Chomsky, US politics and sports

[ionelv]

It appears that Chomsky had a very low opinion of sports, but to make it a binary choice with politics and to elevate politics above all else seems a little self-serving and a narrow viewpoint. To dedicate one's adult life to expose the truth of how sausage is really made in US politics is commendable, but to claim that sports are a time waster and distraction concocted by those in power is simply a false dichotomy and unnecessarily reductive. Some people do enjoy sports both as an activity and as spectator event.

Not everything has to involve the intellect, although some performance sports do require an above average one to reach the top level. I am not entirely sure what the pluses are for spectator events, but I am equally unsure about the pluses of exposing the same cycles of corruption and military misadventure for over half a century with barely any visible changes in US policy. One wonders if Moses's 40-year desert wanderings could have been cut much shorter if he simply stopped moving in circles.

On the other hand, there are some intellectual pursuits with much higher return long term both personally and societally: art, science inquiry, technological advances, philosophical inquests, historical and archaeological endeavours, general truth pursuits, etc. One might even argue that engaging in politics at almost any level(*) is an exercise in futility as real positive change is not exacted but rarely, very slowly and usually by the guided hand of very few well-positioned individuals at the top of the political machinery, not the million kibitzers who at most sent a few dollars to their election campaigns or elected them over predictably less palatable betes noires.

(*)- Some obvious exceptions in US politics would be a constitutional amendment effort or a constitutional convention as any legislative effort can be eventually rolled back either by future legislatures or a more activist SCOTUS (e.g. Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act).