OT: Jonathan Chait's Defense of football
As a former Michigan Daily columnist and current national political pundit who often discusses Michigan football, I'm not sure how OT anything by Jon Chait is but in any case I thought this would be of interest. I won't try to summarize in detail it since I wouldn't do it justice, but essentially Jon responds to the heightening criticism of football as a sport (which I think was reflected in the broad play of the Shane Morris story) by describing the personal benefits he experienced playing high school football in metro Detroit. Btw, I agree with some of responses to the headline but don't think that the artile itself is essentially political.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/what-liberals-get-wrong-ab…
October 8th, 2014 at 9:51 PM ^
I scrolled through it. I might have given it a read if the title weren't . . . That.
October 8th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
Got to the headline. He immediately lost credibility.
October 8th, 2014 at 10:09 PM ^
But in my experience editors, not writers, write headlines so I ignore them.
October 8th, 2014 at 10:10 PM ^
Especially strange considering the publication.
October 9th, 2014 at 3:54 AM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 10:26 PM ^
The piece comes across as an elaborate version of "in my day, men were men" that I didn't find particularly convincing. He also appears to have missed the point of Friday Night Lights (which had to do the racial politics and misplaced priorities of small-town Texas in the late '80s--not, as Chait describes, old timers trying to relive their glory days).
October 8th, 2014 at 10:38 PM ^
But I'm a staunch liberal and I think that Steve Almond's assertion:
Our allegiance to football legitimizes and even fosters within us a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia.is a bunch of cow dung. Also, to lump all liberals in with Almond is just as fecal. In that regard, I'd like to challenge Jon to suit up and do tackling drills one-on-one with me.
October 9th, 2014 at 2:20 AM ^
He's basically saying maybe we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water when it comes to football and the violent, traditionally masculine values it entails. He has a point. And he's not wrong that there's a segment of America opposed to football as much for its values as for any actual harm it causes. It's hardly unfair to note that this comes mainly from the political left, even if not every "liberal" agrees (probably pretty common among liberals in Chait's circle though - less so among working class Dwmocrats I'd wager).
October 9th, 2014 at 7:14 AM ^
I know we're veering in the forbidden zone of politics, but I don't anyone would question Chait's liberalism. I think he's trying to convince people who think like him in many ways not to overplay their hand.
October 8th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^
Epic dangling modifier to start out this post:
As a former Michigan Daily columnist and current national political pundit who often discusses Michigan football, I'm not sure how OT anything by Jon Chait is but in any case I thought this would be of interest.
October 9th, 2014 at 8:11 AM ^
But larded with great anecdotes.