I was sorry for the physical breakdown suffered by Hamlin, just as I do not like to see the many injuries suffered that are directly attributable to forcible contact on the playing field. But I was appalled by the disproportionate consideration directed to this incident, given the voluntary nature of participation and the extraordinary financial and publicity compensation provided to the players.
Consider our soldiers who voluntarily risk life and limb on missions for our country, the miniscule financial compensation, and the anonymity of their sacrifices. They face the terrors of warfare in our stead, and any moment of recognition, if at all, is brief. When they struggle with the cost of their sacrifice, the Canadian government offers them government assistance to die. Homeless veterans? Just close your eyes.
Compare the concern for Hamlin with the nonexistent worry about thousands of innocent civilians, including children, assaulted or shot down and otherwise murdered in the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, and other North American cities. Or run down by disgruntled drivers. The disproportion is sickening.
Well said. Another side of the regime of sentimentality is that while an excess of feeling is directed at particular subjects considered deserving of love and sympathy, the exhortation to feel does not (because it cannot) extend to all sufferers. In fact, the excess of sympathy drains attention away from others who need help and compassion.
Great article, Janice. I fought a mighty battle when my kids were at school here in Australia and over-protective mothers were determined to shut down rugby union, which they regarded as too rough. The sad thing was how easily the fathers gave in to this feminist push to demonize masculine sports. Whereas once it was fathers who determined what sports their sons should play, now mothers have all the power. And many women simply don't understand rugby is all about, just as they stop dads enjoying rough and tumble play with their boys.
In contact sports like my favorite game, Rugby, players sometimes suffer injuries and very occasionally death. It is not uncommon for a player to be carried from the field. The New Zealand Rugby Union is clearly conscious of the risks to players and goes to some lengths to mitigate them. They are also pressured to "speed up the game" and to select stronger faster and heavier players because they excite the crowd, and they must know that bigger trucks generally cause more damage when they crash.
Am I a beast for supporting such a game? No. The physical challenge between players is at the heart of sport. It is in the nature of men and women to compete. For too many in the modern age competition is engaged only in an armchair.
The rules of Rugby accommodate events such as Damar Hamlin's collapse, and I am sure that the NFL's rules do too.
The welfare of the injured player becomes the top priority. Common sense tells us that he should not be moved without medical advice. But when given medical clearance they should be removed from the field asap and the game restart. I don't know what the doctors said, or why he was left on the field for so long.
In the event of the death of a player, it seems reasonable to stop the game, but that was not the situation.
Two things went wrong here: Firstly the game was taken out of the hands of the referee. Referee's are experienced in such matters and generally handle them well. The NLF administrators who replaced the referee did not handle it well.
Secondly they planned for risk avoidance instead of good management. Good management looks for the best possible outcome, which in this case relied on the quality of the medical care. The actions of the administrators or the crowd going home did not help the medical staff or Damar Hamlin in any way.
Risk avoidance leads to poor decision making and panic. Some risks cannot be avoided. Stoicism is the perfect response to the unknown. We should carry on until we cannot.
The feminism of football might be the distraction. They're doing all they can to coverup the fauci ouchy scam. Top athletes are quietly dropping dead all over sports in Europe. Friday night congress negotiated a new conservative texas overseer. Mccarthy is a empty suit, the conservatives won bigtime. Arrest Fauci....
Yes, it was definitely unusual, and perhaps the hysterical reaction has been a channeling of public attention, an attempt to manage it. The hit taken by Hamlin wasn't very hard, as was shown by his jumping up immediately afterward. With millions of people observing, some of them fairly oblivious to conversations about mRNA side-effects, this is a dangerous time for Big Pharma and the health officials and politicians they've captured.
That’s what I thought. I don’t watch professional sports but even I know players get injured and they continue on. Often I assume because they know the player will be okay. When they stopped the game I knew- they knew- this wasn’t typical injury
Stoicism isn't the only manly virtue and never has been. The strongest of men have always been able to weep for fallen comrades in, for example, battle. This has always been understood, at least until feminism began describing men as incapable of empathy. Hamlin's heart stopped. That means he was literally minutes from death or serious brain damage. Only the immediate administration of CPR and oxygen saved his life and physical/mental well-being. We still don't know what deficits he'll have, if any. That the players were deeply disturbed for him and, by extension for themselves, must be entirely understandable.
I agree, Robert. Men have always loved other men, and I was nervous writing this precisely because I didn't want to seem to deny men the opportunity to feel and express their love for one another. I am not against men weeping in public or expressing emotional overwhelming. But I am against mandatory weeping in public and mandatory expressions of emotional overhwelming, which is what I believe the Hamlin incident came to involve. I could be wrong about that.
Very bizarre behaviour. I am curious about the psychological motive. The observation that players are more than stats is salient to my mind because there is a problem in our society with missing people for the dehumanising stats. But what an odd place for that consciousness to emerge: sports players' stats are far from dehumanising. They are particular to individual players and are instead marks of distinction like medals. Fans memorise player stats. Could this be a covert (unconscious) reference to the covid stats people have been saturated with for several years now? Could it be connected to the mRNA injuries reducing so many to stats as various authorities ignore the damage they've caused to the health of individuals? Is this the way a collective sense of guilt finds expression?
Interesting point about the stats. And fascinating argument about the covert meaning. I wish I'd thought of that.
At least some of the narrative around Hamlin has indeed probably been an attempt to manage the increasing awareness that something is going on with mRNA injuries. Before the game was even called off, I saw people on Twitter claiming that to connect Hamlin's collapse with the mRNA shot was inhumane and terrible. I hadn't even seen anyone making the connection yet (though of course it was in my mind, as a question, immediately--how could it not be?). The attempt to redirect public attention was immediate.
Wearing pink socks and heels remind me of when the Canadian army had a field day "in her shoes" day. If you don't agree to the feminization agenda, there goes your career.
Yes, I can never unsee that image of burly men in high heels.
The emphasis on breast cancer awareness in the NFL always irritated me. Do you remember the last time a top-tier women's team focused exclusively on a cancer that targets men?
The irony of using bright pink for breast cancer awareness is that bright pink dye contains poisonous chemicals, and dye factories in China are major sources of pollution leading to "cancer villages".
Jan 9, 2023·edited Jan 9, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
In no known universe are these men "putting their lives on the line to live their dream.” They are not engaged in actual combat. Instances of death on the field are extreme anomalies, almost never happening. That kind of hyperbole is quite insidious, exaggerating the risk and possibly discouraging large numbers of boys and girls (and parents) from considering football as any kind of salutary activity. What boys especially need are healthy avenues for channeling their natural aggression. Further, if these people actually believe players are risking their lives, they really should be advocating for a total ban on the game and should say as much. But they won’t. Too much is at stake. Such rhetoric is merely empty posturing. What we’re left with is cynicism and lost confidence instead of a great game with multiple merits deserving of support.
Cynicism, great point. I would agree with Ryan Clark (wouldn't you?) that football has a high rate of serious injury, and that many high-level football players cripple themselves, to some extent, in later life in order to live their dream. I have mixed feelings about that; but clearly it is a free choice they make, very well compensated financially and in other ways, and there is so much good about the game that I would be sorry to see attempts to radically change it (or end it). It's also ironically true that football players who under-perform or don't live up to expectations receive a lot of nastiness from fans (as I've noticed just in the last few days looking at players' Twitter feeds--Aaron Rodgers, for one, seems to be particularly hated and hounded, perhaps because he is perceived as arrogant, someone who doesn't play the public game expected of him).
So in a way I don't disagree with Ryan Clark's comment. It was the pity-party manner in which he expressed himself--and the fawning agreement, and the fakeness of the hoopla, all targeted at one individual--that stuck in my craw.
The worst of all was seeing many football players themselves, who at their best model personal dedication, toughness, generosity, male camaraderie, and the competitive spirit, reduced to big babies having to choke up on cue in order to please the public. I also despise how people continually say things like "We're praying for you, Damar," when you suspect they've never said a prayer in their life. (Not that I'm against prayer)
Jan 11, 2023·edited Jan 11, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Thanks, Janice, for responding. Yes, of course. I should have qualified my remark (guilty of hyperbole myself!). I might guess somewhere behind Ryan Clark's comment was the awareness that in recent years the NFL has taken quite a public beating down over its failure to properly deal with concussion injuries. Now public relations imperatives require a swing to another extreme. That at least is one possible explanation for some of the over the top gestures and behavior we are witnessing.
As a side note, that I had forgotten about, when I was about 7 I broke my arm in the morning and it wasn't until my mother noticed I wasn't using it at dinner time that something was wrong.
She said to me; "What's wrong with your arm?"
I said, "I don't know I can't use it!" It had been like that all day.
What a boy you were. That incident says a lot about how boys (and men) regard their own bodies and how society exploits that. I doubt many girls have ever not noticed breaking an arm.
You're right, this was a tangent, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to try to figure out what I think 'out loud.' I was pretty nervous about posting this lest it be misconstrued (or even 'construed'). I did actually say "Men are men--and sport is sport--because ..."
I find it doesn't matter how carefully a point of view is constructed, there will always be someone who chooses to misconstrue what is written.
When it happens to me, I often wonder where are they coming from.
By the way, it was the first of many broken bones, stitches etc. If it happened today my family would have been investigated by the social workers et al.
"there was very little empathy shown for those who said the wrong thing"
So typical! Large parts of society are run by bullies who go around roughing people up, yet cry for compassion when the victim thinks of fighting back.
I commend the people of this blog and Janice Fiamengo on offering such varying opinions adverse to the social structures implemented in our time and age. Free speech is what I grew up believing was to be considered as an American value. It is why I read this site... thank you Janice.
As for right and wrong on this subject... I try to always apply what made people people. If people don't have standards that evolve apes into people, people simply become what they were, apes. I've seen people so over-emotional that they simply couldn't survive unless there were slaves to feed and empower them, which brings in the stoic slave masters who organize those in servitude. I've seen people who were so callous that most avoid contact with them, yet some seek the umbrella of their toxic masculinity. I despise chest butting males, yet enjoy every competitive moment that can be reaped. The Hellascions and the Greeks grew away from the jungle, we should try to do the same.
If right and wrong exists in a spectrum, people will follow their passion. If right and wrong is a requirement, we are all destined to serve or be served. America touts that it defeated these forces, yet if you look at the evidence... we are run by these forces. Evolution for some, Devolution for others.
I wouldn't wish our children to be apes, or aliens. I wish there could be more people in the middle.
Jan 9, 2023·edited Jan 9, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Once again, Janice, you are "on point". The NFL (and most professional sports) have become a joke. And, of course, "God forbid", anybody mentions anything about the "poison jab". Love you, Janice!
I was sorry for the physical breakdown suffered by Hamlin, just as I do not like to see the many injuries suffered that are directly attributable to forcible contact on the playing field. But I was appalled by the disproportionate consideration directed to this incident, given the voluntary nature of participation and the extraordinary financial and publicity compensation provided to the players.
Consider our soldiers who voluntarily risk life and limb on missions for our country, the miniscule financial compensation, and the anonymity of their sacrifices. They face the terrors of warfare in our stead, and any moment of recognition, if at all, is brief. When they struggle with the cost of their sacrifice, the Canadian government offers them government assistance to die. Homeless veterans? Just close your eyes.
Compare the concern for Hamlin with the nonexistent worry about thousands of innocent civilians, including children, assaulted or shot down and otherwise murdered in the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, and other North American cities. Or run down by disgruntled drivers. The disproportion is sickening.
Well said. Another side of the regime of sentimentality is that while an excess of feeling is directed at particular subjects considered deserving of love and sympathy, the exhortation to feel does not (because it cannot) extend to all sufferers. In fact, the excess of sympathy drains attention away from others who need help and compassion.
Great article. Your comment about its like the NFL being taken over by hysterical teen girls is perfect.
Great article, Janice. I fought a mighty battle when my kids were at school here in Australia and over-protective mothers were determined to shut down rugby union, which they regarded as too rough. The sad thing was how easily the fathers gave in to this feminist push to demonize masculine sports. Whereas once it was fathers who determined what sports their sons should play, now mothers have all the power. And many women simply don't understand rugby is all about, just as they stop dads enjoying rough and tumble play with their boys.
In contact sports like my favorite game, Rugby, players sometimes suffer injuries and very occasionally death. It is not uncommon for a player to be carried from the field. The New Zealand Rugby Union is clearly conscious of the risks to players and goes to some lengths to mitigate them. They are also pressured to "speed up the game" and to select stronger faster and heavier players because they excite the crowd, and they must know that bigger trucks generally cause more damage when they crash.
Am I a beast for supporting such a game? No. The physical challenge between players is at the heart of sport. It is in the nature of men and women to compete. For too many in the modern age competition is engaged only in an armchair.
The rules of Rugby accommodate events such as Damar Hamlin's collapse, and I am sure that the NFL's rules do too.
The welfare of the injured player becomes the top priority. Common sense tells us that he should not be moved without medical advice. But when given medical clearance they should be removed from the field asap and the game restart. I don't know what the doctors said, or why he was left on the field for so long.
In the event of the death of a player, it seems reasonable to stop the game, but that was not the situation.
Two things went wrong here: Firstly the game was taken out of the hands of the referee. Referee's are experienced in such matters and generally handle them well. The NLF administrators who replaced the referee did not handle it well.
Secondly they planned for risk avoidance instead of good management. Good management looks for the best possible outcome, which in this case relied on the quality of the medical care. The actions of the administrators or the crowd going home did not help the medical staff or Damar Hamlin in any way.
Risk avoidance leads to poor decision making and panic. Some risks cannot be avoided. Stoicism is the perfect response to the unknown. We should carry on until we cannot.
Thanks for this.
The feminism of football might be the distraction. They're doing all they can to coverup the fauci ouchy scam. Top athletes are quietly dropping dead all over sports in Europe. Friday night congress negotiated a new conservative texas overseer. Mccarthy is a empty suit, the conservatives won bigtime. Arrest Fauci....
Yes, it was definitely unusual, and perhaps the hysterical reaction has been a channeling of public attention, an attempt to manage it. The hit taken by Hamlin wasn't very hard, as was shown by his jumping up immediately afterward. With millions of people observing, some of them fairly oblivious to conversations about mRNA side-effects, this is a dangerous time for Big Pharma and the health officials and politicians they've captured.
That’s what I thought. I don’t watch professional sports but even I know players get injured and they continue on. Often I assume because they know the player will be okay. When they stopped the game I knew- they knew- this wasn’t typical injury
Perhaps. We've seen a lot of pro athletes suddenly dropping dead lately.
Stoicism isn't the only manly virtue and never has been. The strongest of men have always been able to weep for fallen comrades in, for example, battle. This has always been understood, at least until feminism began describing men as incapable of empathy. Hamlin's heart stopped. That means he was literally minutes from death or serious brain damage. Only the immediate administration of CPR and oxygen saved his life and physical/mental well-being. We still don't know what deficits he'll have, if any. That the players were deeply disturbed for him and, by extension for themselves, must be entirely understandable.
I agree, Robert. Men have always loved other men, and I was nervous writing this precisely because I didn't want to seem to deny men the opportunity to feel and express their love for one another. I am not against men weeping in public or expressing emotional overwhelming. But I am against mandatory weeping in public and mandatory expressions of emotional overhwelming, which is what I believe the Hamlin incident came to involve. I could be wrong about that.
Virtue comes from the Latin "Virtus", meaning manliness. Vir is Latin for man, pronounced "weir" in classical Latin. Hence, werewolf is manwolf.
Very bizarre behaviour. I am curious about the psychological motive. The observation that players are more than stats is salient to my mind because there is a problem in our society with missing people for the dehumanising stats. But what an odd place for that consciousness to emerge: sports players' stats are far from dehumanising. They are particular to individual players and are instead marks of distinction like medals. Fans memorise player stats. Could this be a covert (unconscious) reference to the covid stats people have been saturated with for several years now? Could it be connected to the mRNA injuries reducing so many to stats as various authorities ignore the damage they've caused to the health of individuals? Is this the way a collective sense of guilt finds expression?
Interesting point about the stats. And fascinating argument about the covert meaning. I wish I'd thought of that.
At least some of the narrative around Hamlin has indeed probably been an attempt to manage the increasing awareness that something is going on with mRNA injuries. Before the game was even called off, I saw people on Twitter claiming that to connect Hamlin's collapse with the mRNA shot was inhumane and terrible. I hadn't even seen anyone making the connection yet (though of course it was in my mind, as a question, immediately--how could it not be?). The attempt to redirect public attention was immediate.
The beatings will continue until empathy improves.
Wearing pink socks and heels remind me of when the Canadian army had a field day "in her shoes" day. If you don't agree to the feminization agenda, there goes your career.
Yes, I can never unsee that image of burly men in high heels.
The emphasis on breast cancer awareness in the NFL always irritated me. Do you remember the last time a top-tier women's team focused exclusively on a cancer that targets men?
The irony of using bright pink for breast cancer awareness is that bright pink dye contains poisonous chemicals, and dye factories in China are major sources of pollution leading to "cancer villages".
In no known universe are these men "putting their lives on the line to live their dream.” They are not engaged in actual combat. Instances of death on the field are extreme anomalies, almost never happening. That kind of hyperbole is quite insidious, exaggerating the risk and possibly discouraging large numbers of boys and girls (and parents) from considering football as any kind of salutary activity. What boys especially need are healthy avenues for channeling their natural aggression. Further, if these people actually believe players are risking their lives, they really should be advocating for a total ban on the game and should say as much. But they won’t. Too much is at stake. Such rhetoric is merely empty posturing. What we’re left with is cynicism and lost confidence instead of a great game with multiple merits deserving of support.
Cynicism, great point. I would agree with Ryan Clark (wouldn't you?) that football has a high rate of serious injury, and that many high-level football players cripple themselves, to some extent, in later life in order to live their dream. I have mixed feelings about that; but clearly it is a free choice they make, very well compensated financially and in other ways, and there is so much good about the game that I would be sorry to see attempts to radically change it (or end it). It's also ironically true that football players who under-perform or don't live up to expectations receive a lot of nastiness from fans (as I've noticed just in the last few days looking at players' Twitter feeds--Aaron Rodgers, for one, seems to be particularly hated and hounded, perhaps because he is perceived as arrogant, someone who doesn't play the public game expected of him).
So in a way I don't disagree with Ryan Clark's comment. It was the pity-party manner in which he expressed himself--and the fawning agreement, and the fakeness of the hoopla, all targeted at one individual--that stuck in my craw.
The worst of all was seeing many football players themselves, who at their best model personal dedication, toughness, generosity, male camaraderie, and the competitive spirit, reduced to big babies having to choke up on cue in order to please the public. I also despise how people continually say things like "We're praying for you, Damar," when you suspect they've never said a prayer in their life. (Not that I'm against prayer)
Thanks, Janice, for responding. Yes, of course. I should have qualified my remark (guilty of hyperbole myself!). I might guess somewhere behind Ryan Clark's comment was the awareness that in recent years the NFL has taken quite a public beating down over its failure to properly deal with concussion injuries. Now public relations imperatives require a swing to another extreme. That at least is one possible explanation for some of the over the top gestures and behavior we are witnessing.
Keep up the great work you do!
Boy Janice aren't you on fire!
It is an interesting tangent. that you have raised and it plays strongly into the feminisation of men.
As a side note, that I had forgotten about, when I was about 7 I broke my arm in the morning and it wasn't until my mother noticed I wasn't using it at dinner time that something was wrong.
She said to me; "What's wrong with your arm?"
I said, "I don't know I can't use it!" It had been like that all day.
What a boy you were. That incident says a lot about how boys (and men) regard their own bodies and how society exploits that. I doubt many girls have ever not noticed breaking an arm.
You're right, this was a tangent, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to try to figure out what I think 'out loud.' I was pretty nervous about posting this lest it be misconstrued (or even 'construed'). I did actually say "Men are men--and sport is sport--because ..."
I find it doesn't matter how carefully a point of view is constructed, there will always be someone who chooses to misconstrue what is written.
When it happens to me, I often wonder where are they coming from.
By the way, it was the first of many broken bones, stitches etc. If it happened today my family would have been investigated by the social workers et al.
"there was very little empathy shown for those who said the wrong thing"
So typical! Large parts of society are run by bullies who go around roughing people up, yet cry for compassion when the victim thinks of fighting back.
I commend the people of this blog and Janice Fiamengo on offering such varying opinions adverse to the social structures implemented in our time and age. Free speech is what I grew up believing was to be considered as an American value. It is why I read this site... thank you Janice.
As for right and wrong on this subject... I try to always apply what made people people. If people don't have standards that evolve apes into people, people simply become what they were, apes. I've seen people so over-emotional that they simply couldn't survive unless there were slaves to feed and empower them, which brings in the stoic slave masters who organize those in servitude. I've seen people who were so callous that most avoid contact with them, yet some seek the umbrella of their toxic masculinity. I despise chest butting males, yet enjoy every competitive moment that can be reaped. The Hellascions and the Greeks grew away from the jungle, we should try to do the same.
If right and wrong exists in a spectrum, people will follow their passion. If right and wrong is a requirement, we are all destined to serve or be served. America touts that it defeated these forces, yet if you look at the evidence... we are run by these forces. Evolution for some, Devolution for others.
I wouldn't wish our children to be apes, or aliens. I wish there could be more people in the middle.
Awwww, thanks, Erik.
Once again, Janice, you are "on point". The NFL (and most professional sports) have become a joke. And, of course, "God forbid", anybody mentions anything about the "poison jab". Love you, Janice!
Theodore Dalrymple's book, Spoilt Rotten: the toxic culture of sentimentality, is worth a read.
Thanks for the tip! I love Dalrymple's writing.
This Video/Article with comments is Referenced Here:
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{Today's videos & Articles}
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January 9th, 2023, Monday Morning, Index Number 1769: