Peterkin

When have I ever given the impression that I disapprove of equal pay for women?

Neither. Merely brief. In an effort to minimize misconstruction. Evidently futile.

I cannot help but wonder: How often do you hear someone use the term Anglo-Saxon when referring to the English language? On now many of those occasions is someone referring to the English they themselves use? How many of the people referring to their own language as Anglo-Saxon rather than English are conservatives running for office in a climate of extreme political division? How many of the occasions on which a conservative candidate running for office in climate of extreme division call the English they use 'Anglo-Saxon' on a televised interview with a high-profile spokesman for the far right, whose audience is guaranteed to be predominantly far right? Just asking.

Certainly not. If you don't consider it commendable, I withdraw my commendation, even though I continue to approve of your moral stance.

Commendable!

Yes. And then, later, in a related sidebar, we were comparing the merits of North American men's and women's soccer teams, with regard to pay equity.

As Zapatos humourously pointed out: there are not so many transgendered athletes at the "top, elite levels" to destroy an entire sport, or shut out all top level elite female athletes, or be trounced by all the top level elite male athletes. Since top level elite professional sport is all that some fans care about, they might, in fact, be better entertained if one of these rare non-birth-defined contenders staged an upset victory or carried off a grand trophy once in a while. (I really can't imagine a long queue of male athletes lining up for sex-change operations just for a advantage in their chosen sport.)

Barr, too, though he's made a feeble attempt to distance himself from the erstwhile Perpetrator-in-Chief.

Diff'rent strokes....

They do look warm and cuddly!

Yes. Histrionic, but effective. Maybe someday the North American teams will develop field skills.... but I hope not the self-dramatizing and halleluyahs. And I'm the only person in my extended family who doesn't find baseball boring. It's not fast, but it's subtle and cerebral. Smart isn't boring!

That will be funny - all the women in one room, watching a game; all the men in another room watching a game; everybody watching for the unfair advantage that one transgendered player might have; nobody watching the turkey.

I guess - in Premier League. Not MSL. Of course not. Equity issues are as old as civilization and the power keeps shifting between factions. I was specifically addressing the matter of a social change becoming "normal" over generations. These didn't.

One of the truly pathetic sights, for me, is some great big tattooed macha-man falling on his knees in the spit-damp turf, gesticulating and miming mortally injured innocence when he's just grabbed another guy by the throat and thrown him to that self-same ground.

Right. We thought we were making equal pay and reproductive rights 'normal' since 1969. Now they're brand new issues again, because the generation that came along behind us grew old enough to have all the power. I didn't say stronger; I said better. As in more accurate, better co-ordinated, more effective plays, less fouling, far, far less histrionics and time-wasting. Matter of taste.

That which is progressive is not necessarily new.

For one thing, they play better soccer. For another, a large contingent of kids just coming of age (here they are again - those youngsters!) grew up with the game, and a lot of girls, denied participation in boy sports at an early age, have role models and heroes in that league, and they will probably come out to games in increasing numbers.

Which side is that? Never mind; I realize that this part of the matter is far off topic. What I'm really curious about is why people occasionally suggest that substantive change, or progressive change, in any area of public life cannot take place until a certain generation has died off. Why is it considered more likely that a fresh young cohort will achieve what the youth of the 1960's and 70's failed to achieve, or regain what we did achieve that is now being destroyed? Opposite points of view on social issues are older than I am, older than democracy, older than sport.

I understand that games have been long co-opted as commercial mass entertainment. I agreed that it's probably too late to reclaim them. Re-purposing is a concept I find problematic here: the purposes that competitive sport used to serve in early societies do not apply in modern ones. The functions it might serve now are divided by age, class and financial status: physical fitness, business team-building, the social solidarity of fandom, access to education for underprivileged youth, to teach the children the importance of winning, lucrative careers, investment opportunities, big cash prizes and advertising contracts, etc. Fun and friendship are irrelevant.

I always appreciate this kind of remark, especially accompanied by a big happy grin at the prospect of my imminent demise. I'm working on it.... OTH, not all young people are progressive.

I didn't mean to set a value on evolution. It doesn't 'go toward' anything, either good or bad; it's simply an on-going, undirected process of selection for survival that takes place in nature. My distinction was between fitness selection and imposed order. Imposed order has purpose and direction, but doesn't always contribute work to the survival of either the imposing or imposed-upon organism. That means, traits are acquired as an expedient, or a burden; as soon as the purpose is no longer served, the acquired trait is abandoned. For example, a generation of Eastern Europeans had to learn Russian in school. Once the USSR imploded, not only did their children not learn Russian, but even the older people stopped using it and forgot most of it. The something different a future generation becomes will be the result of many forces, some of which we can see, some of which we can surmise, and some of which we cannot predict. A great many people have had to become bilingual because of colonialism coming to their homeland, or themselves being forced to flee their homeland. Some citizens of ethnically diverse nations become bilingual through childhood exposure; relatively few people become bi- or multilingual by choice.

I wonder, as a side-bar, whether team sports might not change in regard for and enforcement of the rules if the teams were mixed sex; the players might exhibit a lower level of aggression. But hockey fans, for example, would hate that: they appreciate "the physicality" of the game (read fouling, fighting and brawling) They're paying watch gladiatorial combat. I wonder how much that lust for violence contributes to the insistence on the status quo. And i sometimes wonder it's contributed to rendering most sports unenjoyable to those of us who used to play for fun.

I wouldn't call it evolving. Imperialism, whether by force of arms, persuasion or economic pressure, is an imposition of one culture on another rather than a natural development. So, whether the transformation is permanent or temporary depends on how long the empire can hold on to its colonies, satellites and dependent allies. There is some small movement among colonized peoples of North America to reclaim their own heritage and language. We also see fierce backlash against Anglo-American domination in the Middle East, while China appears both ready and able to start a new cycle of imperialism. While the language of business has been English for a while now, economic power is not as concentrated as it may appear on the surface https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/billionaires-by-country but more diverse, mobile and pervasive. There is no guarantee of continued American world dominance. At the moment, it looks like a tussle between the US and China - which I suppose would make it bipolar - but a lot of variables are unpredictable. Will the US tear itself apart in civil strife? Will climate change or pandemic wipe out major populations? Will Russia and the rest of the world blow one another to smithereens? Will the financial machinations of a few unprincipled players collapse the global economic structure? The trend we can see is of the past; not necessarily of the future.

It means that even the devil he knows (intimately) is preferable to people who might change the unbalance of power.

Probably true. Oh well.