Is motherfucking really a feminist value?
Also, the Man Card thing is from Scrubs. So elemental. So manly.
You miss me. And I am forbidden from accessing your Brad Pitt picture.
Hiatus my ass.
Come here, baby, and maybe I will.
Come here, baby, and maybe I will.
Ogged ain't afraid of no dynamite-wielding husband. I guess he gets his Man Card back.
"cool for Brooklyn" doesn't count
Does the gratuitous shot at w-lfs-n mean you're feeling better?
You miss me.
I do, I do. Try the picture now.
uh huh, got it. I was hoping it wasn't going to be that embarasing picture of me and Brad .....
I think the second paragraph relies on an illegitimate equivocation on the word "style". (Which are the legitimate equivocations, you wonder? Shut up.) Doing something with "style", where that means being modish, may be grounds for forfeiture*, but having a style, where that means doing your own thing and not giving a fuck what other people think, certainly is not, provided—and here's where it gets tricky—that "your own thing" is one of a narrow range of things. But it has to be your own thing, else you're a poseur. The real reason ogged's wearing a snorkel is grounds for forfeiture is not that he was doing his own thing, but that the thing which is his own can best be described as "being a pussy".
*it should be understood when I say these things that I mean "may be grounds for forfeiture if you play that sort of game, which I of course don't, beyond above all that".
I'm all about preserving the force of these words: "wettest", "fieriest", "earthiest", "airiest".
You know, all this is predicated on the idea ogged had a man card to hand in, in the first place.
So why does ogged wear a snorkel, anyway?
a lot of talk lately about each person's Man Card
This is the most pathetic, unmanly thing I have ever heard.
I argued that my willingness to wear the snorkel and suffer social opprobrium entitled me to an extra Man Card.
Or it was, until I read that.
Ben, I don't see where you're differing from what I wrote (except for the cheap name-calling, of course).
but that the thing which is his own can best be described as "being a pussy".
That's lovely, w-lfs-n.
I'm all about preserving the force of these words: "wettest", "fieriest", "earthiest", "airiest".
What should "wettest" be saved for, Ben?
Slol is teh manliest.
Man. You know, this post encourages sexism, in that I'm feeling a real need to be all warm and supportive and and affirming of your masculinity, while mocking you behind your back for being pathetic and bizarre. But I will be strong, and continue to believe that men generally aren't like this, it's just you.
Ben, I don't see where you're differing from what I wrote
What you wrote implies that being oneself is unmanly, what I wrote makes clear that being oneself only makes you unmanly if you were already unmanly (and in that case not being yourself makes you an unmanly poseur). This is clear from your assertion that Acting with "style" or "doing your own thing" are absolutely Man Card forfeiting offenses.
. But you're, say, James Dean, then "doing your own thing" is absolutely not such an offense.
while mocking you behind your back
You can mock him to his face, LB!
But you're, say, James Dean, then "doing your own thing"
That would be decomposing, I guess.
What should "wettest" be saved for, Ben?
Come over sometime and I'll show you.
23: Yeah, that's the non-sexist response.
There should be an "if" between "But" and "you're" in 22, of course.
Ah, ok, b-dub, that sentence was unclear in that I was trying to say that being a beguiling foreigner or already being cool (like James Dean) allow one to keep the Man Card while doing one's own thing.
21/26 confuse me. Are they meant to imply that you would be more inclined to mock a similarly pathetic woman to her face?
See, then we still disagree, ogged. Because you seem to be saying that doing one's own thing is always bad, but sometimes it's ok, because it's outweighed by being a beguiling foreigner/cool in other respects. But that's crazy; James Dean's coolness in part consists in his doing his own thing.
So ogged, your philosophy is that cool guys (and beguiling foreigners) have irrevocable man cards, while the rest of the schlubs risk having their cards revoked with any wrong--meaning, I think, non-conforming--step?
21.2 is best understood as an expression of LB's maternal, nurturing instincts vis-a-vis ogged combined with her higher-order rejection of them, the entire complex being given a confused expression by the analysand in terms of the sexism of the post, since that's the best way she can understand what's happening.
And what sanctions exactly does one risk if caught in public without a man card?
you seem to be saying that doing one's own thing is always bad
No. It's not bad if you have one of the exemptions, and it might very well be good in other cases, but without an exemption, even in those cases, you'll still have to forfeit your Man Card. It's really a rather progressive position.
29: No, I'm saying that there's a sexist stereotype of men as pathetically ego-obsessed pouter-pigeons, unable to focus on anything beyond grooming and protecting their fragile masculinity. And the sexist response from women is to humor and flatter them while quietly holding them in contempt for it. (Non-sexist would be to make fun of guys acting like that to their faces, while recognizing that they're not characteristic of all men.)
I'm not sure how to flip the sexes on this one -- I can't come up with a parallel women's stereotype that fits. Maybe "Do I look fat in these jeans?" for something that elicits the same sort of vaguely contempuous flattery.
Come over sometime and I'll show you.
Do you even own a snorkel?
How could it be anything but "Man Badge?" Man Card sound like something you would go shopping with.
Man Badge is sumpin ya flash.
I gotta wonder about that pool crowd.
Man Badge is sumpin ya flash.
Half-assed. If you're in it to win it, you get a man tattoo. Or a brand.
Jammies has a tattoo that says "Dick". I think that's perma-cred.
mcmanus confirms all our suspicions by equating flashing with manliness. Keep up the creep up, ya old badger.
If you're in it to win it, you get a man tattoo
It says "Welcome to Jamaica".
But Ogged, you totally have a Man Card, one beyond the power of any snorkel to interfere with. You could be wearing a swimming cap with daisies on it, and it would only enhance, by contrast, the raw force of your masculinity.
Honest.
No one's asking the obvious question here, which is, when the other swimmers started ganging up on ogged, did the BPL come rushing to his defense and save him?
They can take away my freedom, but they can't take away my MANTATS.
LB, I'll be better able to appreciate the force of your love and humor as soon as someone takes the knife out of my back.
Jammies has a tattoo that says "Dick".
Is there an arrow beneath it pointing to his ass?
You don't give up your man card for wearing your snorkel, unless you are really slow.
If you have a snorkel or a parachute bag, you better kick ass when you dont have those things.
Otherwise, you are just the guy with the fancy, expensive bike equipment.
Men: Remember to keep your Man Card safe in your Man Jar with your lifetime supply of Mandom.
YOu know, it's funny - I feel that I have a decent sense of how the Man Card thing works, and I'll certainly make the occasional jokes along those lines with friends, but the thought of actually spending time in an environment where it's the normal discourse just gives me the willies.
Swimming with a parachute is hella manly.
I missed it. Why are you wearing the snorkel? It's not like you're looking at the pretty fish and corals, right?
None of the old ladies or men at the JCC give me any crap because I can kick their asses.
Sure, some people might think it is weird that I get such an ego boost by crushing the men and women in their 70s. Ogged understands though, don't you??
as soon as someone takes the knife out of my back.
You must have had some really unprofessional surgeons.
as soon as someone takes the knife out of my back
Nothing's manlier than being stoic about having been stabbed.
Is there an arrow beneath it pointing to his ass?
The snorkel gives you a chance to concentrate on form without worrying about breathing, and you can go a little harder because it's easier to breathe, so it's a cardiovascular training tool in that sense. And because I often forget to breathe, it helps extra. You only wear it for a part of the workout, maybe once or twice a week; not as a regular part of the swim.
I can't believe I missed ogged's 2005 post on how stylish men are not to be trusted.
You could be wearing a swimming cap with daisies on it, and it would only enhance, by contrast, the raw force of your masculinity.
In the movie "When We Were Kings" there's one scene featuring a young George Foreman wearing paisley overalls. That works for him, because he looks like he can kill you by thinking.
the thought of actually spending time in an environment where it's the normal discourse just gives me the willies.
Any serious athletic training involves a large dose of shame. Without shame and humiliation, you simply will not work as hard.
Coaches and fellow athletes are supposed to give you crap to make you work harder.
"Please work harder? Pretty please?" just doesn't work.
I frequently tell my 60 year olds to run down the person in front of them like the dog they are!
Ogged understands though, don't you??
I could have written 54 verbatim.
One of my great disappointments in life is that my shoulder scar is not more visible. I would make it more visible, but I think that would diminish my man card.
ogged still hasn't given any reason for that ridiculous looking contraption, right?. I'm not holding my breath for a good reason, mind.
64: You could tear a big hole in your shirt. That is manly.
Gosh, I am getting fired up just thinking about going and swimming at the JCC tonight.
the raw force of your masculinity
You're talking about the body hair, right?
You could tear a big hole in your shirt. That is manly.
Without blood to distract your eyes from my big belly, the effect isnt the desired one.
Soup:
You keep your head still.
You're talking about the body hair, right?
Surprisingly, on this issue, Ogged's nature feminine side helps him. True athletes dont have hair. I'm sure it is the patriarchy's fault.
By the way, I am certain that everything I say about swimming applies to Heebie's soccer team.
62 - I dunno, Will. I do all sorts of affirmative cheering for people. I like to empower them to be faster and stronger.
that would diminish my man card
So it's not just whether or not we've got one, we have to worry about the size of our Man Card?
ogged still hasn't given any reason for that ridiculous looking contraption, right?. I'm not holding my breath for a good reason, mind.
You must not be underwater without a snorkel.
73: not the size, but whether it's green or gold or platinum or whatever.
It's not just the snorkel. It's the snorkel + the rashguard. Hott.
I'm no longer wearing the rashguard, thank you very much.
I dunno, Will. I do all sorts of affirmative cheering for people. I like to empower them to be faster and stronger.
Are you suggesting that shame doesn't play a part in making you better? Or perhaps I should state it as "setting expectations"?
You make them not want to fall below your expectations.
62: Hmm. It never bothered me/I never noticed it when I actually played team sports. I'm certainly more mature/less a chauvinist pig than I was then, but I've always had at least some of this feeling. So I don't think it's really bothersome in a sports context, but in other ones. I'll note that I didn't take Ogged's anecdote as relating specifically to training-related shit-giving, as opposed to general we're-all-guys shit-giving.
There was a classmate of mine who bugged me for his probably-overcompensating man-being (his name was Jody and he was raised mostly by his hippie mom, so...). We ended up working together 6 years after school, and we got along great in the context of a 2-person shared office. But when a third, relatively meatheadish guy moved into the office next door, it got tiresome.
So it's not just whether or not we've got one, we have to worry about the size of our Man Card?
It varies within a range set by your first name.
Fail to show up a cold day, for example, and you forfeit your Man Card.
Oh yeah, like that gets tested a lot.
I was riding the train to work the other day when it was bitterly cold -- 0 degrees with 20 mph winds or something -- and a high-school classmate of mine related to me the story of how she had dropped son off at the YWCA daycare (which they had reached on foot), and then, hurrying to catch the train, had slipped on a long, steep patch of ice and slid for 30 feet. Her slacks were all covered with sludge and her leg hurt but she was STILL GOING TO WORK! You know why? Because even Minnesota Nice is about 1,000 times tougher than Chicago bluster. We send little kids out to wait 20 minutes for the school bus in weather that would SHUT DOWN any other major metropolitan area besides Moscow, St. Petersburg and Ulan Bator.
I'll ask my friend if she has a spare Man Card for you, ogged.
It varies within a range set by your first name.
DAMMIT THAT IS NOT TRUE MINE IS HUGE
78 - You know, I don't think it helps. People put enough of that on themselves. I think calling out mistakes or disappointments puts people back in their heads and liable to choke. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I only use praise and enthusiasm to motivate (detailed critiques of form, too, but not shame).
Again, I've only done esoteric sports with very motivated people. They want to get real good at it.
when a third, relatively meatheadish guy moved into the office next door, it got tiresome
This is actually totally true. When it becomes a group of guys who seem to take this stuff seriously, it's really annoying. Luckily, most of the guys at the pool are dirty old men instead of meatheads, so it's mostly charming.
Rather than constant one-upmanship, I prefer the type of male socialization that involves constantly saying "That's what she said".
So why does ogged wear a snorkel, anyway?
It does have a way of freeing up a few lanes.
You keep your head still.
Yeah, I get that. You go faster with flippers too though.
81: You haven't been to Canada, have you?
81: You forgot Winnipeg, you hoser. Coldest city in the world after Ulan Bator.
The Coen brothers claim that their mother would send them out to play when it was 15 below zero. And it could have been true.
You go faster with flippers too though.
Another thing almost all swimmers use.
82: Actually, he was sort of charmingly frank about how that name had fucked with his psyche.
He has a pretty great wife (also a classmate) and helps her run her yoga studio, and - near as I can tell - saves all of his feminine side for her. It's just about enough, I think. But that leaves a lot of bluster for the rest of us. He's now partnered with yet another classmate, a guy so far on the other side of testosterone poisoning that we are barely civil to one another. Kind of funny. It's like I was the (relatively) enlightened male on one shoulder, and the now-partner was the meathead on the other shoulder; the other shoulder won.
By the way, I am certain that everything I say about swimming applies to Heebie's soccer team.
Soccer is the best. Let's have more posts about playing soccer.
Another thing almost all swimmers use.
But apparently not with their `man cards'
If you persist in Man-Card-violating behavior, can it be, within the right group of other Man-Card-retainers, perceived as a voluntary and purposeful relinquishing? Or always inadequacy?
91 is amusingly indiscrete, amusingly because the only people who could untangle it are our classmates. I'm willing to bet none of the 50 of them will find it.
Although a baker I know found a reference I made to his business here, and asked me about it. That was kind of odd.
Soccer is the best. Let's have more posts about playing soccer.
Go ahead, you have a blog.
I think that the only Iranians with Man Cards are Houshmandzadeh and maybe a few weightlifters and wrestlers. Iranians are mostly theologians and lyric poets.
My Man Card wears rashguard since it got debarred by the pooltard.
89: Any Manitoba kid has gone out and played in 15 below. Most Canadian kids for that matter. Canada's main export is Man Cards.
89: fwiw, there are maybe 10 or so colder cities in Canada (that Winnipeg) but all of them would be smaller ... so depending on what you mean by `city'.
The Canadian census bureau counts any gathering of eight or more people as a city, as long as they have a slab of beer with them.
102 ... and loads of much colder places, of course, but hardly anyone lives there.
103: Nickelback, who wrote the Official Man Card theme song, came from just such a place.
Go ahead, you have a blog.
But I don't want to alienate my readers.
What should "wettest" be saved for, Ben?
Water
In case people are genuinely curious, here's an article about training with a snorkel.
I summarized soccer on this blog a year or more ago. It went like this:
Nothing happened, and then nothing happened again, and then nothing happened another time, and then something almost happened maybe, and then nothing happened, and nothing happened again, and then something definitely almost happened!!!1!!! And then nothing happened, and nothing happened again.............................
.............................
AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED!!1!1!!!!!1!!!!...........................
...........................
The final score was 1-0 in an exciting, hard-fought game.
So we don't need to say more.
I summarized soccer on this blog a year or more ago.
Well, it IS pretty hard to play soccer on a blog.
109: Pale imitation.
Hesitantly, reluctantly, Helen slipped out of a sling, tight-waisted waspy and stood naked in the moonlight before me. Somewhere a clock chimed three. An owl hooted in the nearby copse. No wind stirred the casement window. She stood in the pale, translucent light on the Persian carpet. A minute passed. Then another. Then, another minute. Then... another minute passed. Then another minute passed. And another. A further minute passed quickly, followed by another minute, when suddenly, a different minute passed, followed by another different minute. And another. And yet another further different minute. A minute passed. I glanced at my watch. It was a minute past. This was it. A minute passed. After a moment, another minute passed. I waited a minute while a minute passed quickly past. And then, a minute which seemed to last an hour but was only a minute... passed.
Well, I was telling a much more exciting story!!!1!1!
Yeah, who needs naked women when there's a bunch of guys kicking a ball?
109, 111: I also refer you to Foolishmortal's relevant comment to w-lfs-n's non-boring post this past weekend.
After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too. After about 2-3 hours in a big room with several thousand chickens, you start to hear voices too.
when there's a bunch of guys kicking a ball?
Hey!
In our soccer-involved household we were lampooning the hypertechnicality of football last night as illustrated by a potential key to the game being whether a player not involved the play had barely made it across the sideline or not just before the ball was snapped.
Or maybe it is US sports in general. In high school soccer in our area, it is played exactly to the clock, when time expires the game is over, no matter if a ball is mid-flight on its way to going into the goal. I'd love to see how that would play out in the EPL.
Hey!
"Guys" being meant in the gender-neutral sense, of course.
Doesn't the snorkel slow you down, though? I would think it would be a big distraction while swimming fast.
119: I would think it would be a big distraction while swimming fast.
And that is relevant for ogged exactly how?
I would think it would be a big distraction while swimming fast.
Why would that be a problem for ogged?
I'm surprised by how many people are apparently unable to distinguish a Man Card from a Big Baby Card.
117: Your area must be extra litigious. We always had proper refereeing: when the ref noticed time had elapsed (sometimes many minutes before), and the play found a lull into which he could whistle, the game was over.
124: That is how it is at all other levels including recreational and classic, but for HS they do the reffing and game management with a number of idiosyncratic differences (including 2 or 3 on-field refs, black/white striped ref jerseys like football and some minor differences in how cards etc. work that are hard to remember.)
117: This from a fan of a sport that has an offsides rule?
117: That's just an offside rule. Hockey has much the same thing. So's people can't effectively "camp out" in the opposing team's end and wait for chances to break.
If your high school soccer had injury time on the clock, that would be impressively fussy.
Offsides is the most "hypertechnical" rule, but it really ain't nothing compared to pass interference or holding in football. And the referee, as in all judgement calls, has a lot of discretion* to sort out whether or not an actual advantage was gained.
*This can be viewed as either a feature or a bug. In my experience, more in the US than elsewhere would view it as a bug. I guess it illustrates our deep respect for the rule of law ...
I can never get the hang of why the clock stops after certain plays, but not others, in football.
131: Are you making a funny? (I ask because you often are.)
131: And the rules for that are different in college and pros.
nope! It really is mysterious to me. I mean, I think I remember the rule - it stops if it goes out of bounds or if it's incomplete, but not if the pass is complete, and I forget the variations - but I don't really see the essence behind the rule.
In our soccer-involved household we were lampooning the hypertechnicality of football
Football is a far more intellectually rigorous sport, it's true.
133: I'm always asking about the little rule differences. One foot in bounds or two? When is someone down?
My comment in 124 is basically autobiographical. I pulled that stunt when I was refereeing a U-16 girls game. I was really confused why they all seemed so tired and then I looked at my (newfangled, not-correctly-programmed) watch and saw we'd had about 12 minutes of injury time.
One foot in bounds or two? When is someone down?
Also different in college and the pros.
134: The essence is basically time getting the ball positioned shouldn't count against the game time.
138: Exactly, that's why I'm asking those questions. Too many college games to be sure about the differences.
But why wouldn't you not want ball-positioning time after a completed pass to not count either?
Hmm, as far as I can see, the "Man Card" appears to be roughly equivalent to the "Cunts' Club". I seem to remember saying about a year ago that I was regarded as quite the bohemian back in the day for refusing to respect any implied hierarchy of manhood based on the type of curry one ordered, and this is the same sort of thing. I say wear your snorkel with pride. Or at least, develop a concept of pride that is consistent with wearing that snorkel, it must be possible, after all look at Japanese television and they invented the samurai.
139: The essence is original intent was basically time getting the ball positioned shouldn't count against the game time.
Now it's just a component of the "intellectual challenge" of managing the game. Very appealing for analytic philosophy types.
And at least one level (all of them?), the out-of-bounds stoppage rule changes depending on where in the game you are.
rugby has the entertaining feature of all the strange fiddly technical rules of American football, but they change them every couple of years, often with drastic effects on the way the game is played. There used to be a rule banning lifting at lineouts (ie, throwins) which more or less practically mandated that every team had to have one talentless galoot on it who was picked simply for the virtue of being tall, then they changed the rule and an entire generation of multiply-capped players were left wondering why they couldn't get a game any more.
143: refusing to respect any implied hierarchy of manhood based on the type of curry one ordered, whether you make chili with beans.
i always thought the idea was that if a)your play failed (incomplete) you get a few seconds to regroup or if b) you were smart enough to execute a play near the sidelines, you get a few seconds bonus but if you c) run a play anywhere else int he big expanse of the field, you gotta sacrifice the time. I think of it as punative for taking the easier way out.
The reason I asked, hg, is that there seem to be all these little codicils that don't occur to me, so I'm not sure I know "the rules" either. I think of the general rule as incompletions and out of bounds stop the clock, otherwise it runs. But then there are penalties, injuries, chain measuring, etc., all of which I always forget.
I also forget at least once a season whether it's college or pro where a first down stops the clock. Another rule area I am fuzzy on is the safety. There was some fucked up shit happening in some regular season game this year, I forget which, where a guy was tackled in his own endzone but a safety was not granted because of something about the ball's having migrated back there independently of him (it was a fumble). It was totally picayune.
Hmm, as far as I can see, the "Man Card" appears to be roughly equivalent to the "Cunts' Club".
Holy crap, what's the Cunt's Club?
The original post makes little to no sense to me, except as explained in 11 and 22.
148: Penalties, injuries, measurements, officials trying to figure out what happens.
I like football. Actually, I can't think of many sports I don't like.
There used to be a rule banning lifting at lineouts (ie, throwins) which more or less practically mandated that every team had to have one talentless galoot on it who was picked simply for the virtue of being tall,
Huh, I have no idea what situation is being described here. What was banned, and what did the tall people do?
yea, I didn't really get the post to begin with either.
151: Penalties, injuries, measurements, officials trying to figure out what happens. briefly after a sack in the pros.
I like football as well, it just appeals to a different, nerdier and scarier, part of me.
150: Ben w-lfs-n explained something? Successfully? As in "made it clearer"?
Even though he's using the phrase "illegitimate equivocation" in reference to a conversation about fashion?
yea, I didn't really get the post to begin with either.
You don't sound so smart since we took "valence" away from you. Shorter this post: I wore a doofy snorkel and people said it wasn't Manly. I argued that doing my own thing was Manly, but it's not (unless you have an exemption), but that doesn't mean it can't sometimes still be cool.
If you want them to think you're manly, put the snorkel in your trunks.
150, 157: See doesn't that make more sense than anything w-lfs-n has said in his life?
If you want them to think you're manly, put the snorkel in your trunks.
Sticking out like an elephant trunk.
Probably would draw too much interest from Wingnut Lifeguard.
You are unwarrantedly hostile to me since this hiatus. I had hoped for a different effect.
In other words, though, Wrangler jeans are uncool. Therefore, Favre's endorsement of them makes him unManly, unless we interpret that endorsement to be an idiosyncratic kind of statement, in which case, it becomes cool. And Manly.
And then at some point you turn in your Man Card and get your Grownup Card instead.
The whole thing sounds pretty Mancarded.
Even using the phrase "man card" is like high-fiving anyone over the age of, say, 10.
if b) you were smart enough to execute a play near the sidelines, you get a few seconds bonus
all these things which don't appear to make sense are probably spandrels which evolved from the original concept of "kicking to touch" in rugby football and presumably some loose concept of restarting the game at the village bounds in the medieval ur-football game played with a severed Danish head.
Sybil, baby, these vulgarians are going to tell us to get a room in a minute, but perhaps you're stumbling over the post's severing of Manly from cool. Given your thralldom to the common masculinity of a Favre, this is understandable, and not insuperable.
I argued that doing my own thing was Manly, but it's not (unless you have an exemption), but that doesn't mean it can't sometimes still be cool.
Sure. Because I'm a motherfucking feminist, I reject this conception of teh Manly, even while I acknowledge its currency.
Perhaps ogged wishes to redefine the manly, but, you know, you have to be the change you want to see. Stuff like that.
Provisional comity.
||
The consulting world is full of black, white, and That Blue articles of clothing. Sometimes brown, if they're risky. This is making me want to find a pink suit and wear it.
|>
What ogged is saying does almost sound grown-up, because it's the antithesis of the advice that says "be yourself, and the world will never ever hurt you and you will scale mountains." Sometimes, yourself is a strange little geek and there's not much you can do about it.
Any serious athletic training involves a large dose of shame. Without shame and humiliation, you simply will not work as hard.
See Megan's responses to this. Hypothesis: this attitude towards sports becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the people who do not respond to shame and humiliation by working harder will quit doing sporty crap altogether. And notice that most attempts to get adult beginners into sporty stuff (or most other things, come to think of it) actually use the kind of encouragement that Megan's talking about. This might perhaps be because a lot of adult beginner activities have to convince the people who aren't "serious" athletes/scholars/whateverthehell that we, too, are entitled to do whatever the activity is, notwithstanding the bullying of elementary school coaches and the jocular (haha, geddit?) insecurity of 70 year old swimmers.
Love, I think I grasped the truly groundbreaking assertion that what is reductively characterized as Manly is not necessarily the same thing as what hipsters and eccentrics might call cool. Innovative stuff, that.
170 : you have to be the change you want to see.
Actually, on our Man Cards it specifies that you have to talk about the change you want to see while living the precise opposite. Orders is orders.
Innovative stuff, that.
Gratuitous, my dear. Aesthetically. Emotionally.
Sometimes, yourself is a strange little geek and there's not much you can do about it.
True. But you're entitled to think that the people who are making fun of you for it are assholes, rather tha internalizing the message that there's something wrong with you.
172: Or just that it's worth it to do a sport even if you're starting it too late to be a star or a champion. I would have no patience for being humiliated when reality is that if I got really, really good, e.g., I might place in my age group in the all-county 5K.
Emotional wounds are not Manly, but aesthetic ones are, within the right paradigm. The complexities are endless.
176: That's why I said almost grownup. ogged, your snorkeling gear is not cool, and you must turn in your Man Card, but that and $4.19+tax gets you a grande soy latte whip.*
*Inflation since a dime for a cup of coffee, penny for your thoughts, &c.
Is it not also true that graduate school is based on shame and humiliation? That the humanities job market and the single-send article publishing world are premised on deep skepticism about one's ability to contribute?
177: In my limited exposure, it's also kind of garbage, in the sense that the coach doesn't pick on the stars, generally. Maybe it's different in swimming.
I argued that doing my own thing was Manly
By any traditional definition of "manly" that's true. Where else does the stereotype of the "lone wolf" come from? From Natty Bumpo to Huck Finn to Robert Jordan to Phillip Marlowe to every character Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis has ever played, the American man almost by definition "does his own thing."
179: Yeah, I almost said that that was clearly why you said "almost," but decided that would be condescending.
180: Yes, and that's what's seriously fucked up about academia.
182: The point of the Lone Wolf mythos is usually that he is a vanishingly rare exception to the norm. The Man With No Name would fall under Ogged's "exemption" clause.
I need a new body. Mine's obviously past its warranty. A gentle yoga class should not have kicked my ass, and yet my ass is kicked.
Pop, in those cases "does his own thing" is often a pretty narrowly circumscribed set of authority-bucking, but not paradigm-bucking thing. Clint Eastwood can't wear a silly hat until he's killed a hundred guys in two dozen movies.
182: Diametrically opposed to actual American practice for God knows how long. Unless he wants to be a loser, the American Man networks and figures out who[m] to blow.
Caring about the Man Card is grounds for loss of the Man Card.
Sex with girls is grounds for loss of the Man Card.
Pontificating about what might and might not be grounds for loss of the Man Card is grounds for loss of the Man Card.
Welcome to the endless f'in' Nick Hornby novel, ladies.
By the way, I think Will's "shame and humiliation" comment is being misread. He didn't say "shaming and humiliating." Which is to say that tapping into someone's shame and fear of humiliation is a very effective motivational technique, but a good coach will do that subtly, maybe even by being encouraging, not by telling you you're a worthless piece of shit.
190: A kinder, gentler ogged. Turn in the Man Card, big guy.
#183. This Robert Jordan not this one.
that waters down the premise of what sports success is based on such that it can be applied to success in any realm.
189: Sex with girls is grounds for loss of the Man Card.
Only if you don't remember to deny them your essence.
that waters down the premise of what sports success is based on such that it can be applied to success in any realm.
And that's why Tom Brady is going to be president of these United States.
I think any decent yoga class will kick an ass if one does it seriously and after some lapse. That is what I am telling myself about being crippled by my return to Bikram this weekend.
Actually, on our Man Cards it specifies that you have to talk about the change you want to see while living the precise opposite. Orders is orders.
Ouch.
I take "our" Man Cards to be operative there. Hey, though, I like that ogged is talking about male-directed sexist stereotypes, and I'm not about to make fun.
Diametrically opposed to actual American practice
True--or at least true for the living, posthumously it's a different story--but that's irrelevant to the fact that "doing one's own thing" is an accepted characteristic of manliness, even if it's more honored in the breach.
Clint Eastwood can't wear a silly hat until he's killed a hundred guys in two dozen movies.
Is it that Eastwood can't wear a silly hat until he's killed a hundred men, or that he (implicitly, at least) wear a silly hat any time he goddamn well pleases because he might kill a hundred men?
Keith Olbermann (liberal) predicted the Superbowl, BTW. He said we should look for Eli Manning engineering a fourth-quarter comeback.
And lo! That's exactly what happened.
He also claims that Romney sent some plays to Brady. Kristol, Romney, and McCain all leaned NE.
An exciting MANCARD business opportunity for anyone wondering what to do with that spare $90,000.
150: Ben w-lfs-n explained something? Successfully? As in "made it clearer"?
I explain shit all the time in section, baby.
Yes, w-lfs-n explained something. He picked it apart to an extent. I love that shit.
202: I was sorely tempted to bid $1.99 or even $19.99 kust to see how he responded. It isn't an actual bidding offer, though.
See Megan's responses to this. Hypothesis: this attitude towards sports becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the people who do not respond to shame and humiliation by working harder will quit doing sporty crap altogether. And notice that most attempts to get adult beginners into sporty stuff (or most other things, come to think of it) actually use the kind of encouragement that Megan's talking about. This might perhaps be because a lot of adult beginner activities have to convince the people who aren't "serious" athletes/scholars/whateverthehell that we, too, are entitled to do whatever the activity is, notwithstanding the bullying of elementary school coaches and the jocular (haha, geddit?) insecurity of 70 year old swimmers.
Every athlete requires something different to achieve their best. Some people wilt under a coach who screams. Some people thrive on it.
The bottom line is that a coach has to figure out how to push you past your comfort zone.
I could have just as easily said that pride is the key as much as the words shame and humiliation.
With regard to Cala's comment, setting goals/expectations/pride can work for beginners as well. I try to challenge my swimmers. They are often raw beginners. But, they are proud of their accomplishments. I can use that to make them work harder by setting the bar. If they dip below that bar, I challenge them. With each person, the way you challenge them is differently.
I like being challenged and setting goals. I just need the balance between 'you're an adult so don't worry about it' and 'this training regimen is intended for 14-year-olds with Olympic levels of talent.'
207:
I regular say, "It is Masters. Everything is choice."
What I mean is that you get to decide when to take a break and when to challenge yourself.
I quickly can figure out who wants me to push them.
During my current novel-reading I finally realized where dsquared got his online persona.
Lone Wolf and Cub is cool, right?
If defying the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate and the power of the corrupt Yagyu, living in meifumado, walking the assassin's road, six paths, four ways, etc., etc., isn't doing one's own thing, then I don't know what is.
210: Ah, but Ogami Itto could not have done all those things while wearing a snorkel.
I must say. The thought that men regularly listen to the sort of Man Card thing related here bothers me quite a bit. Sure, it's all in good fun, but clearly it's not, quite.
No doubt this is humorless of me, but I have trouble imagining a female equivalent of this: outright, spoken teasing and mockery, signed onto by virtually all present.
It's a male locker-room thing, I recognize that. Women are subjected to its rough equivalent in what's generally an unspoken way, and usually without the humor.
No, no, no, I don't mean to start a long thing about male- and female-directed sexism that could easily go astray. But if I try to put myself in a scenario analogous to ogged's at the pool, well, I can't even imagine what it would look like for a woman.
But if I try to put myself in a scenario analogous to ogged's at the pool, well, I can't even imagine what it would look like for a woman.
In the pool, it applies to men and women equally.
I suppose I might have put a set of those Pause on/off symbols up there.
"well, if you are ready to give up, I can lead the lane...."
I've heard plenty of trashing talking from amazingly tough female athletes. I'm stronger than most females, but I would never claim to be tougher. I've been put in my place plenty of times by women with amazing endurance and/or amazing mental toughness. And they havent been afraid to give me crap about it.
In the pool, it applies to men and women equally.
Do you mean that "Man Card" (or whatever the term) applies equally?
I can only speak about swimming and triathletes.
In those worlds, I think it does.
Of course, the terms used are often manly terms unfortunately.
Mancard. Big balls. That kind of thing.
222: Okay. The strains of the thread above about training and so on did clue me in to this, and of course I get that.
It's not directly analogous, but I suspect that one female version of gender-reinforcing chitchat that's impossible to be as nasty towards as it deserves could be diet-talk: where everybody gets together and bonds over kvetching about their physical inadequacies---or over-adequacies, more like. It's very difficult simply to declare oneself unwilling to participate, and yet these conversations are harmful.
216: I have trouble imagining a female equivalent of this: outright, spoken teasing and mockery, signed onto by virtually all present.
I don't have any trouble imagining a female equivalent, actually. But it's true that women I know who tease each other in similar ways also know each other really well; among strangers, there'd be no mistaking it for any sort of joke. It would appear that Freedom to Tease is yet another bastion of eroding masculine privilege.
jackmormon, did you see similar stuff in the dance world?
Do you mean that "Man Card" (or whatever the term) applies equally?
I can't come to a conclusion on this. I've retyped several answers, based on whether you're giving shit to people on your own team or on the other team, and how representative my teams are or aren't of athletes in general.
Trash talking isn't very common in dance. An insane amount of self-mortification, however, is. There's a lot of snobbery (who's wearing what kind of leotard, how the in girls are wearing their tights this season, etc.) and there's a lot of showing off to each other (from who's the most flexible to who danced through the nastiest blisters). Even in modern dance studios, classes remain rigidly hierarchised, with the instructor and maybe a few acknowledged acolytes firmly in charge. Most formalised dance techniques treat the dancers themselves as mere vessels for the choreographer: in their training dancers habituate themselves to this subordination.
Hip-hop classes are very different, however. More shouty.
124: That is how it is at all other levels including recreational and classic, but for HS they do the reffing and game management with a number of idiosyncratic differences (including 2 or 3 on-field refs, black/white striped ref jerseys like football and some minor differences in how cards etc. work that are hard to remember.)
But that's just not football! It says, in nice big letters at the front of the Laws, `further modifications are only permissible with consent of the IFAB'. Can't American high school folks read?
Honestly, I thought it odd when they were talking about not using 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss in a high school league here.
Does the school do this with other sports?
Shouty is empowering for women. The polar opposite of ballet.
how the in girls are wearing their tights this season
? How many ways are there?
On this blog, we have discussed panties with tights (I am against, Blume is for), but I'd imagine no dancer would consider wearing undies ever, to begin with.
I don't have any trouble imagining a female equivalent, actually. But it's true that women I know who tease each other in similar ways also know each other really well; among strangers, there'd be no mistaking it for any sort of joke.
There are plenty of rough equivalents among women (dieting talk, as JM mentions), but right: it doesn't become public teasing/mockery without it being vicious.
Major caveat: in the world of athletic achievement, it may not parse particularly much between the male and female worlds.
It would appear that Freedom to Tease is yet another bastion of eroding masculine privilege.
Do you mean this? I don't know what to think. A lot of men seem to enjoy that kind of teasing of each other (over questions of masculinity). Women wouldn't, so much, over questions of femininity.
what do your teams do Heebie?
In coed, there's a huge range of abilities, so no one gives much shit to each other on the team because you could be inadvertently super insulting - if, say, you insult Jennifer or Jim, who are actually pretty good, and Sara and John who are standing next to them genuinely suck.
My women's team has a narrower range of talent, and we play at a more competitive level than my coed team. But we happen to be unusually heavy-handed on the all-for-one-one-for-all team spirit, so we have barely any mancardation.
There is shit-talking across teams, from time to time, though, and it can get angry and mean. I myself have been known to perhaps overstep the line.
Didn't the US women's football team recently have a blow up over team mates not being properly supportive?
We talk a lot of shit in softball, but only at the people who are really competitive-acting and then suck. There are both men and women we'd never tease about being wussy because they are just there for fun, and that's fine.
231: It is all of Pennsylvania at least, maybe more. Got curious and did a search and found this (pdf), which is a comparison of FIFA and NFHS (National Federation of High School Sports Associations) rules, the latter seem to be what I have seen at high school level here. Maybe they have some agreement from IFAB via USSF.
There certainly are some high school specific modifications to other sports, I think they are generally adhered to at the state level. (For instance there is a mercy rule in Pa. for American football where the clock does not stop in the 2nd half if a team is ahead by more than x.)
What do you play, though, heebie? Competitive topology?
Competitive topology?
I'm a whiz at Guess Their Genus.
Yo mamma is a manifold of genus 3.
Further to my 236: I think I was in danger of an annoying thread-jack. The subject interests me, but as long as the 'be a man' thing is about athletic endeavors, I'm just obsessing in that other direction.
heebie head butts instead of trash talks. Jammies told me so.
will butts heads and trash talks anyway.
236: Do you mean this? I don't know what to think. A lot of men seem to enjoy that kind of teasing of each other (over questions of masculinity). Women wouldn't, so much, over questions of femininity.
Well, "masculinity" as such tends to be based around dealing with a kind of managed adversity, being able to take and give back (a punch here, a rude joke there, what-have-you) within certain bounds. "Femininity" as we know it occidentally was constructed around the concept of the Weaker Sex, for whom getting along was the ideal and any sort of conflict had better be damned serious if it was going to happen at all. We're not all that temporally removed from that definition of the feminine, so it's no surprise that some of the associated inhibitions should linger.
I myself have been known to perhaps overstep the line.
I'm crushed. I had such a high opinion of you.
Yeah, I don't think it's a girl athlete/boy athlete thing. I think it's a girl/boy thing inasmuch as athlete culture is part of mainstream "guy" culture, so that even guys who aren't athletes are supposed to learn to "shake it off" when they're given shit, even if it bugs them.
And I agree that shit-giving between women who are friends is totally okay. And between women and men who are friends. And that like Heebie said, sometimes it goes over the line.
247 is teh true. To compete outright is to participate in a masculine discourse, which would undermine the ends of teasing about a failure to be feminine. I've been mildly, teasingly chided about not being feminine enough (usually around spending sufficient money on grooming), and I've found myself in rooms full of women talking about dieting or waxing or whatever, and I find that whatever I say on those topics makes for an uncomfortable end to the conversation.
I'm crushed. I had such a high opinion of you.
Actually, my worst offense is that when I'm outclassed and frustrated, I can turn into a really dirty player. Like just trying to take the other player down, male or female.
I always thought one of the most consistent differences between men and women was that women did not exchange all those semi-teasing insults and half-humorous challenges with each other. It's constant among men when you're young.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Have only skimmed the thread, but I suspect that all this is a lot of why I have avoided playing sports my whole life.
Also my total lack of athletic ability.
Michael Irvin said that the hardest part about retiring was that he had spent a lifetime exerting his dominance over other men, physically and mentally.
I remember when I was a little girl, the other girls teased me openly about being a "lesbian," which meant I dressed wrong and was unattractively unfeminine. Does that count? You'd rarely see that among adults though, not out loud.
255: I remember when I was a little girl, the other girls teased me openly about being a "lesbian," which meant I dressed wrong and was unattractively unfeminine. Does that count?
Were they kidding?
Y'know, one of the things I do with little kids is to do that semi-teasing and half-humorous challenging thing with them. And it's funny how often girls--especially, but not exclusively, really smart, really "good" girls--will get a twinkle in their eye when you do that and suddenly liven up and decide they really like you. Boys actually take a minute to assess if you're serious (probably because I'm a woman, hence a mommy figure, rather than because of anything about the boys themselves).
So my purely anecdotal hypothesis is that girls don't do it to each other because few adults do it with girls. *Certainly* one sees men doing it to boys a lot more than men (or women) doing it to girls.
256: I think they thought of it as kidding. I mean, they laughed. But yeah, I guess that counts as malicious, not an active part of my friendly gender-socialization.
See, I think there are teasing, half-truthful insults, and then there are challenges. I see challenges as something that men in our culture do a lot, and women in our culture do in specific circumstances, like competitive athletics.
But in general, giving somebody grief is mostly a sign of affection or closeness, as DS describes in 226. Heck, I felt a lot freer to make fun of folks here after I met you in person. I also feel tremendously freer in RL interactions to give men a hard time than women. I almost never worry that men are going to think I really meant it, am being harsh, whatever.* Whereas with women, it's more a function of how well I know them and whether I trust their ability to interpret my intent. If I don't know them really well, I temper it. A lot. Because who wants to be unkind?
*I remain open to the idea that men in my life do feel insulted or hurt, but they're not explicitly telling me so.
I taught my daughter to tease entirely too much. She gets this twinkle in her eye when she teases me. So freaking adorably cute.
I think LB mentioned before that she gives people she likes a bunch of crap.
I am the same way. If I like you, I tease you. (It is a really bad habit.)
darn it. Witt pwnd me.
Yes, Wit likes to tease. She lights up and gets a twinkle in her eye when she does it.
(Like, right now I am thinking of a joke to make to follow on 257, but I can't bring myself to do it because I've never met DS.)
I tease way too much, often as a way of figuring out whether someone is catching my drift or not. It seems also to be a strong midwestern habit that NYers find offensive, and I've met a lot of midwesterners (esp plains types) who piss people here off way too often and wonder why.
263 is crueler by far than the joke would've been, since it leaves me in a limbo of uncertainty and speculation. Now, even if you tell me the joke, I'll never know if it's a watered-down version of the Real, Original Joke. Curses! Man Card revoked, Witt.
That said, I've met several West Africans who tease even more deadpan than the midwesterner. One of the women in my class has been doing it for two semesters now, and she almost makes me cry every time before I realize she's communicating extreme liking.
261: Yes, I'm the same way. And PK's so used to it that it's actually sort of a problem. I worry that he'll never find love.
Hypothesis: Unfogged is a home of people for whom teasing is a major form of interaction.
Hypothesis: Unfogged is a home of people for whom teasing is a major form of interaction.
Was there every any doubt?
I can never tell you the joke, DS, because the moment to say it evaporated in a little blip, like a soap bubble popping, at the very second that I posted 263. But rest assured that it was moderately clever, and made use of a running joke not-too-far-back in the archives.
(And you have a lot of nerve, revoking my card after I praised your 226. Well, fine then!)
It had to be an articulateness joke, no?
Teasing is a very good mental whateverness screen. Did they get that it was a joke, and if so, did they get the joke? And of course a way of showing affection, etc. Although often teasers don't realize that consistent teasing, even when it's good natured, can wind up making a pretty hostile environment for people receiving it. I've tried to get away from "a little bit of truth" teasing in real life, more towards outlandish accusations and taking offense at random things--it takes less of a toll emotionally. Of course, sometimes "a little bit of truth" teasing is the best way to get a point across, except for with people who can't take hints. I have trouble with those people.
"Femininity" as we know it occidentally was constructed around the concept of the Weaker Sex, for whom getting along was the ideal and any sort of conflict had better be damned serious if it was going to happen at all. We're not all that temporally removed from that definition of the feminine, so it's no surprise that some of the associated inhibitions should linger.
True as far as it goes, except that for the kind of conflict avoided among women, you'd want to substitute *open and explicit* conflict. Women do, of course, deal in a kind of managed adversity with one another.
It's just very unfeminine to do so, according to the definition of femininity you describe. Rock and hard place, really, for women: it's simply impossible to challenge/tease other women for a lack of feminity (understood as above) without becoming unfeminine yourself.
But this should not be about women per se. What makes me curious is the use of "inhibitions" in what you say. Is the idea that teasing over masculinity/feminity is uninhibited?
And you have a lot of nerve, revoking my card after I praised your 226
The Man Card is a fragile, ephemeral thing, my friend. I would thank you for praising my post, but now it would come across sort of gay, so... can we just pretend I thanked you when it would've been appropriate?
266: Midwesterners know how to tease? I thought that was a rare talent, especially outside of your major metropolitan areas.
It's so incredibly constant among young men though. I remember high school friends where this was over half of our interactions. Hell, whole groups where this was over half of everybody's interaction. And if a weakness was found people usually stayed on it.
I think it has something to do with masculinity being an unnatural, achieved status that is always under threat. Femininity is less so.
Actually, I'd argue that teasing is easier within more homogenous populations. In Kansas, you can tease a store clerk because the assumption is that you're not a hypercritical psycho but a friendly person who assumes that the whole "I'm being friendly" thing gets tiresome by the end of a long day. In NYC, the possibility that the person doing the teasing actually is a hypercritical psycho is quite high.
Also, teasing between strangers is much easier in places in which everyone assumes they're being understood on the basic level of language and dialect. Teasing between strangers says, "Yes, we all know what I'm supposed to say now, but instead I'm going to say something else," which you can only do when everyone knows everyone's role in the script.
271: it's simply impossible to challenge/tease other women for a lack of feminity (understood as above) without becoming unfeminine yourself.
Fortunately, newer definitions of "feminine" are also available. A lot of what's acceptable feminine behaviour today would have been tomboyishness, if not outright Sapphism, to earlier generations. So there's hope.
Is the idea that teasing over masculinity/feminity is uninhibited?
Having the option to tease is less inhibited than not having it. Most teasing itself obeys a (complicated and fluid) set of rules and boundaries, of course, so it's not "uninhibited" in some pure sense or anything.
And that weird joking yet not quite joking quality. It was a form of play fighting, and established dominance hierarchies.
Black guys were incredible at it -- outrageous and funny trash talking all the time.
From my limited personal experience, this is just as true for women, but it isn't jokey. As per my 255, there wasn't a day between ages 7 and 13 that I didn't get teased about the possibility that I was either a lesbian or that I might have the audacity to like a boy. I know guys here talk about having it really rough as kids, with a lot of harassment about not being manly enough, but I took shit every day for not being feminine enough.
Teasing is a very good mental whateverness screen.
For sure.
inhibitions
I was interpreting this as the inhibitions that grew up around open conflict back when the stakes were really, really high. If the worst thing that could happen when a woman insulted another woman was that one of them would be ostracized from society or something, that's pretty serious. You'd want to have some social restraints built into the system. Almost like the rituals built up around dueling. I mean, how inconvenient is it if we're all challenging each other to a fight to the death over every little thing?
(And 272: All right, whatever, you wuss.)
274: I think it has something to do with masculinity being an unnatural, achieved status that is always under threat. Femininity is less so.
You think? Insofar as they're social constructs, both masculinity and femininity seem equally artificial to me. Insofar as social construction is a natural human habit, both seem equally etc.
274: I think men do it as much as that because there are virtually no approved ways for men to show that they like each other *other* than teasing.
What happened to cocksucking, you homophobe?
Having the option to tease is less inhibited than not having it.
The flip side is that having the option to do things other than tease is less inhibited than having only that option. Although, as with all highly structured forms, people do get very good at nuance.
278: I know guys here talk about having it really rough as kids, with a lot of harassment about not being manly enough, but I took shit every day for not being feminine enough.
Of course, though dudes seem to have more access to the "friendly teasing" register, there's plenty of interaction among the dudes that falls outside it; guys who talk about having it really rough probably got to experience some amount of that. Teasing gets progressively more unfriendly the further outside the higher-status group you are, and a certain category of dude doesn't even get the courtesy of hostile teasing, they just get hit. From what I hear, this practice is also growing in popularity among the female teen demographic so... uhh, good for them, I guess.
This has been a really interesting thread for me. I've lived so long with my impairments that I tend not to think about what I chose, long ago, to avoid because it would make me miserable. So it no longer occurs to me how much I avoid a lot of masculine group activity because, for instance, I cry easily when humiliated. I don't choose that as a response, and it's not something I can control - it's neurological, the result of pathways developed around lesions on the top of my brain from auto-immune reactions back when I was 17-22 or so. But the fact remains that I break exactly like the worst macho stereotypes of the wussy fag gimp, and the only physical training I could seriously consider as anything but masochism would be stuff where the authorities all agree to keep such tactics out altogether. Which is hard for anyone to do even when they want to. So I just don't do it. Likewise with a lot of non-atheletic social activity, where "I have to stop now, for an unknown period and without advance notice, to rest" just won't fly.
There are days I wonder just how much secret history, largely forgotten even to its primary actors, there is out there, and how much it skews the visible world.
284: Fair point. Earnest conversations among the dudes often tend to be like Very Special Episodes of eighties sitcoms; permissible once a year and of a very proscribed depth and duration. So there's that.
Fortunately, newer definitions of "feminine" are also available. A lot of what's acceptable feminine behaviour today would have been tomboyishness, if not outright Sapphism, to earlier generations. So there's hope.
Oh thank god. So let us drop that outdated definition of the feminine as avoiding conflict. Probably it doesn't explain a thing.
Ahem.
It's so incredibly constant among young men though. I remember high school friends where this was over half of our interactions. Hell, whole groups where this was over half of everybody's interaction. And if a weakness was found people usually stayed on it.
This is my recollection as well. It's more brutal in high school and younger, when you're in a fairly closed society.
283: What, faggots? By definition they turned in their Man Cards a long time ago, and you know it.
(Slack is totally right that femininity is incredibly constructed. Hello, people, makeup?)
288 seems like teasing. What're you, a dyke?
Reflection for thirty seconds, I tease a lot, but I tease men a lot more, and with a lot less prior interpersonal familiarity, than I do with women. For me, it's easier to hit the friendly teasing register with men than it is with women.
So let us drop that outdated definition of the feminine as avoiding conflict. Probably it doesn't explain a thing.
I think this is *way* too simple. Yes, we're starting to have other ways of being a girl, and yes, "conflict avoidance" (like all other sexist nonsense) is outdated. But that doesn't mean it's gone. And given that adult women today were raised very much within the "conflict avoidance" era, and that adult women today are the ones raising tomorrow's adult women, I'm pretty sure that socialized conflict-avoidance explains a *lot* of gendered behavior.
* neurotically wonders if the jocularity of 291 was clear enough *
And given that adult women today were raised very much within the "conflict avoidance" era, and that adult women today are the ones raising tomorrow's adult women, I'm pretty sure that socialized conflict-avoidance explains a *lot* of gendered behavior.
Mmm. I think I know more conflict-averse men than women. By a lot.
Oh great. Slack thinks Parsimon was teasing, and I responded as if she were serious. Clearly I lack mental whateverness.
I am now humiliated and must go do something athletic in order to overcome it.
293: Yes.
Well it might be that the Man Card is being explored in a somewhat lighthearted sports context in this thread, but in my experience on playground, field and business office (and seemingly verified by what an Internet search turns up) it is anything but, instead being right at the ugly heart of a narrative of misogynistic male privilege, used to bully and intimidate other men into not being different, pussies, pussywhipped, whatever. I nearly got fucking lynched at a work "diversity event" when after I got sick of a bunch of holier-than-thou platitudes of true blue equality from male co-workers, I pointed out the extraordinarily ordinary fact that the guys at the place talked and acted differently when not in the presence of women.
Not sure that this adds anything to the direction the discussion at this point, but women swimmers woofing down guys is one very small, specialized offshoot of the genre. (It can also be mapped onto "style" or Clint Eastwood or whatever else you want to distract from it's core function of socialization.) This is the maelstrom of sexual insecurity, conformity and power which generates an ever fresh parade of Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlsons.
So use that snorkel and use it with pride Ogged, else a thousand more little boys grow up to be total fucking assholes.
On preview, I see this is a bit earnest for the tone of the thread. I can't say that I had it particularly "rough" as a kid, I participated on both sides, but I always resented the need to come to terms with the huge looming presence of this implacable thing that drove so much of the patter and subtext of my life, even when I was being judged "OK".
296: Sure, but conflict averseness in men takes different forms. All social creatures try to avoid conflict with their peers.
297: Clearly I lack mental whateverness.
Or perhaps I am a cruel, insensitive bastard.
298: Hypothesis: "Man Card" teasing is to the ills of white male privilege as the dozens are to the ills of black male misogyny. Which is to say, there's some sort of a relationship, but not a direct or necessary one.
Heartening anecdote. There's a little boy who was kind of leading the pack in giving my kid shit for things like occasionally wearing pink socks, long hair, etc. My kid's response is to get mad and yell at the folks teasing him. The (young, male, cool) teacher intervened in these disputes a few times, affirmed that yes, of course PK is entitled to wear pink, then sent PK away mollified and turned to the Cool Kid and basically would say, "look, dude, I know he's a little different, but it's Not Cool to tease him about it." Coolness being the coin of the realm.
The week before Xmas, PK went into class with red fingernails. The teacher saw Cool Kid eyeballing PK's hands, and as they were heading out to recess, said to Cool Kid (out of anyone else's hearing), "yes, he's wearing red nail polish, and no, you're not going to say anything about it. Right?"
The teacher told me this that day; I was like, thanks. Mostly because I actually kind of *like* Cool Kid and was getting concerned about how he and PK were starting to divide their peer group into whose "side" kids were on. (And PK was losing.)
Later that afternoon, PK told me what had happened on the playground (which the teacher didn't know). One of Cool Kid's friends started to say something about the nail polish, and Cool Kid stepped in and said, "he likes it that way, dude, don't tease him about it."
PK, of course, was all "I still don't like Cool Kid," but I pointed out to PK that that was very grownup of Cool Kid, and that if he could get over it, maybe PK should try to do so as well.
The next day, I told the teacher, and he and I (separately) both made a point of saying to Cool Kid that we'd heard what had happened, were really, really impressed by how he'd handled it, and that he deserved a lot of credit for using his leadership skills to protect people rather than hassle them. He was SO pleased at the praise. I think when I spoke to him he expected me to be mad, rather than all "dude, I am impressed as hell."
Since then, no problems whatsoever.
For me, it's easier to hit the friendly teasing register with men than it is with women.
I think this might be a function of the inability to have a "serious" conversation among guys without, as someone said, it sounding like a Very Special Blossom. (This, too, seems to be changing; again, a good thing.) I think most guys just get used to shrugging it off, because it's either that or ramp it up until something blows up. So it's just a much bigger, less refined register.
Bitch, that's great! It satisfies the status impulse, just in a different way. Very smart all around.
300.3: Yeah, take my going off on "Man Card" teasing as synecdoche. It is just one particular manifestation of this whole big amorphous thing.
There may well be encouraging developments as evidenced by stories such as bp's. If we are ever going to be able to have anything like a clear-eyed presidential election involving a female candidate we need to transform the way it manifests itself right from the start.
B's story reminds me of the bit in Schindler's List where someone convinces Ralph Fiennes that it's more illustrative of power to let people live, and he goes around saying "I pardon you" for a while. But only for a while.
Not to belabor the point too much, but here's Bill Kristol getting points on his Man Card:
BILL KRISTOL: Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women. The Democratic establishment -- it would be crazy for the Democratic Party to follow an establishment that's led it to defeat year after year. White women are a problem, that's, you know -- we all live with that.
[laughter]
JUAN WILLIAMS (National Public Radio correspondent and Fox News contributor): Not me!
HUME: Bill, for the record, I like white women.
KRISTOL: I know, I shouldn't have said that.
I tease women more than I do men.
306: It's a weird point because white women split Republican by about 10 points, and have for a while. I think--but don't know--that such a split is necessary for any Republican majority. I can't tell if he was saying that with a nod to that fact or pretending that it wasn't true. Very weird.
297, 300:
Clearly I lack mental whateverness.
Uh, for the record, yes, I was teasing, but in a highly provisional, ironic way, but it might take a discerning eye to tell the difference with some things I say.
Meanwhile, I like what Stormcrow has to say.
OT: Incidentally, B, you really should vote for Obama, and that's not just pan-Africanism talking. He and Hillary have roughly comparable voting records, but she's implicated in the war in a much worse and more thoroughgoing way than he is. That's a massive lapse in judgment -- since followed up with the kind of triangulation that demonstrates she hasn't really learned from it -- that renders her "steel-solid track record" moot and would justly drive up her negatives whether or not she was suffering more from general sexism than Obama from general racism (which in any case isn't true). Also, it is possible for her to be less charismatic than Obama for reasons other than her sex or his race, and I would contend that this is so.
Really, what you want is a candidate who's less likely to roll over -- as Kerry did -- when the opposing party tries to rig the vote count. Unfortunately it's hard to tell which Dem is preferable on this front since nobody wants to talk about the issue, but Clinton has a steel-solid record of carrying along as if everything were politics as usual, which is a Very Bad Sign.
(310 in response to this, I'm just posting it here because B seems to be reading here ATM.)
305: If Cool Kid tries herding PK into a camp, I will tear his little head off.
(Also are you--Ogged!--actually implying that the enforces of normative masculinity are like Nazis????)
Slack, you know, we let black people comment at my blog, too.
"his" meaning Cool Kid's, obviously. Not *my* precious boy.
Also, Slack, thanks.
Slack, you know, we let black people comment at my blog, too.
What about Canadians?
What about Canadians?
For purposes of B's blog I generally pass myself off as an Okie from Muskokie.
I think the Canadians have snuck in despite my hatred for them. Sometimes they can be hard to tell apart from real North Americans.
Sometimes they can be hard to tell apart from real North Americans.
Check carefully for British spellings and French loanwords.
Canada's sons are renowned the world over for self-effacement, modesty, and the tendency to downplay talents.
Yes, yes, Ben. We've all heard that before.
I think my method is more useful than ben's.
However, y'all haven't heard me say that here.
Had you caught the allusion, teo, you'd know that our methods overlap.
320: It's true! We totally kick everybody's ass at those things!
I'm an expert at not catching allusions.
All I know is that the Canadians put maple leaves on *at least* as many consumer goods as the Americans do, so I'm not really buying this "modest, self-effacing" nonsense.
I guess that means I'm not Canadian. I suspected as much.
I guess that means I'm not Canadian. I suspected as much.
You can't be certain until after maturation is complete.
I suspect Americans put very few maple leaves on consumer goods.
You can't be certain until after maturation is complete.
I think I'm pretty close.
If you love 325's setup, you'll really love this.
Ben gives up on subtle and goes directly to self-pimping.
Ben, I believe I will reserve that for the morrow. A fresh-squeezed orange juice smoothie with spirutein and maybe the last banana. I don't think there's any yogurt left. But these things I would need.
I've done it before and I'll do it again.
336: Sounds tasty! Is spirutein greenfood? I loves me some greenfood.
305: If Cool Kid tries herding PK into a camp, I will tear his little head off
what if he got in your good books first by coming for the communists, trade unionists etc?
I came for the communists, but I stayed for the trade unionists.
338: Spirutein is a protein powder mix, made of, let's see, rice, pea and soy, it says. Vanilla flavor is what my roommate favors.
And looking at the nutritional label more closely, my god, it has 100% of practically every major vitamin. Plus folic acid. However, not so good on the calcium, iron, phosphorus and selenium -- but then, what do you want from your smoothie.
I'm not sure what you mean by greenfood: with a name like spirutein, you'd think it might be related to spirulina, and that is one of the ingredients listed early on, but there's also fructose and cellulose early on, which is understandable. It also has, let's see, apple pectin, bee pollen, chlorophyll.
Overall, I think it's really good for you. The stuff is kind of expensive. But a few tablespoons in the blender with juice and/or yogurt and whatever fruit is on hand is undeniably delicious. I am a fan, obviously.
Mmm, sounds good.
I just merged households with my girlfriend, and we are full to burstin' with dry goods. All of my meals for the next seven weeks have to be pasta with nuts, raisins and Emergen-C. When we can shop again, I'll try the spyro gyra stuff.
Wrongshore, the pasta is giving me stomach cramps. Add something green.
Isn't there a difference between how much you tease, and what you tease about? I tease like crazy, but that's different from taking the Man Card stuff seriously.
(And I just voted! No leafleters, which is unusual -- usually there are people right out past the no-electioneering signs. I was looking forward to saying hi to the Obama leafleter. )
But the fact remains that I break exactly like the worst macho stereotypes of the wussy fag gimp, and the only physical training I could seriously consider as anything but masochism would be stuff where the authorities all agree to keep such tactics out altogether. Which is hard for anyone to do even when they want to. So I just don't do it. Likewise with a lot of non-atheletic social activity, where "I have to stop now, for an unknown period and without advance notice, to rest" just won't fly.
This reminds me of a poster I had in my room as a child:
"Nothing is so strong as gentleness.
Nothing is so gentle as real strength."
In my group of friends, it simply wasn't allowed to pick on those who would not respond well to it. In those situations, if you used negative reinforcement instead of positive reinforcement, you were the one who got shamed. Certainly, there is a certain self-selection like Baugh mentioned with people who avoid sports.
Muskogee. No wonder the disguise doesn't work.
340:I came for the communists, but the pacifists came for me.
Cause I was gentle & tender & patient
"it simply wasn't allowed to pick on those who would not respond well to it."
Positive reinforcement could convert me to the hope side. It's never too late. Yes you can.
There are some remarkable people who can push themselves extremely hard.
But, for most of the rest of us, we need someone to push us past where we are comfortable going.
There isnt much difference between:
"Don't F'ng stop now!!!!!"
and
"Don't F'ng stop now, you p/ssy!"
If you are an elite level, wanting to challenge yourself, many people hear the last two words, whether they are said or not.
(Of course, those words bring home a significant issue about how feminine is deemed weak.)
Obama has picked up a key endorsement.
347: Positive reinforcement could convert me to the hope side
If you do, I promise to pitch in and help buy you one of these.
346: Uhhhh, I meant Okie immigrant to the Muskoka region north of Toronto. That's it. Any resemblance with the Merle Haggard song "Okie from Muskogee" is purely coincidental.
349 is wonderful. Key sentences:
Where can I go for antibiotics or a mustard plaster when I fall ill? Where can I go to pasteurize my children?
and
But what sort of services did he provide? Did he promote physical culture to Chicagoans? Did sport, leisure, and tourism receive a boost from his bold efforts? Do more Chicagoans go in for patriotic games now than before? The answer is a three-times "no." Yet it cannot be denied that Americans have enthusiastically embraced Barack Obama's color. As a result of Candidate Obama's bold hue, white Americans are now going in for black Americans at unprecedented levels. Racial good-will is up 56% since its historic low in 1813, and if Obama is elected president we can count on seeing many Centres for the Friendship of the Peoples "Barack Obama" in future.
It can't be real, though, can it? Not that I know anything about Belarus, but its still got to be a put-on.
#352. It was the borating of your politics that made me feel satire.
It isn't real, as the author of the post admits in comments.
Yeah, I felt a little gullible about even being in doubt at all -- I should have noticed that lots of the ridiculous stuff wasn't the kind of thing that could be attributed to bad translations. Still funny, although if someone Belarussian wanted to bitch about it I'd be sympathetic.
although if someone Belarussian wanted to bitch about it I'd be sympathetic
You're a liberal bone-deep, aren't you?
I was a moderately successful jock up until age 37 or so, but I've increasingly stopped caring (though I do regret not being about to do certain things for fun anymore). Except for people training at a high level (Olympic or at least NCAA) I can't see why adult athletics should be taken seriously.
My whole life I've been running into people who thought that their athletic training was intensely meaningful, or even the only thing in their life that meant anything, and I ended up concluding that they should all just shoot themselves, because athletics really aren't that meaningful.
because athletics really aren't that meaningful.
True meaning comes from relationships, right, Emerson?
they should all just shoot themselves, because athletics really aren't that meaningful.
99.9% of what people do really isn't all that meaningful.
357 is a blatant troll, John. But I will respond.
Does it really matter what gives someone's life meaning?
Many adult athletes take their training seriously, but not themselves. They are painfully aware of where they are in the athletic hierarchy. They do it because it is fun to challenge themselves in ways that they haven't before.
It really isn't any different from people who take up a book club or knitting or blogging. Very few really think that they are at an elite level.
A remarkable change has taken place in my lifetime regarding our expectations about what an adult athlete can do. Nobody would have expected large numbers of people in their 60s to be doing triathlons.
Knitters don't find existential meaning in knitting, I don't think. If they do I feel the same way about them. I've known lots of jocks who were way overserious about the shit they were doing.
I'm overserious about my training. Get off my case.
I've known lots of jocks who were way overserious about the shit they were doing.
Wait till you meet the history and philosophy geeks.
I was joking around last night about beating up on old ladies and old men, but I got a HUGE ego boost when some older guy told me how I made it look so easy in the water.
I was feeling very studly for about an hour before I realized how lame I was for getting such an ego boost.
There's the rub, Tim. To me, when properly done, history and philosophy are potentially meaningful in a way that sports aren't.
I remember meeting an M.D. around 1976 who pretty much said that his road-racing (running) was the only part of his life that meant anything to him. He had a successful career, a cute wife and a couple of kids, and enough money to have a lot of options, but that's all he had. He thought he was telling me how great sports were, but I was depressed by what he was saying about his life.
I remember way back before you guys were born when people started talking about sports in terms of Tao and Zen and Yaqui mysticism. I was on drugs and didn't immediately understand the horror of it all.
I enjoy athletics, but I'm marginally on John's side here. Taking training seriously is fine, but every sport I've participated in seems to draw a couple of adult athletes who seem to be convinced that they really are Olympic material. E.g., a couple of women on a skating message board got into an argument about whether they counted as athletes, with the difference not being whether one was a serious competitor, or the level of training, but whether one had a strict diet and exercise program, as in "when I lose 15 pounds I'll call myself an athlete." Well, okay, but you're still 45 and learning a toe-loop. You're a lawyer who is passionate about a hobby, and if you're not willing to call yourself an athlete over that, then what has the weight to do with it?
Nothing wrong with challenging oneself, but this glory-by-vicarious-thinking bit drives me crazy.
I remember way back before you guys were born when people started talking about sports in terms of Tao and Zen and Yaqui mysticism.
Totally different. Sports successfully help you achieve inner peace.
You weren't even there, young lady. As I pointed out. So you have to trust me. Wisdom of the elders. And McManus too.
Was it thirty years ago? Then I was there.
367: A curiously romantic position for the No Relationship guru. I think you're offering a view of a meaningful life with which I probably don't agree. The guy had something that gave him joy. Bully for him, I say.
32+ years ago. Sorry, Heeb.
What the guy was telling me, though he didn't know it or intend to do it, was that nothing else was meaningful to him. And he was a very lucky guy whom I was objectively justified in envying.
Release yourself from the bonds of envy, Emerson.
There's nothing objective about it. If there was something he had that you wanted, I assume it was happiness. And that, for him, came from running.
You might think that the problem is the guy, not the activity he's overvalued.
He didn't seem especially happy either. I felt like asking him to give me his cute wife and his paycheck if he found them so meaningless. I would have let him keep his kids.
375: Too deep for me, sensei. Can you explain that?
I remember meeting an M.D. around 1976 who pretty much said that his road-racing (running) history and philosphy properly done was the only part of his life that meant anything to him. He had a successful career, a cute wife and a couple of kids, and enough money to have a lot of options, but that's all he had. He thought he was telling me how great sports were, but I was depressed by what he was saying about his life.
Would that make it acceptable?
Once I recognized the syndrome, I started seeing it everywhere.
Except here on Unfogged! I've been speaking abstractly.
378: See, I'd question his non-sequitor jump to sports, mid-rant.
I cried because I had no sports, until I met a man who had no sports and no cute wife.
377: I just mean that Emerson has the wrong diagnosis. He seems to be saying "bah, sports" on the grounds that some people assign sports a weird role in their lives. The problem with the "I only care about running" guy, though, seems to be nothing about running per se; it's with his valuing of it to an inappropriate degree.
To me, when properly done, history and philosophy are potentially meaningful in a way that sports aren't
How do you define properly done?
383: I did perceive a trend or syndrome. There were whole magazine empires feeding off it. And often they were people who were aggressively indifferent to things I found meaningful.
I take back the part about people having to shoot themselves. Put the gun down, Heebie. It was a joke! Hyperbole! Litotes!
383; I think Emerson's initial diagnosis was "inappropriate degree."
384: The way I would do them! Obvs.
How do you define properly done?
Philosophy should be a little pink on the inside.
388 is very, very wrong. You have to heat it enough to kill off the parasites, or they might eat your brain.
386: the part I found weird, though, was the "sports" angle instead of "valuing inappropriately" angle. That is, Emerson is gesturing toward one instance of a common phenomenon as though it's distinct from the other cases.
390: Don't you have to in the end? I don't think Emerson's making the case against strong valuing, so doesn't he need to point at the the thing being valued?
The way I would do them! Obvs.
What are the benefits to them if done in your way?
Yeah, I'm seeing Emerson's argument as being that sports get systematically overvalued in this regard. Someone getting all the meaning in their life from their rock garden is making the same mistake, but people just don't do it that much.
I'm talking about a social trend of valuing sports inappropriately.
Maybe it's an American thing. The British decathlon recordholder Daley Thompson razzed the American Olympians for being too serious and not having enough fun.
Google doesn't find Daley Thompson juicing rumors. It would be news to me.
Juiced?
He [Thompson] has always been like that. Prickly sense of humour.
Yeah, I don't think there were ever rumours about him being on performance enhancing drugs. He was a big deal in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s.
Probably my favorite athlete of all time.
At the risk of stereotyping, sports emphasizes one's outer life. The pursuits of a gentle scholar in a society that doesn't much value scholarship emphasize the inner life. One needs balance.
Plato's brother competed in some kind of race, there's reference to not getting a laurel wreath.
Plato himself trained as a shotputter or discus thrower, I've been told.
I thought Plato was a wrestler. Controversy!
SCTM, on the other hand, really is on performance-enhancing drugs.
Just in the sexual-innuendo sense of "wrestler".
394: Daley Thompson
He unzipped his GB tracksuit to reveal another T-shirt, which read: 'Is the world's second greatest athlete gay?'
....
Asked who was the second greatest athlete in the world, he replied that he may be Lewis or Jurgen Hingsen, second in the Decathlon.
I had always assumed it was targeted at Bruce Jenner, but I see now that they really did not overlap that much.
At the risk of stereotyping, sports emphasizes one's outer life. The pursuits of a gentle scholar in a society that doesn't much value scholarship emphasize the inner life. One needs balance.
Why can't we just say that Emerson, like pretty much everyone else on earth, prefers his own? He values history and philosophy--done right!--and so believes that people who feel the same are correct.
406: I'm pretty sure it was a shot at Carl Lewis.
prefers his own
This very website contradicts you. Every single person here is always right, seeks like-minded company, yet no two agree.
Basically, yes. A place with no athletes would be better off than a place with no philosophers or historians. (I do define philosophy more broadly than American philosophy departments do -- hence the "done properly").
France seems to put a low priority on sports and not do terribly well, and France is a great place.
France seems to put a low priority on sports
You mean apart from football being the major national religion?
And the fever over l'homme des cavernes during the Rugby World Cup.
Yeah, they have cycling, soccer, and a little rugby. Not much else, and they don't win much.
As I understand, it's OK for Frenchpersons to be unathletic weenies. You don't have little guys weightlifting so as to not seem little, for example. Being jockish isn't a big plus careerwise.
Not much else, and they don't win much.
Apart from the soccer World Cup, and the European Championship [in immediate succession]. They were in the World Cup final last year. They regularly make the final stages of the Rugby World Cup and are usually there or thereabouts for the Six Nations.
What you mean is they don't win much at sports the US competes at?
This very website contradicts you. Every single person here is always right, seeks like-minded company, yet no two agree.
Broadly speaking, almost everyone here agrees: woot history and philosphy.
Being jockish isn't a big plus careerwise.
Being a Jocque, OTOH....
357: John, you just don't understand the culture of adult athletes, and are therefore not qualified to have an opinion.
Incidentally, I think being jockish as a big plus is pretty much unique to the US. It's not a big deal here either.
For example, in my high school, people couldn't have given two shits about who was a big athlete or sportsperson. It meant nothing.
Yeah, they have cycling, soccer, and a little rugby.
Don't forget smoking. And sexual harassment.
The bottom line is that people accord more respect to someone who can do something well or who has accomplished something in their hobby or sport.
Unless it's a hobby that no one gives a damn about, like most possible hobbies. That really only works for sports.
That really only works for sports.
It doesn't even work all that much for sports. It works a bit for sports people care about. Of which there are probably a handful.
i think i have a hole in the heart, i mean in the interatrial septum asd II, or may be it's the foramen ovale left unclosed, i hear a mild murmur and smallish flow on ucg, it's pretty normal
when i swim i turn blue that's why i can't swim
i don't have any other symptoms so it goes undiagnosed
or may be i just breathe incorrectly
that breathing through snorkel seems complicated
Yeah, little boutique sports like soccer, rugby and cycling.
In 18 World Cups France has won 4 out of 54 medals, behind Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, and Germany.
No Frenchman has won the Tour de France since 1985.
In Rugby they seem to finish in the top four, usually behind New Zealand and / or Australia.
Remember -- from my POV these are good things about France.
little boutique sports like soccer
Frist!
For example, in my high school, people couldn't have given two shits about who was a big athlete or sportsperson. It meant nothing.
Don't the real star athletes go to separate high schools in Britain, or start playing fulltime for youth teams instead of going to high school? Here we have the fetish for amateurism.
In the US there are some sports where people basically drop out of school to play them, but no team sports. Mainly tennis and gymnastics I think.
Unless it's a hobby that no one gives a damn about, like most possible hobbies. That really only works for sports.
I disagree. The issue is measuring their success in their hobby. Grow the biggest pumpkin. Win a statewide crossword competition. Win a cooking contest. Eat more hot dogs than anyone else in your state. Win a prize for best wine.
People look at you differently.
In 18 World Cups France has won 4 out of 54 medals, behind Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, and Germany.
Wow France is so bad they get their butts kicked by themselves.
Some free-marketer or libertarian actually proposed hobbies as a solution to the problem of inequality. Everyone can be best at something -- even if your job is a loser and you live in a crappy apartment, you can have a fantastic comic-book collection.
425: People certainly look at you differently if you eat more hot dogs than anyone else in your state, sure. But it's not with admiration...
People look at you differently.
Yes, I think it's fair to say that if you brag about growing the biggest pumpkin, eating the most hot dogs, or winning the statewide crossword competition, people will look at you differently. I'm not sure that's responsive to LB's point, though.
Tim AND DS swinging for the easy pitch??
when i swim i turn blue
Maybe you need a heated pool.
424: but no team sports
To an increasing degree, many of the very top soccer players end up at the national academy (in Florida, I think) sometime during high school. (They do go to high school there.)
There are also various private academies (Oak Hill?) that have become basketball magnets (many of them were the teams that LeBron James' Akron high school team went around the country and played on ESPN during his senior year.) Although I think many of the players are in a post-secondary year, trying to get their grades/test scores up to NCAA standards.
There are also various private academies (Oak Hill?) that have become basketball magnets
Even before the rise of such institutions, there was a fair bit of high school (and even jr. high) recruiting by institutions. The Dunbars, in DC and Maryland, I seem to recall were constantly being accused of this in the eighties.
re: 424
Nope. There were a couple of kids at my school who played for the youth teams of major football clubs [Celtic, Hearts and Rangers] and a friend from the nearby Catholic school played under-21s rugby for Scotland.
It genuinely wasn't a big thing.
ttaM has put me in a quandary. I want my algorithm to show France to be a civilized country, but not Scotland.
Hmmmm. Back to the drawing board.
USA, France, Scotland.
One of these countries is not like the rest. Hint.
Huh, there was a semi-serious discussion over the proper degree of importance one should place on various aspects of one's life (i.e. the appropropriate apportionment of value)? I want to dismiss the very notion out of hand, but I'm not sure I can.
437: Ok, so the sports are a wash, do it on food.
438: Hooliganism? How about "Hooliganism and / or sports" as a category? France good, U.S. and Scotland bad.
Actually, by the standards of many European countries, Scotland isn't bad at all when it comes to sports related hooliganism.
It is pretty violent -- that's come up before -- but sport isn't a particular locus of violence (with the possible exception of the Old Firm).
