I Guess That Rules Out Murderball?
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 5 months ago
The games children play in schoolyards are famously horrible, if you stop and think about them.
Tag, for example, singles out one poor participant, often the slowest child, as the dehumanized “It,” who runs vainly in pursuit of the quicker ones. Capture the Flag is nakedly militaristic. British Bulldog has obvious jingoistic colonial themes. Red Ass, known in America as Butts Up, involves deliberate imposition of corporal punishment on losers.
But none rouse the passions of reform-minded educational progressives quite like dodgeball, the team sport in which players throw balls at each other, trying to hit their competitors and banish them to the sidelines of shame.
When the Canadian Society for the Study of Education meets in Vancouver at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a trio of education theorists will argue that dodgeball is not only problematic, in the modern sense of displaying hierarchies of privilege based on athletic skill, but that it is outright “miseducative.”
I never played dodgeball in gym class. We played only in boy’s gym class, and the coach made the sides get so close to each other that when we threw the ball at each other, it left whelps when it hit. We played inside a gym, not outside where it could legitimately be called dodgeball. We were danger-close. He called it “murderball,” and we obliged him.
I guess these Canadian theorists wouldn’t like that, huh? Hey, I was wondering, for men who are headed off to the US Marine Corps to learn to defend the country and who are learning to be men when they are boys, and who must survive in the brutality of combat, will those Canadian “theorists” be there to help the sides hold hands and sing Kumbaya?
On June 4, 2019 at 10:41 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Herschel
Re: “I guess these Canadian theorists wouldn’t like that, huh? Hey, I was wondering, for men who are headed off to the US Marine Corps to learn to defend the country and who are learning to be men when they are boys, and who must survive in the brutality of combat, will those Canadian “theorists” be there to help the sides hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”
If you want to raise men of the caliber necessary for a civilization to survive, let alone thrive, you must begin in childhood with the boy himself. You see, whereas young girls more-or-less automatically become young women, thanks to their biology – men must be made.
Every man who has successfully charted the path from boyhood to manhood likely has other males to thank for it – the fathers, grandfathers, older brothers, uncles and others who believed in him and invested their time and effort in helping him mature into a man without being sidetracked by all of the hazards which could have derailed him and prevented him from reaching his destination.
The Duke of Wellington, Field Marshal Sir Arthur Wellesley, the victor of the pivotal Battle of Wellington which in 1815 defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, once stated, “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”
At the societal level, one of the most-damaging events to have occurred during the last half-century or so has been the gradual abandonment by men – of education as a career field, thus leaving this vital occupation in the hands of overwhelming female faculty and staff who do not know how to proper raise boys to be men.
As anyone with a compassionate, kind mother or grandmother can attest, these qualities are wonderful in their time and place. However, the difficulty arises when these qualities are taken too far at the expense of other qualities which are necessary for the maturation of boys into men.
Boys must compete and suffer the sting of setbacks and defeats as well as the joys and triumphs of success/victory.
In order to become a man, a boy must accumulate some hard-won scar tissue and the wisdom that comes with it – but if he is surrounded by females conditioned to believe that safety is the highest virtue and that the nanny-state is the natural order of things, he won’t be able to get that all-important “education in the school of hard knocks,” as the old-timers used to call it.
Some will not like to hear it, but maturing boys also need the discipline and “tough love” legitimate authority figures provide. Trusted older men, coaches, drill sergeants, clergymen, these are some of the people who used to provide that firm hand. However, many of them aren’t allowed anymore to do what they do best – because of the creeping nanny-statism and the (largely feminine) obsession with safety. Women upset that someone’s feelings got hurt.
The powers-that-be like this state of affairs just fine. Effeminate males and dependent females alike are much more-likely to be comfortable with
an intrusive, powerful government which seems to attend to their every need.
We see in parts of present-day Western and Northern Europe what an unmanned society looks like, what happens when those “rough men” of whom Orwell spoke are taken down off of the walls of civilization. Or when the society that used to produce them no longer does so. Is it any wonder that the Saracens are taking over?
On June 5, 2019 at 7:06 am, Bram said:
We used to play “kill the guy with the ball” at recess. One kid picks up a football and runs – the rest chase a tackle, repeat until the bell rings. I remember going back to the classroom sweaty and bloody, and actually able to sit still and pay attention for a little while.
On June 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ BRAM
I’m so old that I went to school when kids actually fought on the playground, and the teachers let ’em! Won some, lost some, but learned how to take care of myself.
Oh course, a bunch of years playing ice-hockey did wonders in that department as well!
I can remember a variant of the game you describe. Great fun for boys and teens with excess energy.
On June 5, 2019 at 3:02 pm, billrla said:
Dodge-ball. Kill the carrier. Capture the flag. Flashlight tag (played at night, of course). All staples of my childhood. Also, shooting-off Estes Rockets. Of course, this was when the Cold War was in full-tilt, and before the commies won.
On June 5, 2019 at 9:06 pm, Fred said:
“blah blah blah…the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a trio of education theorists…blah blah blah”
Nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only to be sure. The rest of the city will have to be considered acceptable collateral damage. Sorry Vancouver, tag, you’re it.
On June 6, 2019 at 2:49 pm, Sanders said:
They’d probably really go into conniptions if they saw kids playing, “Smear the queer”.
On June 8, 2019 at 5:26 pm, Pat Hines said:
I remember well how I controlled all my homies via the “dodge ball” during my elementary school days. Back in the day.