Thursday, February 16, 2017

War is substituted by sport?

Warlordgame.com: Computer games are another sport of sort.

Philosophical speculation

This type of philosophical (and psychological) speculation is admittedly presented in a limited sense. The idea is that there may be  connections, as opposed to presenting the idea of war being substituted by sport, as hard fact. Which it is not. Obviously, British soldiers in red coats did not directly become Manchester United. This entry is more speculative and less hard fact than most of my work on this website.

Societally and culturally, the brilliant colours of European and colonial warfare and competition, have perhaps been replaced by the brilliant colours of Western professional sports clubs in competition. In particular with UEFA football. Similarly, with European football, the tribalism of war have been replaced with the tribalism of supported clubs.

I am not the first of course to suggest such connections, but watching Knowledge Network and Rick Steves on PBS in regard to European history, has me pondering on possible connections. As war placed region versus region, professional sports places region versus region. There may be other societal and cultural areas of substitution as well.

Revolutionplayset.blogspot.com
The brilliant red coats of the United Kingdom versus the brilliant colonial blue coats of the American colonies, certainly comes to mind. The National Hockey League has the Columbus Blue Jackets, and I reason a Canadian franchise from Ontario named the Red Coats would be fascinating. But we do have the Canadiens, Maple Leafs and Canucks, three of the present seven Canadian clubs with synonymous names.
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Taxology

At a Northview Community Church class last night the term taxology was used, which is a rarely referenced term in Religious Studies. In fact it is not referenced precisely in Oxford (1995). Rather the related term taxonomy is defined as 1 'the science of classification esp. of living and extinct organisms.' 2 'scheme of classification.' (1428). From research it appears taxology would be used synonymously.

This appears to be a primarily scientific term used in the context of Religious Studies and Christian missions within the class by the linguist professor. Similar terms used within theology and philosophy of religion contexts could be for example, classification and linguistically, genre.

A connection

Considering these two sections together, as a Christian philosopher and theologian, when I compare the British soldiers to American soldiers they would seemingly be classified as very similar. The Americans arising within the British. It makes me question whether a war between two groups so similar in classification should have ethically and morally occurred. Warfare is of course political and complicated, but I reason my point stands.

THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY (1995) Della Thompson (ed.), Oxford, Clarendon Press.
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