Yesterday (Saturday May 2nd)
was this huge spectator sports day. First there was the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby . Weeks of hype,
a bunch of goofy hats, and millions of dollars spent for what? A race that
lasted 2 minutes and 3 seconds or I guess you could just say “wham bam, thank
you ma’am”.
I don’t understand this human
obsession with competition. Why would
millions of people around the globe, most of whom have no financial interest in
the horses spend their time on this? I can understand and even relate a little
to having a social interest in a competition, our local, city, state, or
country team verses their equivalent. But a bunch of horses owned by moneyed
elites running a little over a mile and for what? Just to show that on this
day, that horse, ridden by some little guy, was faster than the others.
So what? Don’t we have better things to do
with our time? I guess not because the Kentucky Derby was just the warm up act
for the real competition of the day. I’m talking about the super hyped, obscene
amount of money making, barbaric competition that was the Mayweather vs
Pacquiao boxing match.
I use the term boxing match somewhat
sarcastically because it’s really just a fight. Two grown men trying to knock
each other out using just their lightly covered fists and doing it for the
viewing pleasure of millions of people who paid money to watch.
This is the part I don’t get. How or
why do so many people get pleasure out of someone hurting someone else? I know
it’s been justified for years as a “physical competition” but in truth it’s
barbaric. I’m not just talking about the definition as savage and brutal but
more of the definition as primitive. The only way it could be more barbaric is
if we let them kick each other as well, oh right that’s the MMA. What if we gave
them each a knife and had them fight to the death, wouldn’t that be
entertaining?
But I guess in terms of human
evolution it really hasn’t been that long since the old gladiator days when
people were forced to fight to the death as a form of entertainment. Even
though many of us have evolved psychologically to where we know that things
like boxing are wrong our primal selves haven’t kept up with that evolution. But
so as not to come off looking like I think I’m better than the next person let
me explain my own personal evolution on boxing.
I grew up in the late 60’s and early 70’s, these were the
glory days of Muhammad Ali when he was fighting (boxing) the likes of Joe
Frazier and George Forman. Like any other red blooded American kid I wished
that I had the ability to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. I thought
he was the greatest, just like he said. I also didn’t give boxing a second
thought when it came to right or wrong, it was just a sport like any other and
I watched it on TV along with everyone else.
But that all changed shortly after I graduated High School. A
friend invited me to go watch the live “Golden Gloves” competition at a local
arena. For those of you that don’t know about the golden gloves competitions,
it is amateur boxing starting at 10 years of age. That’s right 10 year olds
being taught to fight for the entertainment of adults. I can say with certainty that it was at that
event that my thoughts and feeling about boxing evolved. But once again it’s
not what you might think, it wasn’t that I had a real problem with the kids
fighting it was the reaction of the crowd that sickened me.
Mothers, Fathers, friends and relatives, as well as total
strangers yelling at these little kids. Hit him, kill him, don’t be a chicken,
all that kind of crap. It literally made me want to puke so I got up and left
and haven’t watched a boxing match since.
I can appreciate and admire the boxer for their skill and
dedication to the training that’s needed to become good at something. The
problem I have is with us, the spectator. Because as long as we still view
fighting as entertainment we will never evolve as a species and isn’t the goal
to evolve for the better? Let’s stop glorifying violence and maybe over time humans
will become less violent. Let’s stop promoting competition and start promoting
cooperation, that’s how we can evolve.
To view the column in it's original form go to page 4 of the following link.Winters Express 5/14/15
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