Using Sports to Spread Globalist Ideology… Accidental or Calculated?

May 18, 2023

By Emmie Cromwell - There was a time, in the recent past, when I loved sports; the comforting predictability of our national anthem signaling an impending start to the game; traditions unique to each team; camaraderie amongst people who would otherwise never have met; the voicing of wide-ranging emotions; potentially filling an entire stadium with joy or frustration, expressed through animated hand signals and a ruckus of cheers or boos. It was something special; something that provided comfort.

Unfortunately, as with most things these days, what was once a source of entertainment, sheltered from politics, has become a means through which a manipulative, divisive, and intolerant ideology is spread. Globalism thrives amidst the constant inundation of division through race and gender, with a never-ending promise of justice that empowers some and threatens others.

Until a few days ago, I wondered about this transformation; was it accidental or calculated? The answer turns out to be calculated; a clear reality upon discovering course offerings at both Columbia and Cornell University.  The seizing and subsequent destruction of sports was an intentional move on the part of globalists who have conquered universities and colleges and proven ruthless in the ways through which they are willing to spread an exhausting ideology.

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Course offering from Columbia University:

HIST UN2587 SPORT＆SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAS

This course explores the ways organized sport constitutes and disrupts dominant understandings of nation, race, gender, and sexuality throughout the Americas. Working from the notion that sport is “more than a game,” the class will examine the social, cultural and political impact of sports in a variety of hemispheric American contexts from the 19th century until the present. While our primary geographic focus will be the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean, the thrust of the course encourages students to consider sports in local, national, and transnational contexts. The guiding questions of the course are: What is the relationship between sport and society? How does sport inform political transformations within and across national borders? How does sport reinforce and/or challenge social hierarchies? Can sport provide alternative visions of the self and community? Throughout the semester we will examine such topics as: the continuing political struggles surrounding the staging of mega-events such as the Olympics and World Cup, the role of professional baseball in the rise and fall of Jim Crow segregation, the impact of football on the evolution of masculine identities in the U.S., the impact of tennis on the Second-Wave feminist movement, and the role of sports in the growth of modern American cities. Course materials include works by historians, sociologists, social theorists, and journalists who have also been key contributors to the burgeoning field of sports studies. Thus, the course has three objectives: 1) To deepen our understanding of the relationship between sport and society 2) To encourage students to examine the sporting world beyond the frame of the nation-state 3) To consider the promises and challenges of sport as a site of social theory and knowledge production

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Course offering from Cornell University:

AEM 2030 - Sports as Society: The Science, Ethics, and Business of Sport

According to polling, 60% of Americans identify as sports fans, and 75% of Americans say they work out regularly. All this watching and working costs: in a recent year, Americans spent $56 billion on sporting events, $33 billion on athletic equipment, and $19 billon on gym memberships (compared to 27 billion spent on books). So much time and money spent suggests that people find sports intrinsically valuable. And so they do. But there’s something else going on as well: sport is a window on lots of other stuff that matters, and probably matters more than sport. As a wine enthusiast once said to me, “We don’t spend all our time talking about wine because wine itself matters so much, we talk about wine ‘cause it gives us a way of talking about what really matters.” This course is built around having that kind of conversation: talking about sports as a way of taking about what really matters. The perspectives of sports fans and athletes are very welcome; we can have a better conversation about the big stuff if we have a rich understanding of, and appreciation of, sport itself. But we will want to keep our eyes on the prize – pressing, perennial, and difficult questions having to do with such issues as human nature, gender, race, justice, and – yes – the meaning of life. Given sports’ prominence in our lives, it’s a little surprising that there isn’t more scholarly writing on sports. It’s perhaps less surprising that too much of the scholarly writing that exists has a way of turning dynamic into dreary. We’ll read some academic scholarly offerings, but we’ll also read material from more popular venues, where much of the best writing on sports turns up. We’ll use these and other sources to shine some light on our cultures and, hopefully, ourselves.

Outcome 1: Describe the influence of sporting culture on culture more broadly.

Outcome 2: Identify the way in which broader cultural issues are manifested – and contested – in sporting culture.

Outcome 3: Distinguish how sports and fitness culture impact human well-being, both positively and negatively.

Outcome 4: Analyze how sporting institutions impact the communities in which they are situated.

Outcome 5: Assess arguments concerning social and ethical issues.

Outcome 6: Assess empirical evidence, and the use of empirical evidence in arguments.

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