Malcolm Gladwell Compares Football Players to Dogs
by John Morgan on Oct 14, 2009 2:42 PM PDT
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PrintIn typical Malcolm Gladwell fashion, his piece Offensive Play is rich, engrossing and effortless. The story he spins exposes how football ravages the human brain. He is an excellent writer and specifically, an excellent propagandist. Gladwell quotes scientist in place of science and reserves the rebuttal to an almost insignificant two paragraphs on page eight. One might think after reading it, the argument is so overwhelmingly one-sided, football fans should scrub the blood from their hands. Football fans should be ostracized from their community like bug hunters and pedophiles.
Ira Casson, co-chair of an NFL committee on brain damage, sounds detached and aloof. The self-professed "Jewish kid from Long Island" is led to slaughter by Gladwell, no doubt embarrassed by this quote and its placement within Gladwell's piece.
"It's a violent game. I suppose if you want to you could play touch football or flag football. For me, as a Jewish kid from Long Island, I'd be just as happy if we did that. But I don't know if the fans would be happy with that. So what else do you do?"
Seven pages of damaged brains on meat slicers, spousal abuse and suicide, and Casson rebuts by advocating flag football. Any propagandist can identify a good fall guy and Gladwell found an unsuspecting NFL employee to hang himself with his own words. Casson's sentiment rings especially hollow framed as it is: led by Kyle Turley, of all people, relaying a story about a concussed kid nodding out in a cold tub; footed by the crunching bones and cartilage, the splattering blood and urine of a dog fight.
Gladwell's piece is manipulative and insulting and its argument fails because of Gladwell's own indulgence. The NFL needs an intelligent discussion about concussions. Science empowers us to better protect ourselves. Protect ourselves both from the dangers we cannot avoid and the dangers we choose. It empowers us to better understand our decisions and their consequences. It does not stop us from driving cars, but it invents air bags.
Football players are not dogs. The players of the NFL are adults. No one who has ever seen a snap in their life thinks football is safe. I stopped playing shortly after a safety with shortman's facemasked me so bad my neck ached for years. The tenderized meat feeling following a game is agony. I had no real talent to speak of and so I quit. I choose to quit.
Football players are not dogs. A football player assumes great risk and sacrifice to play football, but unlike dogs pitted in a ring, provoked and forced to fight, often to the death, football players are intelligent adults. It is a frustrating and revealing failure in Gladwell's piece that he barely acknowledges this fact.
He indicts the fan:
We are in love with football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else-neither considerations of science nor those of morality-can compete with the destructive power of that love.
Implying a fan's love for football is like a dog fighter's love for dog fighting. Football players are not dogs. They are not owned. They are not electrocuted if they do not fight. They are not executed when they can no longer fight. They are adults making decisions with their lives that could have terrible consequences.
Those consequences and the best way to prevent or at least abate them could make for an intelligent piece. Instead, Gladwell exploits an easy and popularly recognized angle to manipulate and lower the discussion. He turns men into dogs and fans into blood thirsty owners. Gladwell trades even reporting for judgment and inquiry for propaganda. Malcolm Gladwell attempts to turn the moral outrage targeted at Michael Vick back on the fans of the NFL, but in comparing men to dogs, Gladwell reveals his own contempt for human beings, our ability to choose our lives and our ability to face the consequences of our choices.
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This is a very astute rebuttal, John.
You’re dead on about Gladwell — he is more speechwriter than philosopher. And he is good at his job.
i did wonder about kickoffs
if that’s where most of the serious issues arise, then there probably should be real discussion abut modifying it in some substantial way.
Agreed
I was working on a piece about football players and post traumatic stress during the offseason. I think there might be a connection between the NFL’s high rate of crime and the concussions players endure. During that time, I read the NFL’s report on concussions and it did mention kickoffs. I am not sure they could be made safe, but investigation into how they could be made safer sounds smart.
I believe that's why they are trying to eliminate the wedge
or at least minimize it’s existence. Wedges and wedge breakers have been around since ~1890 and it has always been an extremely dangerous job.
For the record, the committee co-chair is Ira Casson, not Carson.
Nice rebuttal. Now I’ve got to read Gladwell’s piece in its entirety.
ARGH!
See, this why you guys make me better. I guess my brain didn’t recognize Casson and turned it into Carson. Thanks.
Surprise, a lecturing, overindulgent "I'm smarter than you" diatribe from the New Yorker
Too much on dogs, not enough on what was supposedly the purpose of the article, concussions in the NFL. I wonder if players are rushed back too soon from concussions, for a myriad of reasons, but I don’t really know if more time off from head collisions following a concussion actually matters.
I remember a piece they did about Conor Oberst some years back being comically overwrought.
It managed to dishonor and simultaneously blow Bob Dylan out of proportions, make Oberst sound like some later day Rimbaud and still get mired in the writers own importance.
It's easy to see a Conor Oberst piece being overwrought
The man appeals to those who would consider themselves above the fray on matters musical.
Football has consequences such as brain damage
permanent inures and possible, but unlikely death (either while playing, or early death). The players and fans watch despite this, even though the enjoyment they would get would be comparable (not equal, comparable) to watching elite athletes play flag football. Personally, I’d be cool if they severely limited the amount of violence (or aggressive tackling or whatever you want to call it) in the sport, but I don’t think this would be maximizing total utility for all fans. The little tiny bit of utility lost to each fan would not be offset by the prevented injuries, so it would not be cost effective or revenue maximizing for the NFL.
The difference in comparing the NFL to dog fighting or even gladiator fighting is that NFL isn’t meant to be an excessively violent sport. Injuring someone else isn’t considered a victory, the violence is just a byproduct of the goals in the game, which are to get the ball carrier on the ground. I don’t know how to reconcile boxing though, since the goal is to knock the guy out (or score more points). But perhaps the violence and brain damage are part of the reason boxing is dying and losing viewership (though that certainly isn’t the reason for horse racing dying).
The rise of MMA certainly contradicts that the brutality of boxing is hurting its viewership.
Tackling is a small part of players suffering trauma. Flag football could not exist. The offensive line could not exist in a flag football environment.
Boxing has far more issues outside the ring
than in it. The sport is so fucking corrupt I don’t even watch anymore, and I am a HUGE boxing fan and only a borderline MMA fan. First, I can’t afford to pay for a random pay per view event when my anticipation of an actual good fight is so stinkin’ low. 54 bucks to watch two guys avoid each other for 12 rounds? To hell with that.
I’m so pissed about this, it just drives me nuts. Federations and Commissions and complete corruptions is what boxing is about.
SUCK.
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 15, 2009 12:45 AM PDT up reply actions
I'll have to go through and read the article
Gladwell really is a master of prose, and he’s never written anything that I didn’t enjoy.
That the New Yorker would advocate for paternalism to protect the lower classes from their own mad impulses is predictable, as noted above.
On a more serious note: Often, measures put in place to increase safety don’t do so. One good reason is that safety measures increase the feeling of safety, and so to more risk-taking behavior. Put a helmet on a guy, and he’s more apt to take risks with his head.
Let’s face facts: Football players have a high tolerance for risk. (A high pain threshold, too, which is another part of it.) Like Owen Schmitt said in an interview recently, “You’ve gotta be a little crazy to play this game.” Of course. So, you put safety-enhancing measures around the players, and they’ll take more risks with their bodies. They have huge rewards for doing so, and the players are inured to the risks.
You could put magic force-fields around the bodies of players that would instantaneously materialize and protect players from certain types of injury. What would that do? Encourage players to play with more reckless abandon. Other types of injuries would go up. Because that’s the mindset of football players, and you can’t change that.
You make a very very good point
about safety measures increasing risk-taking behavior. Which, I must say, is why it’s such a farce when I hear, even still, from lovers of futbol question the toughness of American football on account of the pads and helmets. My best friend is British and for some reason is not allowed to enjoy two sports if they share the same name. Heh.
So, yeah. It’s true. Nobody would make the hits made in today’s game, without pads & helmets. Without them people would flat out die. Removing them would definitely reduce the speed and force the game is played at. I dunno that that would reduce risk or injury. I don’t have any solutions to offer. But it is a fine and valid point you make.
by jacobstevens on Oct 14, 2009 5:00 PM PDT up reply actions
A couple of thoughts:
1. First, the safety-measures-beget-more-risk-taking-behavior argument is a tried and trued position of advocates of helmetless bicycling and motorcycling. It’s an argument promoted by my personal hero, Grant Peterson of Rivendell bikes. It’s an attractive argument, but it relies on its internal logic and on people’s desire to believe in its truth, rather than on the empirical data. The data don’t support that conclusion.
2. There’s some discussion in this mini-thread about soccer. I recall from at least ten years ago, info came out about brain damage among soccer players. That news report cited the long-term effects of heading the ball. No mention there, as far as I recall, of the virtue of Euro-style flopping (which has always bugged me more in basketball [oh Vlade!] than in soccer, perhaps because I expect that kind of thing out of soccer players).
Gladwell reaches...
I’m going to forward this rebuttal to a friend of mine. We’ve discussed a couple of Gladwell books that each of us have read. I rarely agree with Gladwell’s conclusions. He is always reaching for “Facts” that back up his theories.
I agree with your rebuttal. The players assume a degree of risk by playing football. They get extremely well compensated for assuming this risk. Many jobs (underwater welders, commercial fishermen, etc) assume a much higher risk of death. My fellow soldiers assume a very high risk of concussion in combat. No one gets compensation for their risk like football players do.
They are adults making a rational decision. “I assume this risk for this money and fame? Where do I sign”
Don't forget tail.
As in, “I assume this risk for this money and fame and plenty of tail? Where do I sign.”
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 15, 2009 12:56 AM PDT up reply actions
I'm not sure what to think of this
I went and read the piece. Yeah, it’s doused with rhetorical flair. I don’t think I’m seeing this too clearly, I’ve developed a bit of a passion for the issue in a strong reaction to the attitude that seems widespread to me, essentially embodied by StonerHawks’ post above mine here, suggesting all risk is mitigated by the handsome compensation.
So the scope and depth of this piece you felt compelled to respond with here doesn’t feel like it’s solely out of displeasure with his journalistic spinning of a serious subject, but maybe it is. I see your point. I agree with you. I hesitate to make too much of it, in large part because it’s clear to me that simply establishing the seriousness of the long-term effects and the place that football has in the hearts of fans — from which we seem to find our grounds for defending any potential threat to its aesthetic appeal such as unsavory and restrictive safety precautions ala roughing the passer — is still very necessary. Indeed, when the league commissions a study on the subject and then is quick to undercut its own study and question the validity of the results, I feel it’s very necessary. With the popularity of football, I think it’s going to take a lot of work to create a cultural shift on this issue.
So I feel a little strange reading so much effort and energy put into this piece, here. Melodramatic, yes, but that’s what gets people’s attention.
if there isn't a full awareness on the part of OL and LB
that besides the daily aches, their brains are already in the process of turning into late-stage alzheimers patients in exchange for a couple million dollars then I think Gladwell does correctly amble in the general direction of the point that the football players aren’t making a fully informed decision. Maybe not dogs, perhaps, but still.
I wonder what the median pay of an NFL player is, compared to what insurance companies/the government peg a persons’ life to be worth? Are they getting an equal amount of money for the years of life they’re missing?
I’m always shocked when I hear that offensive lineman’s life expectancy is ~25 years shorter than the average American’s. That’s an element of weight, probably, but ignores the diminished quality of life of those who survive but have dementia.
(2006), Link
Wow, that is shocking
It’s an estimation, kind of a prediction, though. Of all the former players, I wonder how their actual age at death compares in average to the greater public. They carry a lot more weight and that’s hell on the heart, but they don’t have the same lifestyle as those who reach that weight sitting on the sofa. So the disparity may not be as great in actuality, but then again it may. A shocking figure, though.
by jacobstevens on Oct 15, 2009 10:04 AM PDT up reply actions
I find Gladwell to be like Michael Lewis.
Both amazing writers who do a vast amount of research in several different areas which culminates into a fantastic piece of writing. Unfortunately, both seem to have a hidden agenda or a point they want to make, and so often or not this introduces biases in their arguments. They’re both very smart, so I’m not sure if they know they have this bias and write to influence others, or if they are unaware that their writing contains logical fallacies and leaps of faith to tie together their logic.
Also, good fact about Gladwell, he ran a 4:02 1500m as a 16/17 year old and was a national (Canada) caliber track athlete in high school, despite his Big Bang Theory-esque looks.
Bias
Any writer’s got a bias. Learning how to find it is a key part of becoming an adult. That’s why I like to read writers whose bias is up-front. That way you know what their lean is. Anyone who pretends toward “complete objectivity” is full of crap, and not to be trusted. Mostly because they don’t understand their own biases.
You’ve gotta care enough in the first place to write the story. And that’s one reason I like Michael Lewis so much: I know what his biases are, and I can account for them in his writing.
It’s the same reason why I like to read John’s analyses. He’s a Seahawk partisan. I know that, and I know he wants the team to do well. Moreover, John knows that. He does a good job of laying out his biases in his writing and accounting for them. I know where he’s coming from.
Committed libertarians in this thread, raise your hands
I find it interesting that there was recently a big hullabaloo about keeping politics out of this blog. I privately wondered how that was possible, but then again, I’m a critical social theorist who believes that everything is political.
Anyway, it seems there’s some serious (and fascinating) politics coming out of this whole post and associated discussion, revealing a strong libertarian impulse on the parts of many of the principals in this conversation. So while this conversation has perhaps not been Political-with-a-capital-P, it has been profoundly political in a generic sense.
While I find this fascinating, I also find it problematic. Not to push the “panic” button or anything, but I do think that some of the views shared here are indicative of an unacknowledged libertarian bent (still wondering about the strange, long-running inside joke about Hasselbeck-as-Objectivist, BTW) that goes unchallenged, while I feel pretty sure that if I were to start espousing Marxian viewpoints, I would quickly be called out for that.
All that said, I hasten to add that Marx would no doubt second John’s assertion that human beings should not be analogized to dogs. That kind of rhetorical stunt is SO Adam Smith.
To veer entirely tangentially to the topic, here
I’d expect a critical social theorist to call this thread “political,” when it’s not. It’s certainly “philosophic,” but that doesn’t neccessarily imply “political.”
Our moral, philosophic and religious beliefs inform our politics, but this whole conversation is on a deeper level. We’re talking about would/should/why, here, and not “how.” It’s the “how” that veers into the political, and particularly when we discuss how government-applied force should be applied.
Yeah, there’s a lot of small-l libertarianism here. I, for one, am not surprised. Rugged individualism and talent-wins-out are highly prized by sports fans of all stripes. Those are classic libertarian values. But you’d be amazed at the wealth of differences this will get you. You can start from libertarian-ish principles and end up anywhere from Rush Limbaugh to Seasteading.
I would also say
that libertarian values (“rugged individualism and talent-wins-out,” as you put it) are highly prized by “new media” types (like bloggers), so it’s not exactly surprising.
I am a little surprised, though, that you don’t think comments suggesting, straight out of neoliberal micro-econ texts, that football players’ salaries (i.e., the market) already fairly compensates them for their probable, premature brain death, constitute policy/political statements.
I think what I’m trying to point out here is that the intrinsic politicalness of such statements is rendered invisible by the pervasiveness of the discourse of what Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank calls “market populism.” The logic has become so commonplace as to become enshrined as common sense.
I’m trying to suggest that such a statement is no more and no less political than, say, a statement such as, “Rush Limbaugh shouldn’t be allowed to own an NFL team, not only because he’s racist but because his presence represents an affront and a grave threat to players’ hard-won right to secure fair compensation through collective bargaining.” And I’m just wondering aloud whether a statement like that would be at greater risk of being flagged as inappropriate.
Regarding the Rush Limbaugh incident,
I think things like that should constitute new rules in FGs, where we can feel free to comment on them. Maybe not talk about Rush Limbaugh’s beliefs, but whether or not we believe an overly opinionated talk show radio host should be free to purchase a team. Personally be fine if a neo-Nazi or a KKK head purchased an NFL team, they can say and do what they want, just as long as it’s legal. However, I also support the players’ rights to object to working for a certain owner, and since all players cannot choose who they play for during their first 5 or so years as an NFL player, they are free to voice their opinion. I also think that since the NFL is essentially a monopoly, or a 32 team oligopoly with a very small number of owners who’s profits are directly tied to one another, the owners can reject and accept who they want in as a business partner, as having someone with a black stain on his/her record would be bad for their profit margins. However, with this power, they could also have a ‘good old boys’ network and include only rich white men (heck they could exclude self-made men if they wanted to as well, and only include ‘old money’).
No real point to my post, just a series of observations my thoughts on them.
I, for one, have trouble distinguishing between the two.
My philosophies directly influence what kind of political policies I would like to see be put in place.
I love that last part.
I wonder if you consider my contributions to hold an unacknowledged libertarian bent. I see libertarians as conservatives on drugs. And I see their principles as a fundamental platform that both contemporary liberal and conservative ideologies have sprung from. I love most of what libertarians believe. I know I am not a libertarian, however, because I’m not rigid; all of my principles are put in practice by the guideline that Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Politics: it’s a relevant issue to the core topic of the blog. Political tangents often aren’t, and there’s good reason to reign them in. I don’t quite like the moderative nipping it in the bud before anything actually problematic develops, but it’s their prerogative and I respect that. You did help steer this to the brink of leaving the relevance to football, though. Which I like, I don’t mind at all, but I dunno how this is gonna unfold.
by jacobstevens on Oct 15, 2009 12:15 PM PDT up reply actions
What just happened...
I thought I was reading a football blog. Somebody make a fucking dick joke, dammit!
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 15, 2009 2:06 PM PDT reply actions
C'mon Now
Football is a religion full of magic, cosmic truth, and the fundamental ontological riddles of our time.
Oh, wait, no. That’s baseball.
Is that a Bull Durham quote?
Sounds like something Annie would say.
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 16, 2009 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Fuck yes!
Monosyllabic words help too!
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 16, 2009 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions
I prefer boobs.
Or better yet, SNOOBS!!!
Though, I’m not one to turn down titties either, to be honest.
Mancrushed. Jake Locker for Heisman 2010.
by Tyler Jorgensen on Oct 16, 2009 12:12 PM PDT up reply actions
I guess comparing football players to dogs
Was more of a challenge than the inevitable comparison to soldiers.
I'm not allowed to go into that one
because two of my brothers are in the armed forces, one of them just having finished training as a Blackhawk pilot. But yes, I did notice the analogy.
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