Hacker News Reader

Comment by nlawalker | Hacker News Reader

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people" - Eleanor Roosevelt

Sports, in the context of the article, is 100% people and events.

I don't necessarily agree with the quote, I just wanted to point out that the idea expressed here is the same. I don't think that intellectuals (to use the author's term) are necessarily disinterested in sports in general. However, it makes sense to me that that they would not be interested in news, drama and specific professional athletes and their performances and relationships. In many cases, that's all there is when it comes to using professional sports as a basis for making conversation or building rapport.

View on HN

Wow. That's a really great quote. It captures my social values perfectly, irrespective of sports, or my telling others what they should do.

Yes, sports are all about immersing yourself in the earnest discussion of trivial minutiae. Maybe that's why intellectuals disdain it. It's a tempest in a TV set.

But sports are also one of the very few venues which are: a) dramatic, b) can be shared with friends, foes, and strangers alike, c) fair, and d) largely unscripted.

Sports are a kind of platonic ideal -- a pure meritocracy: where the cream rises to the top, where talent is rewarded, where justice is done, yet tragedy may strike. In today's heavily commercialized, overproduced, and politicized world, such fields of dreams are all too rare.

Finally and maybe most important, sports play to the need we all have to cheer for for heros and heroics and to bathe in the glamour of their victory.

Maybe the inescapably gladiatorial nature of sports competition also embarrasses the fine arts crowd?

The "intellectuals" who watch sports are interested in strategy. This encompasses on field strategy, personnel choices, and beyond.

The fact that you ignored (or are ignorant of) this side of sports tells me that you've not actually had much practice "making conversation or building rapport" around sports.

The neat thing about intellectuals criticizing things is, they can say it so well.

Honestly, what does that even matter? Most of what gets posted on HackerNews are people, events, and 100 JavaScript frameworks that all do the same thing, namely allow you to do in a browser what you could do with a computer 25 years ago. So, it's a cute quote but what do with that?

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people

What's the value in ideas unless the affect events or impact people? It's a nice pithy quote, but don't assign it any undue deference or respect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com