International Sports

The Marine Corps had Rules

John Patrick Shanley, the author of the Academy Award winning movie, Moonstruck, commenting on his experience growing up said, "The Marines were great. It was violent, just like my neighborhood in the Bronx, but they had rules."

Konrad Lorenz, in his widely acclaimed book, "On Aggression," offered sport, violent fun, as an alternative to lethal violence.

The mythology of the ancient Olympics is that they were a quadrienniel lull in the local wars. Many see football, American style, as a descendent of the gladiatorial games. The forerunner of la crosse was played by hundreds of Indians on a side. The ball was a skull. . . The rules against personal violence were few or none.

An International Football League

The National Football League is proposing an International Football League. The league would consist of from 10 to 12 teams in the United States and Europe.

To what extent an International Football League will reduce international tensions will be a matter of interest. Ping pong blazed the trail to better relations between the U.S. and China. Who knows, the IFL may divide into a Warsaw Pact League and a NATO League. This could reduce the need for short range nuclear missiles.

Exporting Baseball Instead of Revolution

The National Baseball League has had foreign teams for some time in the form of Canadian teams, as has the National Hockey League. Maybe its time for the National Baseball League to go south of the border. Why not add Mexico City and Havana to the leagues? It would give them more places to spring train and vacation. It would add a longer season. Membership in the NBL would improve the balance of payments for Mexico. It would reduce Castro's dependence on Moscow to balance his budget. If we export baseball, maybe Castro will not export revolution.

. . . Ted Sudia . . .

Wilding

Man is an Animal

When I first began my studies in human ecology, I gave talks to management classes and graduate seminars. I always began my lecture with the statement, "Man is an animal." The audiences, all, reacted with shocked surprise. We have so completely convinced ourselves that we are civilized, human, cultivated, educated, sophisticated, accomplished and enlightened that we simply forget that we have reptilian, as well as humanoid, portions to our brain. Our hormonally driven reactions are millions of years old, while our civilized behavior is at most 20 to 30 thousand years old. It may be 75 thousand if you're willing to accept Neanderthal man in the direct line of human succession.

Comfort, Well-being and Security

Like all other higher animals, we look to satisfy three conditions in our animal life. We are looking for comfort, well-being and security. We don't need those conditions present all the time but we have to know they are available to us or we are not happy. Duck hunters, cold and wet, in a blind are not comfortable, nor secure and they do not have well-being. They could be shot or they could catch cold or pneumonia. They tell themselves they're having a good time because comfort, well-being and security are readily available to them. Hunters who over extend themselves in dangerous conditions die from exposure, over-exertion or as a result of gunshot wounds.

Predator Prey Relationships

Man is, for the most part, in the prey part of the predator-prey relationship. Man exhibits beta brain behavior. Grown men are afraid of little dogs. In groups, with weapons, clubs, rocks or the like, they are formidable especially against other animals in the prey category. Well organized early men with weapons were the match of any predator as well as prey.

Humans through the millennia hunted and killed prey. They also tamed other animals as workers or companions and sources of readily available food. Animals that were tamed but which reverted to the wild were killed. Animals that resisted taming were killed. Animals that preyed upon humans or the tame flocks or herds of humans were hunted and killed.

This process goes on to this very day.

Predators Sometimes "Play" with Prey

Predators at times seem to "play" or "entertain" themselves with the prey. Playing cat and mouse has come into the language as a cliche description of predators playing with prey. Dr. Richard Knight describing a young grizzly bear killing sheep said, "He seemed to be having such a good time." The bear was killed.

The young man, part of the gang that preyed on the Central Park jogger, and later said that hitting her in the head with a lead pipe was fun, had gone wild. If he were a dog, he would have been shot on the spot by the police. The fact that the gang members came from good homes (one even lived in an apartment with a doorman) does not make the event confusing. These young men reverted to animal behavior. They lost their tameness and became wild.

Tameness is Required

We want tame animals in our society. That is part of the civilizing process of becoming human. Their behavior is no more tolerable than feral dogs attacking children (or adults).

There is no absolute way to prevent this type of behavior. As long as humans are animals, with the set of neuro-transmitters we have, this kind of behavior is always a possibility. Because it is animal behavior it cannot be tolerated or condoned.

It may help to channel these energies into relatively less harmful pursuits, such as violent body contact sports, old fashioned Boy Scouts, dangerous outward bound camps, boot camp etc. Universal Service could formalize the procedure.

These young men reverted to animals and have to be punished — not shot like dogs — but "tamed." Predatory behavior is not adolescent pranks. Animal morality has no place in a human, let alone humane society. A humane environment is an unalienable right.

The jogger and all victims of crimes against person are deprived of this right.

. . . Ted Sudia . . .

© Copyright 1989
Institute for domestic Tranquility