Tuesday
Jul242007
Think before you speak
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 11:22PM
See now here is a thing - sometimes people misunderstand things - its easy done, hell we have all done it at one stage or another, but equally folks have to realise that when you publish these misunderstandings you can do a lot of damage.
You may have guessed that there is something in particular that has set me off on this topic. This time it is an article on the BBC website about cagefighting.
I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about Cagefighting and what is involved. My particular fondness for 'cagefighting' comes in the form of MMA. As this form of sport takes off world wide it is become more and more common for people to comment on it and what they think. On the whole the UFC and other organisations (such as cage rage etc) have had a largely positive response so I was interested to see what people were saying after a fight in Glasgow, organized by a professional organization.
The article on the whole is fairly damning about the sport in general and has said that it is "Social Violence", although they do not say what that means. I think that what they are attempting to say is that fighting being televised makes violence socially acceptable. I don't think that this is the case. the sport has rules and regulations, is refereed and has a number of doctors on site. Fighters have to pass a medical before they fight as well as having checks after the fights. It is true that some people do not see this happening but that does not make it grusome.
Here is a thing - we live in a society where it is socially acceptable to go to a picture house and see a film that details a group of people being kidnapped and tortured - that is not considered to be too gruesome.
One of the key arguments is that parents can take children to the show as long as they are accompanied. If the event is presented in the correct way then what you present is not brutal but an education in both martial arts and strategy and game plans can work. Martial arts require a student to exhibit control, dedication and determination. They can be key in ensuring that children are kept out of trouble and are in a structured environment.
There are quotes from members of the church and the police as well as some MP's all talking about how the sport it grotesque but provides no evidence of this! It talks about the fact that people can be hurt - well yes they can but I was hurt walking down the street the other day when I tripped and fell. There is danger in everything that we do, this sport is regulated (if you go to a professional fight) and as such is safer than a lot of other sports.
One of my favourite quotes has to be the following 'He said: "While I do not claim to have a clear understanding of what is involved in cage fighting, I do know there is a fine line between what some people would describe as sport and others would describe as violence.'
Well thanks for that - it doesn't actually say anything at all! If you look at it there could be any one of 1000 things that I could find violent while someone else does not. We do not live in a Nanny state, we have to allow for people to make their own decisions using their own moral compass, rather than dictating what is wrong or right to them.
At no point in this article is here any mention of any other sports that can be considered to be dangerous. Lets take a look at some of those. First off we have boxing - something that the BBC reports on with a great regularity. In boxing a fight an opponent can be hit over 1060 times over the course of the fight. In an average MMA fight someone gets hit no more than 30 times. So far boxing is looking like the more dangerous sport to me and it is one that is celebrated. In fact when Auddley Harrison came back from the olympics we had a ticker tape parade and made him a local hero, the same happened with Amir Kahn.
You could argue that kids are not exposed to this but they are - they can see it on the TV during the day if there is a sports show on, which is even more true if the olympics are on!
Lets look at another example - Professional wrestling. It is an entertainment sport where people set out to behave in a despicable manner (spitting and cutting each other). The fights are set up but people are regularly injured and deliberately cut themselves or each other to make the fight look realistic. Now here is the thing - this is deliberately targeted at children who do not need to have parents with them - it is on the television at prime kiddy watching time - again though no diatribe about this in the article.
I really would have thought that a more balanced view would have been provided by the article. Less than one third of the article covers what actually happens in the sport, or the guards that are in place to support the fighters. Rather, there is a focus on the bigoted diatribe that people who know nothing about the sport have spat out without understanding, possibly doing irreprable damage to the reputation to the sport
Anyhow - here endeth the rant. If you want to read the article then click the link
You may have guessed that there is something in particular that has set me off on this topic. This time it is an article on the BBC website about cagefighting.
I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about Cagefighting and what is involved. My particular fondness for 'cagefighting' comes in the form of MMA. As this form of sport takes off world wide it is become more and more common for people to comment on it and what they think. On the whole the UFC and other organisations (such as cage rage etc) have had a largely positive response so I was interested to see what people were saying after a fight in Glasgow, organized by a professional organization.
The article on the whole is fairly damning about the sport in general and has said that it is "Social Violence", although they do not say what that means. I think that what they are attempting to say is that fighting being televised makes violence socially acceptable. I don't think that this is the case. the sport has rules and regulations, is refereed and has a number of doctors on site. Fighters have to pass a medical before they fight as well as having checks after the fights. It is true that some people do not see this happening but that does not make it grusome.
Here is a thing - we live in a society where it is socially acceptable to go to a picture house and see a film that details a group of people being kidnapped and tortured - that is not considered to be too gruesome.
One of the key arguments is that parents can take children to the show as long as they are accompanied. If the event is presented in the correct way then what you present is not brutal but an education in both martial arts and strategy and game plans can work. Martial arts require a student to exhibit control, dedication and determination. They can be key in ensuring that children are kept out of trouble and are in a structured environment.
There are quotes from members of the church and the police as well as some MP's all talking about how the sport it grotesque but provides no evidence of this! It talks about the fact that people can be hurt - well yes they can but I was hurt walking down the street the other day when I tripped and fell. There is danger in everything that we do, this sport is regulated (if you go to a professional fight) and as such is safer than a lot of other sports.
One of my favourite quotes has to be the following 'He said: "While I do not claim to have a clear understanding of what is involved in cage fighting, I do know there is a fine line between what some people would describe as sport and others would describe as violence.'
Well thanks for that - it doesn't actually say anything at all! If you look at it there could be any one of 1000 things that I could find violent while someone else does not. We do not live in a Nanny state, we have to allow for people to make their own decisions using their own moral compass, rather than dictating what is wrong or right to them.
At no point in this article is here any mention of any other sports that can be considered to be dangerous. Lets take a look at some of those. First off we have boxing - something that the BBC reports on with a great regularity. In boxing a fight an opponent can be hit over 1060 times over the course of the fight. In an average MMA fight someone gets hit no more than 30 times. So far boxing is looking like the more dangerous sport to me and it is one that is celebrated. In fact when Auddley Harrison came back from the olympics we had a ticker tape parade and made him a local hero, the same happened with Amir Kahn.
You could argue that kids are not exposed to this but they are - they can see it on the TV during the day if there is a sports show on, which is even more true if the olympics are on!
Lets look at another example - Professional wrestling. It is an entertainment sport where people set out to behave in a despicable manner (spitting and cutting each other). The fights are set up but people are regularly injured and deliberately cut themselves or each other to make the fight look realistic. Now here is the thing - this is deliberately targeted at children who do not need to have parents with them - it is on the television at prime kiddy watching time - again though no diatribe about this in the article.
I really would have thought that a more balanced view would have been provided by the article. Less than one third of the article covers what actually happens in the sport, or the guards that are in place to support the fighters. Rather, there is a focus on the bigoted diatribe that people who know nothing about the sport have spat out without understanding, possibly doing irreprable damage to the reputation to the sport
Anyhow - here endeth the rant. If you want to read the article then click the link
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