Communal sadism and the inability to recognize and control one’s own primal urges. The outlet does not tame those urges but driving them toward their manifestations, giving form of those emotions and thoughts into actions. Warfare is the most extreme display of such human nature, but things like sports and fight for social status are also just different sides of the same coin. There is a very fine line between engaging in those activities for the sake of passive enjoyment and the desire to make winners and losers. Just look at competitive video games. The only healthy way to engage in those activities is when you have no desire to win whatsoever. The moment you care about winning, it becomes merely a means to an end.
It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence
In a big town one must indulge in group activities if one wants an outlet for one’s physical strength or for one’s sadistic impulses.
This is absurd. There is nothing wrong with competitiveness, and the majority of people who play competitive video games are not suffering from it. Sure, there’s always griefers who win at all costs and enjoy humiliating weaker players, but nobody wants to play with people like that.
There is a joy in striving against an equal opponent that cannot be found in anything purely cooperative, and which is not intrinsically harmful in the slightest. In fact, the urge to seek social status, which you denigrate as something horrible, is probably the only reason humans intensely care about anything other than survival and reproduction in the first place.
There’s also nothing wrong with “primal urges”. They are not intrinsically destructive—they are only destructive if indulged in the physical world. I often envision future VR sports, or even warfare, where people experience intense “physical” competition in a virtual world, perhaps even including artificial pain sensations etc, but then return to their bodies and are safe and sound. I think it would be fun. Note also that sex is a primal urge, and it too can be dangerous due to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies—are you against it too?
George Orwell in The Sporting Spirit disagreed with the take that sports are a force for good. He saw them as gross manifestations of nationalism.
Communal sadism and the inability to recognize and control one’s own primal urges. The outlet does not tame those urges but driving them toward their manifestations, giving form of those emotions and thoughts into actions. Warfare is the most extreme display of such human nature, but things like sports and fight for social status are also just different sides of the same coin. There is a very fine line between engaging in those activities for the sake of passive enjoyment and the desire to make winners and losers. Just look at competitive video games. The only healthy way to engage in those activities is when you have no desire to win whatsoever. The moment you care about winning, it becomes merely a means to an end.
This is absurd. There is nothing wrong with competitiveness, and the majority of people who play competitive video games are not suffering from it. Sure, there’s always griefers who win at all costs and enjoy humiliating weaker players, but nobody wants to play with people like that.
There is a joy in striving against an equal opponent that cannot be found in anything purely cooperative, and which is not intrinsically harmful in the slightest. In fact, the urge to seek social status, which you denigrate as something horrible, is probably the only reason humans intensely care about anything other than survival and reproduction in the first place.
There’s also nothing wrong with “primal urges”. They are not intrinsically destructive—they are only destructive if indulged in the physical world. I often envision future VR sports, or even warfare, where people experience intense “physical” competition in a virtual world, perhaps even including artificial pain sensations etc, but then return to their bodies and are safe and sound. I think it would be fun. Note also that sex is a primal urge, and it too can be dangerous due to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies—are you against it too?
What drove you to write this reply?
The same thing that drove you to write yours.