The Roar of The Crowd: Response

David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at Washington University discusses his views on organized sports, and critiques their social value. He begins his essay saying, "Marx was wrong: the opiate of the masses isn’t religion, but spectator sports,” (361). Barash discusses how the masses experience glory and success by living vicariously through the victories of professional athletes, and how emulation of these athletes provides inappropriate role models for children. He discusses that he does not have a problem with the actual act of playing a sport oneself, but rather he finds the “woeful watching, the ridiculous rooting, the silly spectating” ridiculous. Barash, intending this essay for a “professional journal for educators” writes in an aggressive style, calling those who cheer and follow organized sports as people who engage in things that “are normally done by pigs… or by seedlings, lacking a firm grip on reality… I’m not at all sure this is something human beings should do,” (370). I think that Barash’s approach is an interesting one. Why would he seek to alienate readers who are possibly both educators, as well as sports fans by dehumanizing them? Why does he cite so many professional athletes as gluttons, gamblers, abusers, or alcoholics, when there are equally popular athletes that are philanthropists, advanced degree holders, or otherwise positive role models for athletic excellence? All in all I find his disgust with the cheering of sports, and why anyone should care about them slightly baffling. Why should anyone care about anything? What makes “reading a book, talking with your family, going for a walk, wrestling with the dog…” more of a valuable activity than watching sports? I think his view is a rather cynical one, and I would have liked to see more concessions to the merits of watching sports, or the benefits of an emphasis of athletic excellence to society. I think it’s strange to see such a one-sided point of view that alienates those who may think otherwise from a psychology professor.