Noam Chomsky
Well, in our society, we have things
that you might use your intelligence
on, like politics, but people really can't
get involved in them in a very serious
way so what they do is they put
their minds into other things, such as
sports. You're trained to be obedient;
you don't have an interesting job;
there's no work around for you that's
creative; in the cultural environment
you're a passive observer of usually
pretty tawdry stuff; political and
social life are out of your range,
they're in the hands of the rich folks.
So what's left? Well, one thing that's
left is sports so you put a lot of the
intelligence and the thought and the
self-confidence into that. And I
suppose that's also one of the basic
functions it serves in the society in
general: it occupies the population,
and keeps them from trying to get
involved with things that really
matter.
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