Slouching Toward Senility

            In 1954, the Gallup polling organization asked Americans if there was a link between smoking and the development of lung cancer.  Only forty-one percent said that there was.  Nine in ten respondents had heard reports of the science linking smoking and lung cancer, but fewer than half had decided to believe them. 

            This is just one example—but a particularly useful one—of people’s willingness to disregard evidence that they don’t want to believe.  Fifty percent of adults in the 1950’s  smoked; nearly everyone knew and admired a smoker.  Believing that smokers were slow suicides was an unpleasant reality, and so millions of people simply decided not to believe it.

Of course, huge amounts of money were spent covering up the terrible consequences of smoking; by the time the damning facts began trickling out, the revolting and deadly addiction permeated the culture so thoroughly that took decades—and millions of dollars—to counteract the damage Big Tobacco had wrought.

            Thankfully, decades of efforts by lucid and courageous thinkers have marginalized the impact smoking has on our civilization.  Sensible restrictions exist to minimize the harm smoking does to society.  While far too many people still suffer terrible health consequences for their poor decisions, those who opt to addict themselves do so with full cognizance of the fact that they are prioritizing a moment of pleasure over a lifetime of emphysema, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, and social stigma.

            Football, despite similar long-term health detriments, is still rationalized not only into acceptability, but into desirability.  Legion are the fathers who aspire to sire star quarterbacks or wide receivers.  Participation numbers in Pop Warner leagues are staggering and rising.  Over a million boys play high school football in America each year. 

The tide, however, is turning.  As more evidence comes out about the disastrous health effects of football, more credence is lent to critiques of its psychological, cultural, and moral effects.  In forty years, I hope society is able to look back on the father who pushes his son into football with the same disgusted sneer of contempt we might give a father who shares a pack with his seven-year-old. 

This blog aims to encourage and accelerate that development in our civilization.  Sports and entertainment do not have to be revels in and revelations of our vices; we are a better nation than that, and I hope we soon will prove it.