Why Gary Kamiya Is Wrong

[digitaldiscipline]

He writes, In my trial for being a moral scumbag and lying sack of shit, I'm making two arguments. The first questions just how guilty he really is. The second says that even if he is guilty, it's only sports, and normal moral standards shouldn't be expected to apply.

Where Gary is wrong is on his second point. Sports are a microcosm, life and conflict and war writ small and discrete, and if anything should be fair, it is sport.

Life is not fair. Let something be.

Comments

[victorine.livejournal.com]

What about the term "sportsmanship", apparently that doesn't mean much anymore. *hangs head in disappointment*

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Precisely. It has been usurped by gamesmanship, which isn't the same thing at all.

[smaugchow.livejournal.com]

Too True. Sport is a meeting of liek minds who agree on a set of arbitrary rules by which to contend. The very IDEA of sports requires adherence to the rules. In fact, I would argue that sports are even MORE critical than in real life. There will always be pricks who take advantage, skirt and bend the rules, lie steal and cheat to get ahead (See Washington DC.) Sports are supposed to be a haven of equality, kinship of spirit and other bullcrap like that. We look to sports to give us examples of how to behave when we don't see such examples in real life.

Of course, modern sports are all profit based, so they'll take advantage, skirt and bend the rules, lie steal and cheat for a buck.