A Future Without Sports

A Future Without Sports:

Or, The Current Absence of Reference to Sports
When Debating the Future of Our Country

I recall:

But it is the frequent error of those men (otherwise very commendable for their labours) to make excursions beyond their talent and their office, by pretending to point out the beauties and the faults; which is no part of their trade, which they always fail in, which the world never expected from them, nor gave them any thanks for endeavouring at.

––Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)[1]

Nonetheless, I read (and reread) two books and one article:

• Between the World and Me (2015) by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Benedict Option: a Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (2017) by Rod Dreher
• “Why we need to take the spiritual aspect of sports more seriously.” (July 11, 2017) by Edward Hastings.

These two books, both alike in dignity, in fair view of what this reader has seen, deserve the following analysis:

• Dreher writes to his own generation and, it seems, his elders.
• Coates writes to his own generation as well as to his son, and, it seems, his son’s generation.
• Dreher is adamantly orthodox in his Christianity.
• Coates is adamantly atheist.
• Dreher believes the United States of the Future (and much of it Today) will not protect the body of Christ (i.e. the Church).
• Coates believes the United States of the Future (and much of it Today) will not protect the bodies of its citizens who happen to be designated “black,” (i.e. their literal, physical bodies).

Because I overdosed on sports as a child, and remain in rehab as an adult, perhaps I have “a strange Effect of narrow principles and short views,”[2]–for after reading these two authors it occurred to me that their books contain very little about sports other than:

• Dreher’s book does contain a hunting episode, told more elaborately in his previous book).
• Coates’ book does contain one reference to an athlete, Jackie Robinson.

So one can naturally conclude:

• In the mind of Coates, sports will not protect the physical bodies of black Americans from discrimination.
• In the mind of Dreher, sports will not protect the body of Christ in America from discrimination.

When they see the world around them and render their particular points of view into words, sports speak neither to Dreher nor to Coates as either a cultural affirmation that the authors can participate in, or have their kids participate in, or merely to watch as entertainment. Sports are not a part of the cultural assessments of these books. They are not relevant to the points Coates and Dreher want to make.

“Fear and hope are the two greatest natural motives of all men’s actions.”

––Jonathan Swift[3]

NOTES

[1] Swift, A Tale of a Tub. 1704. “An Apology For the Book.”

[2] Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver. 1726. II, vii.

[3] Swift, “The Testimony of Conscience [a Sermon].” 1714.