-provoking, in deep and stimulating ways. when it sport ever that? sport rarely transcends spectacle. there's not exactly much life-enlightening stuff you can get out of discussing a baseball player's season record. i just don't think you even know what you're talking about. it's like this topic is whooosh, straight over your head. you are interpreting everything wrongly, and clearly not getting the basic conceptual gist of what i'm saying, here.

anyway, sports. american football. great. go jets!

0mg hipst3rs soooo inauthentik

i don't really see what sporting personalities crossing over into public figures/celebrity has to do with sports, or sports following, or team supporting. that doesn't have diddly squat to do with sports. people don't identify themselves with individual players. people don't buy team kits and go to games with their friends to follow single individuals. team sports breed a dumb tribalism. surprisingly enough there aren't many violent clashes between federer and nadal fans... it's because football, like baseball, is a working-class sport parcelled up with all sorts of ideology and identity politics. i.e. it becomes an opiate, a distraction from the real source of these people's frustration and inertia.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-02-05 09:47:39)

dunno who that is but he looks pretty fuckin' americain

he looks like he stole his skin and teeth from a small child

yeah. but not a small English child, amirite?

at least small english kids are made of flesh and bone and not silicone and photoshop

and yeah, hitchens, great example of english hygiene. hahaha.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-02-05 10:04:28)