Adam, Hans and Alex invited James to Discuss his essay Ritual Hegemony, which was written for the purpose of providing The Myth of the 20th Century panel with an ancient back story on the human heritage of sports, which had finally been corrupted out of all meaning by the time their generation of men came of age.
James I'm always interested in your stuff. I had a bit of a light bulb going off. I know a lot of stuff, most of no use, but a lot of the stuff you know a great deal of I don't know much about and you're breaking it down is much like you explained your Army coach explaining the mechanics of games to you on the couch. I like this sort of analysis.
The guy, not sure which, who was never into sports. I'm just like this and I also have some of his personality. I'm a big time night owl. I can not go to sleep at night frequently but can sleep in the day. I also have no problems being alone. Some people freak out if they don't have contact with others.
I have a theory that people like this were the people who tens of thousands of years ago stayed up all night and kept the camp fire going while everyone slept. Someone had to do that and this trait is still with us in people like me who are fine being more solitary. Maybe he's like that too. I also noticed that the sports that did interest me were more individual sports and not team sports. I see team sports as a bit of a mob and sports today are just a bunch of Blacks running around. No way will I waste a minute on watching that.
Sam J, that is fascinating about your nocturnal nature. I think that you and Adam have something there.
James,
You guys did a great job on this episode. Funny, the segue that you gentlemen went into about the changes in body composition of the youth reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a man whose primary specialty is in the treatment of Post-Concussive Disorders. He has been in the field for about thirty years. I noted that he had quite a few pediatric patients in his care. More than I would have suspected would be the case. He told me that the reasons were two fold. One,that the neuro science had finally realized the very real harm that comes from concussions. Two: that in his time treating patients he noted that there were more children (specifically females) involved in organized contact sports than in the past. However, these children hadn't developed the musculature or motor control in early childhood to successfully engage in sports at the elementary and middle school levels.
Wow!!! To think that the US government was worried during the early 60's that American youth were too corpulent to fight the Russki's....Wonder what they would say now?!
Thank you, Nero. The applause of Pictom is chief among my heathen concerns.
It is a fact, that most of these concussions occur in ball sports, not boxing, partially because the collective nature of the activitywhich the ancients scornedprohibits the level of individual pre-contact fitness that the combat athlete attains in solo training.