Dangerous sports, the ones likey to produce blood, are a big part of the sports scene in America and throughout the world.  The list of blood sports is long, but the most common of them are rodeo, football, hockey, auto racing, and bull fighting.  We could probably even make a list of blood sports arranging them from sports where the bare possibility of blood exists to those where it is expected and even required.  Bull fighting is at the top end of this ladder, where the big climax of the sport is the killing of the bull.  And, of course, there's always the possibility of the matador getting gored.

I suppose one could argue that in any competition between adult individuals, or where large animals are used, there's always the possibility of injury . . . and therefore some blood.  Anyone who thinks basketball is a passive sport with no violence hasn't seen the game close up.  The clash of bodies is eminent in modern basketball.  We've turned the game into a more physical game than the inventors imagined, and we do that for the sake of specators who like it that way.  And football?  We could talk about that forever, the violence of the game.  Then there NASCAR, where cars go around an oval track all bunched up together at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour.

So, here's the big question.  If no one ever got hurt playing football, would we still love it so much?  If race cars didn't crash, if drivers weren't injured and sometimes killed, would we still crave it?  If they didn't kill the bull, just pinned a ribbon on him at a bull fighting contest, would people still come? 

Nah, they wouldn't.

Erich Fromm, the famous psychoanalyst, wrote a book some years ago in which in explained man's need for violence - the cruelty of it, and even the certainty of death caused by it.  Why do we rush to the scene of a major traffic accident, love to watch the reports on television, or even pour over new articles for the violence in war?  Are we just a bunch of sick sonsabitches, or is that just a part of human nature?

Fromm says it's caused mostly by boredom, that we all have a need for excitement.  He says we try to deal with our boredom by stimulating ourselves, and we do this with either flat stimuli or activating stimuli.  The difference between the two is simple - flat stimuli is applying something like alcohol or sex to the problem.  Flat stimuli works fine as a short term fix.  Getting a buzz on or getting laid does wonders for boredom - for a little while.  Going to watch a bull fight, or a football game, or a NASCAR race works the same way, as a flat stimuli that only works for a little while.  In other words, viewing and taking part in violent activities is not a stimuli that satisfies a deeper yearning within us.  To quiet that craving we need to apply activating stimuli, which is something that actually challenges the intellect, makes one grow a little on the inside, so to speak.  Reading a good book, becominig involved in the arts, doing something creative - that's activiting stimuli.

So . . . what had you rather do, sit down and read a good novel, or have sex?  Would you rather draw a picture, work on a painting, get into photography, or go to a nightclub and get goofy?  Yeah, I thought so.  You see, you're about a shallow as anybody else.  Gimme the quick fix.  I don't have time to waste on activating stimuli.

According to Fromm, the bad thing about your obsession with the quick fix, the flat stimuli, is that it won't work forever.  If you're an avid football watcher, and that becomes your fix for boredom, the time comes when it just doesn't work like before.  With flat stimuli, you have to either increase the intensity of it, or the duration of it  . . . and sooner or later, you just run out of rope, so to speak.  The same is true of sex.  As enjoyable as it is, after some time goes by you have to find ways of adjusting the intensity or duration, or it quits working.  Having sex with the same person gets boring after awhile, unless you find ways to keep it interesting.  The easy way is to bring back the excitement is just change partners . . . and you know what kind of misery that eventually leads to.  Alcohol quits working because it will eventually cripple the mind and body, and you finally reach a point where you just can't drink enough of it aleviate the boredom.

So, am I making an argument here against violent sport?  No, not at all.  If anything, I think they serve a purpose - as long as they are kept in perspective.  The way to do that is recognize our need for violence as what it is, see it as being limited in what it can do for us.  And does the time come when we just don't like watching it anymore?  Damn right it does.  And if you're lucky, you lose interest in it before the big damage is done.  Fromm's book, by the way, is called The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.

I gave up hunting back in my late thirties.  I lost interest in football, and even rodeo.  I had no need for it any longer, and it wasn't just advancing age that did that to me.  Activating stimuli started to replace my need for flat stimuli.  Doing something that really challenges the mind, gives it something to exercise the nervous system with, became more enjoyable.  I went from being a sports junkie to being a word junkie.  Reading and writing replaced rodeo and wasted hours of viewing violent sports.

If you're a sports nut like I've been all my life, you don't just cold turkey violent sports.  I haven't given up all my leanings toward flat stimuli.  I don't smoke or drink, or chase wild women (dammit), and I view much less blood sports these days.  If given a chance, I avoid violence at every opportunity, and missing out on seeing something bloody sure doesn't disappoint me.  And why am I thinking about something like that this morning?  I went to the shooting range yesterday with my daughter and her boyfriend.  He's a pistol enthusiast, and so I dug out my pistols for the first time in years.  I had a good time, but we didn't kill anything except a few cans and various other targets.

God help me, I love guns.  And I love the big ones, the ones with some kick to them.  That feel of power in you hand is enjoyable, but shooting requires that you keep your wits.  The fact you're holding something that's extremely dangerous and can end a life in a heartbeat requires that of you, and in that regard the gun can challenge a part of you that's more than flat stimuli.  I've had to study a lot to know guns, and I'm still afraid of them - and yet attracted to them.  But my relationship with the gun has changed over they years, just as my relationship with blood sports has.

My point?  Recreation doesn't have to be bloody to be satisflying . . . but it takes a certain amount of maturity and good sense to understand that.

D. Paz, 2/22/08