Christopher Hitchens: Sporting Fool
Nuance is the mortal enemy of essayist Christopher Hitchens. Whether it’s his rapturous support for Bush’s
Now Hitchens has turned his attention to sports and the ensuing essay in Newsweek, called Fool’s Gold: How the Olympics and other international competitions breed conflict and bring out the worst in human nature is everything you might fear. I’m no fan of the politics that surround the Olympic games but when Hitchens takes out his dull saw, nothing connected to sports is spared.
As he writes, “Whether it's the exacerbation of national rivalries that you want or the exhibition of the most depressing traits of the human personality (guns in locker rooms, golf clubs wielded in the home, dogs maimed and tortured at stars' homes to make them fight, dope and steroids everywhere), you need only look to the wide world of sports for the most rank and vivid examples. As George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay ‘The Sporting Spirit’ after yet another outbreak of combined mayhem and chauvinism on the international soccer field, ‘sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will.’"
It’s interesting that Hitchens doesn’t quote Orwell’s more known critique that sports is “war minus the shooting”, possibly because Hitchens has been such a cheerleader for the “humanitarian” virtues of empire over the last decade.
This also isn’t the first time Hitchens has sought shelter in Orwell’s genius to cloak his own doggerel. But the Orwell who wrote Homage to Catalonia never detested ordinary working people the way Hitchens does. Orwell's sympathy for workers came from living, writing and even fighting fascists among them. For Hitchens, they are the people who serve him drinks in
As Hitchens writes,
“[Have you ever] seen the pathetic faces of men, and even some women, trying to keep up with the pack by professing devoted loyalty to some other pack on the screen? If you want a decent sports metaphor that applies as well to the herd of fans as it does to the players, try picking one from the most recent scandal. All those concerned look—and talk—as if they were suffering from a concussion.”
Please spare us your disdain. Yes there is much to detest in the world of sports. But why then is it also such a source of solace, joy, and - heaven forefend – fun? Hitchens doesn’t care to explore this question. His contempt for the “rabble” triumphs any effort at reason. Just as with his ham-fisted analysis of religion, our love of sport is also proof-positive of our irredeemable idiocy.
Hitchens also shows no interest in the fact that sports also have a progressive political power. When racism, sexism, and homophobia have been challenged through struggle in the streets, it has ricocheted with electric results in the world of athletics. This is why we associate Jackie Robinson with the Civil Rights movement or Billie Jean King with the women’s liberation struggles of the 1970s. And lest we forget, the most famous draft resister in world history is a boxer, Muhammad Ali. On a far more grass roots level, sports are where many people - particularly young people - find confidence, friendship, and a sense of self. For many it's where the deeply segregated dynamics of our society are broken down. This is not true in every case of course. For every story of sports-as-savior, there are 100 gym class horror stories. Yes, it is absolute truth that sports can bring out the worst in athletes, fans, parents, and coaches. But it can also bring out the best. In this case however, it has brought out the worst in the Artist Formally Known as Hitchens.
To use one of his despised sports analogies, Christopher Hitchens is like an aging pitcher whose fastball abandoned him years ago. But in sports, once the skills are gone, you are kicked to the curb. Writers clearly get to just keep on going.
[Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]
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How does sports have progressive political power in regards to homophobia? There have been no "electric results" in the world of athletics on this front. If anything athletics has and will continue to lag behind the rest of society here.
Not a single member of one of the 4 major professional leagues (NHL, MLB, NFL, NBA) in the US has come out of the closet while still active in the sport. Despite there likely being a selection bias weeding homosexuals out of these sports in their youth there are likely to be countless homosexuals currently active in these sports, yet not a one can come comfortably come out of the closet. This is not a progressive environment on this front. Racism, yes, homophobia, no.
I'd like an offer of proof that either Navratilova or King "lost everything" upon coming out. The former, especially. King came out long after her prime, suffered through a ghoulish "palimony" drama, but is now once again considered a beloved figure in the history of her sport.
I once heard an interview with Chomsky in which he praised sports-talk radio because of the lack of respect the callers had for the "experts" on the shows. He said he wished political talk-shows were like that. Great moment in radio.
Fear of Hitchens? On sports? Puhleeze.
2nd point?
Yes athletes pay a price for coming out. My point was not that they emerged more successful. Just that it made a difference and the movement was stronger for it.
It is inevitable that commercial sports influence society in progressive ways. The negative, though, fat outweighs the positive. The NCAA is still fueled by the plantation mentality. Professional franchises feast on banquets of corporate welfare. Athletes are barely permitted freedom of speech. Sports are often used to promote fundamentalist Christianity. You may have a well-earned beef with Hitchens, but I'm not sure this is the best argument.
Here's a question: Who is likelier to be heard: a professional athlete or the common man? To say that athletes are barely permitted freedom of speech is beyond comprehension. But in order to promote fundamentalist Christianity, I will now turn my cheek for more slings and arrows.
You're right. They are permitted free speech as long as they're getting paid for it.
Chomsky does not take anything like the line on sports that Hitchens takes. One of the points Chomsky makes is that people's capacity to analyse sports lays waste to any argument that people are incapable of controlling their own lives.
...for clearing up the Chomsky-Hitchens comparison. I shuttered at that as well.
Hell, that's like Danny Bonaduce vs Pacquiao. Seriously Dave what are you thinking? Hitchens is the most provocative writer alive, and you're a guy who rips off USA Today articles and throws in a little race baiting.
And yes, Chomsky hates sports "weapon of mass distraction" and all that. Most far-Left types don't like sports, that's why Dave can thrive in this tiny niche he's carved for himself.
that if this essay had been written 20 years ago for The Nation (before Hitchens apostasy) a young Dave would have been in complete agreement!
Hi Mr. Definitely. Well, 20 years ago I was barely in high school and thought "The Nation" meant the Nation of Islam so I don't know what I would hav agreed with or not. And if I must be compared to Danny Bonaduce, I think I can somehow survive. But when you compare Hitchens to Pacquiao it makes me wonder if you know less about Hitchens or if you know less about boxing. Maybe you're just gracing us with two scoops of stupid.
Chomsky appeared on the cable television talk show Pozner & Donahue on April 20 and 22, 1993, from 9 to 10 p.m. Phil Donahue was quite sympathetic, except regarding sports:
DONAHUE: There's a part of the documentary which has you on the podium, reliving the experience of going to a high school football game when you were in high school. And you sat there and you said, "Why do I care about this team? I don't even know anybody on the team." Here, Professor Chomsky, you go too far. You are cranky, you're anti-fun. We wonder if you ever knew the experience of a hot dog with mustard and a cold beer. And it is much easier, then, to dismiss you as the Ebenezer Scrooge of social commentary. Go away. You're not a happy man. You're scolding us for rooting for the high school football team.
CHOMSKY: I should say, I continued to go root for the high school football team -- the reason I bring it up is, it's a case of how we can somehow live with this strange dissonance. I mean, you conform to the society around you, and you're part of it, and you have the hot dog and you cheer for the football team. And in another corner of your mind you notice, "This is insane. What do I care whether this ..."
DONAHUE: What is insane?
CHOMSKY: What do I care whether this group of professional athletes wins or that group of professional athletes wins? None of them have anything to do with me.
DONAHUE: I don't know. I grew up with the Indians [baseball team], I was a kid in Cleveland ... it was a social experience, it was the smell, this huge Cleveland stadium. ... Those are memories. What's wrong with this? Why wouldn't you want to celebrate this?
CHOMSKY: I did the same thing. I can remember the first baseball game I saw when I was 10 years old, I can tell you what happened at it -- fine. But that's not my point. See, if you want to enjoy a football game, that's great. You want to enjoy a baseball game, that's great. Why do you care who wins? Why do you care who wins? Why do you have to associate yourself with a particular group of professionals, who you are told are your representatives, and they better win or else you're going to commit suicide, when they're perfectly interchangeable with the other group of professionals. ...
DONAHUE: You had a relative in New York City who had a kiosk which wasn't quite on the main street, it was behind the train station. And God knows what kind of radical literature he was selling. And you're there, this little kid listening in -- no wonder you grew up to be such a radical who doesn't like high school football.
CHOMSKY: Unfortunately, I did like it. I'm sorry for that.
And Chomsky takes his grandkids to baseball games. Does any of this change the institutional analysis of sports or their role in society? Jeez, one corner of the sporting media tries to show a little intelligent inquiry, analysis and humanity and people who could go to 1001 other sporting sites come on and try to shout it down. Very telling... Keep up the good work Dave!
And in case Mr. Apostasy didn't know, Stalinism has nothing to do with the left of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Daniel Guerin, Chomsky or Zinn. Or, I suspect, Zirin.
Sports, in the USA at least, has always been a primarily conservative enterprise. It is a platform for the most odious jingoism as well as a recruiting tool for the armed forces. Sorry Dave but the voices of people like Carlos Delgado, Eton Thomas, and Steve Nash are effectively silenced (or at least extremely marginalized) by the far more numerous voices who extol the virtues of our militarism and their exhortations to "support the troops".
If you want a real sense of Orwell and his appreciation for working people and the poor read his Road to Wigan Pier. Homage to Catalonia discusses his experiences with the Republican forces during the Civil War, but Wigan Pier clearly presents his sympathetic views about the working poor of Northern Britain and his own contempt for the middle class from which he grew and identified. And Orwell has a famous quote in that book questioning whether the football pools among other cheap luxuries have staved off the revolution. Hitchens would not be aware of any of this material.
Road to Wigan Pier is a great recommendation.
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