In popular apprehension there is much that is admirable in the type
of manhood which the life of sport fosters. There is self-reliance and
good-fellowship, so termed in the somewhat loose colloquial use of
the words. From a different point of view the qualities currently so
characterized might be described as truculence and clannishness. The
reason for the current approval and admiration of these manly qualities,
as well as for their being called manly, is the same as the reason for
their usefulness to the individual. The members of the community, and
especially that class of the community which sets the pace in canons of
taste, are endowed with this range of propensities in sufficient measure
to make their absence in others felt as a shortcoming, and to make
their possession in an exceptional degree appreciated as an attribute of
superior merit. The traits of predatory man are by no means obsolete in
the common run of modern populations. They are present and can be called
out in bold relief at any time by any appeal to the sentiments in
which they express themselves--unless this appeal should clash with the
specific activities that make up our habitual occupations and comprise
the general range of our everyday interests. The common run of the
population of any industrial community is emancipated from these,
economically considered, untoward propensities only in the sense
that, through partial and temporary disuse, they have lapsed into the
background of sub-conscious motives. With varying degrees of potency in
different individuals, they remain available for the aggressive shaping
of men's actions and sentiments whenever a stimulus of more than
everyday intensity comes in to call them forth. And they assert
themselves forcibly in any case where no occupation alien to the
predatory culture has usurped the individual's everyday range of
interest and sentiment. This is the case among the leisure class and
among certain portions of the population which are ancillary to that
class. Hence the facility with which any new accessions to the leisure
class take to sports; and hence the rapid growth of sports and of
the sporting sentient in any industrial community where wealth has
accumulated sufficiently to exempt a considerable part of the population
from work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account