As a student of history, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of this odd philosophy that there's something wrong with watching other people do things that you will never do.
Living vicariously is the essence of being human. It's why we have language, and stories, and imagination, and all the wetware required to support these things. Dogs can't tell stories about other dogs in such a way that their canine audience is moved to weep or cheer. Whereas humans line up to hear stories about three-thousand-year-old semi-mythical events. Then they draw practical conclusions from those stories.
I don't see why it's so terrible that I'd rather watch, say, a deep-sea fisherman risk his life than try deep-sea fishing myself. We have no shortage of deep-sea fishermen -- in fact, what we have is a shortage of fish. And the same principle definitely applies to soldiers: Every real soldier who can be replaced by a Team Fortress player, or a History Channel viewer, represents a net win for humanity.
It is my opinion that the article does not suggest that "it's so terrible that
I'd rather watch, say, a deep-sea fisherman risk his life than try deep-sea
fishing myself." It actually directly chastises, in the following quote, the
people who make such claims.
There are men who feel that the entire problem with males today is that they’re
too obsessed with college and professional sports. But that’s as wrong-headed
as thinking that indulging in a straight diet of passive entertainment carries
no ill-effects whatsoever. Rather than suffering from spectatoritis, these men
are inflicted by high-horse-itis.
The writers further clarify their position in the paragraph following the
above one. They insist that "a problem only arises when instead of being a
supplement to your life," it becomes "a substitution, a way to feel better
about something you personally lack."
I'm a fourth year undergraduate at a university in Boston, MA. I have had
roommates who watch television many hours a day, do their homework with no
passion or interest, and then proceed to drink and party all night. I will not
argue that any of these actions are individually "bad," but I will argue that
a life consisting primarily of these activities is devoid of creative output
and is qualitatively "bad" under my philosophy.
A life of raging all night at a party and, assuming an impressive alcohol
tolerance, waking the next morning to start creating something is not a
a life I'd call "bad."
I believe this is a faithful interpetation of the article's position.
I really like your comment, but I don't think we should judge an odd philosophy on the basis of one of its most banal articulations. The article belongs to a genre with a pretty decent tradition, but its relation to that tradition is derivative in the worst sense (in fact, it's at least a second derivative, so to speak, rehashing an already bastardized rehashing of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Every age diagnoses the malaise of the age, but not every age does it equally well. One problem with the modern era is that we don't have a Kierkegaard or Nietzsche to write our critiques of average modes of existence.
He doesn't have a problem with passive entertainment. He even says that he goes to concerts sometimes. He just thinks it's bad that people do it too much, which is a very uninteresting point.
> Living vicariously is the essence of being human.
I think this is the exact point the author is trying to disprove. The articles isn't saying that all viewing activities are bad, in fact he point out the "high-horse-ness" of people who say they are. Instead he is saying that the essence of being human is in being in the area, not passively viewing it.
While there is much to learn from watching, reading, ect, real life takes place when you are the doer, not the viewer. Teddy Roosevelt's very famous "It's not the critic that counts" speech (Full Version: http://www.leadershipnow.com/tr-citizenship.html ) comes to mind instantly.
While History is the study of things that you will never be able to do, it is immensely valuable, if that knowledge can be translated into ideas about what we should do. Winston Churchill was a student of history, and his life was meaningful because he acted on this knowledge to stop the German advance and save the free world.
You are right about the fisherman-soldier analogy. But I think the article's main point is that creators (read doers) are of much more value to society then consumers (read viewers).
This is why we should have "One thing in which [we are] a doer, and not just a viewer."
The popularity of iOS around here, a consumer-centric platform blatantly hostile to tinkerers, makes clear we don't have such a consensus now if we ever did.
It's important to separate the ethical, technical, and business concerns and look at them one by one.
iOS offers me a few things. As a user, it offers me a smooth widget experience, no hard crashes, and a ginormous store full of toys and a few useful widgets. As an appliance, it is sterling. My music player works as reliably as my toaster. Exactly what I want, actually. I have no need to tinker with my appliances; they do exactly what I want, and I free my mental cycles to do things like work on my Master's without fiddling around with configuring my toaster. As a developer, it offers me a simple delivery platform, delivered to people with spare cash who have been trained to purchase software. It's a pretty sweet gig, in my opinion.
Apple really should open up the hood to tinkerers, in the ethical sense. It does us as a society no good to have a society of 'couch potatoes' and spectators. We need doers & thinkers, people who can get the job done and also reflect on their existence. I strongly believe that Apple should incorporate that awareness into product policies: there should be something like a 'enable tinkerer mode' in my iPod system settings. However, their corporate DNA goes against that, from the early 80s on. They really want to provide a unified and 'beautiful' experience for their customers. Tinkerers open up the hood and cause variety and divergence from the norm. (Think all the weird kludges in Windows because it has to support such a variety of hardware).
I used to spend a lot of my weekends watching my AFL team, Collingwood, losing. Then I saw the episode of Seinfeld where he did his bit about sports fans:
"We're a little too into sports in this country, I think we gotta throttle back. Know what I mean? People come home from these games, 'We won! We won!' No, they won - you watched."
"They won, you watched." It really resonated with me. I was spending quite a bit of cash to watch a bunch of fit guys try to kick a ball better than another bunch of fit guys in different coloured jumpers. If 'my guys' won I felt good and if they didn't, I didn't. It seemed ridiculous to me. If they won, why should I feel happy? I don't even know them! And if they lost, why should I feel upset? It wasn't my fault.
I haven't really been to an AFL game since then and barely watch it on TV. If Collingwood makes a final, like they did last year, then yes, I want them to win and I will watch the game on TV. But it doesn't go any further than that.
Giving up on the spectating didn't make me go out and play football myself, but I do mostly spend my spare time being creative rather than just spectating.
i came away with a similar sentiment after reading this blog, and it really articulated a similar notion in my head -- for me, wasting precious free time online, living through the success stories of fellow entrepreneurs.
Yeah, it is inevitable that we will do a little spectating. I got my insight into the pointlessness of watching spectator sports from watching Seinfeld, watching TV, another spectator activity. I still enjoy comedies and movies and they don't make me depressed like watching professional sport. I try to limit my time on sites like Hacker News for the same reason I try to limit my TV.
Anytime I think of the masses of creative output of greats like Beethoven, Picasso, Edison I think to myself - "The amazing power of not watching TV for four hours a day."
I'd like this article a lot more if it weren't sort of gratuitously about gender in a strangely jarring way.
The underlying point about spectatoritis is interesting, but I don't see what it has to do with what it means to "become a man" or developing a "manly 'philosophy of leisure'". Surely plenty of people of both genders are suffering from spectatoritis, and not only in spectator sports (and even there, there are plenty of female fans as well).
Nash's book is not explicitly gendered in that way, though it was written in 1938 and so does have a more implicit built-in assumption that it's probably addressing men (and it does use "man" and "men", but in the now-old-fashioned sense that's sort of gendered but ambiguously so and might also mean "people in general", depending on context). But it's not really accusing its readers of being insufficiently masculine; it's accusing them of being too passive, which seems more to the point.
This article isn't gender-specific, though, except in a very lazy way that just gratuitously throws in the word "man" and "manliness" a few times in an article that has nothing to do with them, unless you count some vague reference to old-fashioned ideas about what constitutes a "real man". It would require changing about four sentences, and not even changing them a lot, to make this a completely gender-nonspecific article.
The blog overall, from a brief skim, seems about 50% sexist nonsense, and 50% obsessed-with-old-accoutrements-of-masculinity hipsters (I expect to find some fancy moustaches and pipes). If it matters, I'm a man, and I find this kind of stuff trying to tell me what it means to be a "real man" pretty offensive, backwards crap.
Unless you have a specific example, merely omitting mention of both genders hardly qualifies as "sexism" to me? There are plenty of gender-specific magazines for females that do the same thing all the time. I don't see why everyone must now pepper their prose with "he or she" and use an exact 50/50 proportion of examples using both male and female names (actually, you wouldn't need an equal proportion, as it seems that sexism only applies to men) lest they be labeled sexist?
Secondly, just because it's popular today to think of men differently than the "old-fashioned way" doesn't mean that modern thought is "more correct" as to what defines a man, nor does it mean that people who disagree with the modern idea are "wrong" (I'm not suggesting that the "old-fashioned way" is in anyway correct either, but still people have different opinions - and the popular modern idea is just one more).
But I digress, the blog is quite self-aware and I've always read it with a sort of tongue-in-cheek sense of humor; the "gratuitously" throwing in of "man" and "manliness" is part of the writing style.
It's ironic that many authors resort to using the blatantly sexist 'she' to avoid being called sexist.
I would love to see any evidence that the usage of 'he' somehow harms females, and I would support any evidence-supported solution that is suggested (for one thing, I wouldn't want it to harm my wife and daughters), but so far this whole issue seems to be completely locked in the realm of hypothesis, and it's without the feeblest suggestion of evidence.
It's not that using "he" is sexist, so much as it's an indicator of a society where being male is the "default" setting, and it's always a little bit surprising to see a woman doing something. So I would argue that no, it's not really sexist to use "she" as a pronoun, if you're doing it to be rebellious. It isn't about putting down men. It's about encouraging the visible presence of women.
The pronoun thing is probably a minor issue in the gender wars, though. That "he" is the default pronoun isn't a problem so much as, say, that the vast majority of scientists are men, which sends the message to young girls that science is not for them.
Why is the small number of women in science a problem? To call this fact a problem good evidence is needed.*
Usually when this is called a problem it is done along with making the implicit or explicit suggestion that men in scientific fields are sexist and somehow discriminate against women. But I, like most men in science, would severely reprimand anyone who treats women unfairly. Therefore I find it extremely unwarranted and unfair that feminists think it is OK to accuse us of sexism without evidence. And I find it saddening that not more men have the courage to speak up against these accusations.
I'm sure there have been cases of discrimination against women in science, but this in no way proves that it's widespread, or that it's affecting the number of women in science.
[* The logic goes that since men and women are identical, there should be just as many women in science as there are men. But this conclusion is unwarranted because the premise is unsupported by evidence.]
If it were actually the case women were inherently less interested in science, sure, I wouldn't care, but discrimination exists. Much more subtly than it used to, but it's still there, and hence still a problem.
Could you suggest an article for me to take a look at that does not reference some sort of normative idea of: 1) manliness; or 2) real men? I.e. that does not try to tell me what I have to be like in order to be a manly-real-man?
There's no point if you see "real man" and terms like it and assume the whole thing is sexist schlock. You're looking at the intentional usage of outdated language as a styilistic choice and inferring things around it.
I don't see any way not to extrapolate it that way, since the concept of "real man" is inseparable from an attack on men who don't conform to the author's perceived requirements of "manliness", as somehow not being "real" men, or defectively masculine. I.e. not just old-fashioned language, but old-fashioned ideas better left buried.
We’ve never said we’re experts. In fact, the idea that there’s such a thing as an “expert in manliness” is sort of silly. We’re just two people who are passionate about helping men become better men. We want to provide an alternative men’s magazine for men who are tired of the crap that’s put out for men by most media outlets. We see our role as researchers and writers who try to dig up the best information out there and make that info available to readers. I’m learning right along with everyone else."
I did take a look around and taking a trial run on my RSS subscription reader, but as far as research goes, i still think many articles are just plain opinions.
I suspect if you replace 'man' with 'human' and 'manliness' with 'humanliness' it might an easier read for you. The original author in the thirties was was writing in the style which was deemed 'proper' at the time, and I am sure that if they were alive today they would agree that 'women' are just as susceptible to 'spectatoritis' as men are.
For the original book, yeah; the quotes from there don't really bother me, and I read 19th-c stuff pretty frequently. It's this blog which bothers me more; it seems to be going out of its way to inject phrases like "manly 'philosophy of leisure'" when just "philosophy of leisure" would do. But I suppose it is the raison d'etre of the blog...
Are you talking about American football? The sport where you need a suit of armor just to lower your risk of neck, knee, and brain injury to the point where you can survive a two- or three-year career in the pros before being forced to retire?
Eh, who wants to live forever? Your body is already aging anyway, might as well go out (going out in this context means injuring yourself badly) in a flame of glory.
See, this is why people my age are too old to become soldiers :) I've actually got friends with chronic injuries, so I've seen what it's like. You don't "go out" when you get chronically injured, especially these days when we have decent medical care. What happens is that you spend the rest of your life in pain. Or perhaps you end up with a pain that only bugs you when you try to do something ambitious, like walk half a mile or raise your hands above your head.
The whole "flame of glory" model sounds really awesome when you're a healthy person, but you'll find that it tends to break down pretty catastrophically about two seconds after the flame goes out.
As a former college football player, I could not agree more with this comment. Years later, when the pain is shooting through your back, the only "flame" is the one you feel burning through your nervous system. It's a brutal sport and I'm more than happy to only be watching these days. For the benefit of my children, I will do everything I can to discourage them from playing too.
It's one thing to be a spectator by choice, but when you're forced into the role, it's a completely different story.
P.S. That said, thank you for reminding us of the question, "who wants to live forever" - it is perhaps the single most epic line from the 1980 film Flash Gordon.
Football without blocking or tackling is a completely different game. Might just as well just play soccer or ultimate. Which, in fact, people do.
Those who want to poke maximum fun at couch potatoes always seem to pick American football for their examples. That's because civilians don't actually play American football, so there's relatively little danger of an embarrassing counterexample popping up. (Actually, plenty of teenagers play American football, but perhaps teenagers know better than to try to argue with curmudgeonly trolls on the Internet.) It's rarer to hear people try to make fun of Americans for not playing basketball or, god help us, golf... because in any city in America a golf course or a pickup basketball game is probably no more than ten minutes away. I know a bunch of middle-aged adults who play basketball. I know this because they occasionally turn up with basketball injuries. ;)
Incidentally, I only just noticed an incredible folly at the heart of this article: If you sample teenagers, you'll find a much larger percentage of them playing sports. But a smaller and smaller percentage of the American population is under 25. Is it really such a terrible thing that so few 55-year-olds play contact sports? Aren't our emergency rooms busy enough as it is?
Rugby is also a terrible sport to play casually with high impact tackling.
When you think about it even more casually, going down to the park with a few friends, rugby and american football are both hard to replicate. Sure you could pretend to both be quarterbacks and pass the ball back and forward but it's really nothing like the actual sport. Same with rugby which is mostly backwards passes.
Taking the American sports angle you can see why it's much more common to seeing friends playing basketball casually as getting a few friends together you can mostly replicate the game.
Most major american cities have one or more rugby clubs. It is great way to unwind after a long day at the office. You should definitely have good health insurance, and be prepared to accept some longer term consequences, but unlike football, there is a fairly active (albeit small) adult population that engages in the sport.
I watch Starcraft games in my liesure time after work.
I used to play it often. But I find I can get as much enjoyment watching pros, who completely dominates the game, play against each other.
The difference is watching doesn't involved the mental effort that playing does. After 8hrs of design/programming, the last thing I want to do is think more.
I imagine the required effort is the same for grabbing a beer and watching football on TV vs going outside and playing it.
I can relate to this, with a lot of sports, both online and offline watching can bet better as you could never experience (at least not without dedicating a large chunk of your life to it) the same skill level that the game is played on.
A) you've seen a football player. I wouldnt want to be hit by one of those guys.
B) you've understood the beauty of american football. Imagine a sport which combines the ferocity of grappling along with the strategy of chess. Its just an awesome sport to watch and comprehend.
Grappling, and strategy of chess, yes. But you forgot the other third of the appeal to the American mind, the litigiousness allowed by the instant replay review and numerous rules with slightly different penalties. Each play is a sequence of strategy, chaos, lawsuit.
But isn't that a much more active way of enjoying music than just sitting listening to it? Rock Band, Guitar Hero and their ilk have imparted an active sense of rhythm, at the very least, to millions of players. And in the case of the Pro Expert mode in Rock Band 3, you actually do play using real guitar chords and drum patterns.
Football is IMO not much fun to play. Lots and lots of repetitive boredom for any one player. But to watch is amazing. When it's all put together well it is art.
My dad always described television as watching other people live life. It was an observation I'd forgotten. Thanks for posting this article and reminding me of it.
I loved this article. Mostly because I see a bunch of "spectatoritis" around me all of the time. I swear that the inland empire is just a bunch of passionless zombies living their lives waiting to die. I really don't see any get up and go or any enthusiasm for much of anything and this article mirrors my observations perfectly.
If 95% of people were not fraggles, sheep and spectators, then a lot of things in this world would not get done as quickly as they do now. People think that the innovation phase of a project is the hard part, but in some ways, it's just the seed, you need an army of autonomous humans to do the mundane work to make the innovation take root and flourish.
If everyone on Earth had (and acted upon) Earth-shaking visions like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Ford, then the world would be full of amazing ideas that never get carried out to their potential. We need the drones, workers and the queen. Too many queens and the hive dies.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. Heinlein
Living vicariously is the essence of being human. It's why we have language, and stories, and imagination, and all the wetware required to support these things. Dogs can't tell stories about other dogs in such a way that their canine audience is moved to weep or cheer. Whereas humans line up to hear stories about three-thousand-year-old semi-mythical events. Then they draw practical conclusions from those stories.
I don't see why it's so terrible that I'd rather watch, say, a deep-sea fisherman risk his life than try deep-sea fishing myself. We have no shortage of deep-sea fishermen -- in fact, what we have is a shortage of fish. And the same principle definitely applies to soldiers: Every real soldier who can be replaced by a Team Fortress player, or a History Channel viewer, represents a net win for humanity.