Sports: The Pacification of the Masses
Why were the Aagĩkũyũ and other traditional societies not interested in competitive sports.
Ever since the Roman circus, the princes and emperors of the day have used sports as a method of controlling the mass mind through distraction and the release of excessive energy that would go into the opposition. To control the energy of the mass they are given sport and circuses that keep their minds occupied, the main method today being through television. Imagine the amount of mental energy that goes into the football menace for example. No revolutionary army can allow such waste of energy.
The obsession with the fruits of action rather than the process, the orgasm rather than the nguĩko, make sport the perfect metaphor for the He-men, Superman, male chauvinism and conquest, imperialism and war. The mock war scenario of scorched earth and take no prisoners in the field appeal to the masculine ego. This is so because men, rather than women are the producers of most of the adrenaline in a society which is what the controller targets to keep the mass of men in control.
Sport is a good substitute for critical mental activity. It is a kind of escapism, a shot in the arm with a heavy dose of a mental drug, dulling and and intellectually neutralizing the masses.
The Aagĩkũyũ were a chiefless society and control of one man over another was farthest from their minds. The Nyakerũ have always been interested in control whether of other men or of nature. He is a control freak. In sport and especially football today, they have the perfect control mechanism. Better than soma.
What's Your Reaction?
