Jocks and Nerds

[pasithea]

Interesting article but a bit one-sided.

http://nat.org/blog/2009/07/nerds-and-jocks/

I think that in Germany, while being an engineer isn't stigmatized, being fit and healthy is also encouraged but it's not done in the same way that it's done here. Americans seem to have this weird fascination with dualistic thinking. I've never really understood it.

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

I hate the dualism here.

For years, my school experience was all about football and being terrorized and feeling left out. But as a kid, when I wasn't trying to build models or read about history and archaeology, I was climbing trees or biking everywhere or swimming. When I was a kid, I wanted so hard to be dive certified that at 10-11 or so I remember intentionally trying in the nearest pool to get to the point where I could do the required 40' underwater.

I was a jock all that time, and thanks to my schools, I never realized it until I was 16 and started fencing.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Two divergent thoughts...

The first one is that I think a lot the history and the current state of republic is about Dualism. Us vs England. North vs South. East vs West. Like Us, or Not Like Us. We still are doing it. I think that America still searches for an identity in itself, and for a lot of people, Subtracting, "What am I not", is a lot easier to answer then Adding, "What am I?", that creates the situation. In my opinion, at least.

The second thought that is in America, Sports is money. The reason we don't see more of the non-big three sports played is because the money is constantly looking and trying to recruit new players. People spend huge ridiculous amounts of sums of money playing and merchandising the game. While teachers pay lip service to good health, what they actually are are huge recruiting machines, and all the play is to practice and weed out people to get more players. I feel this really is why you only get more variety and divergent sports towards the second year of High School, as at that point the recruiting is done, and they just are looking for ways to keep people occupied, for the people who have just grown completely tired of 'games' that they just never enjoyed.