straw man
Hall of Fame Member
So what you're saying is we need more Dickensian boarding schools and sadistic headmasters to toughen up our kids, or rather scar them but perhaps a few of them in a useful way. An interesting theory.Haha yeah I think L/esson may've been talking to Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux about this. They've been told the entire 1989-1998 bracket of cricketers may need to be biffed like a potentially tarnished batch, on account of modern schools and club sport policies.
The overt push to inflate the pretty puppets of globalist commercialism, like Amelia Kerr, has led to a crippling aversion in young men to standing out righteously and Christ-like from their peers. "Like a knob," as they would put it. That's why a country like South Africa still gets its Markrams, Breetzkes and Rabadas coming through nicely, despite their tumultuous ructions and poor infrastructure, while New Zealand has to resort to employing Jeet Raval and Neil Wagner to do its hard jobs for poor pay.
New Zealand is in fact a nation of Jimmy Neeshams; smart alec purveyors of sport and media, sure, yet prone to deferring meekly to the opposition with dismissals that are softer than a fluffy toy. I'd written down 'Neesham is a ****' on a piece a paper before I went in, so they knew I'd anticipated what they were going to say, but Molly and JP still directed me to their bulging Patreon accounts.
Oh god, check out how Poland's been soaring up the FIFA rankings, ever since its swing to the anti-globalist right and its siege mentality took hold. There's something to it.
I dunno, if anything I think the stigma against standing out and being unashamedly excellent and dedicated at something is less now in NZ than it has been, though perhaps that takes longer to permeate the more conservative cricketing circles than it has in rowing, cycling, sailing (I guess the more bourgeois sports) and even rugby. Not that you'd think Kane Williamson is afraid of standing out (and every time I see Kieran Read talk I imagine him as just a more burly Kane). It has its own humble NZ flavour (no Dale Steyns or AB De Villiers here), but the determination is real.
So for this transitional generation you might find some brought up to be always painfully aware of how they look to their mates, especially if they commit the ultimate - to try and fail. But others might have benefited from never learning that second guessing - so external motivation gives way to internal motivation and a real belief that the sky is the limit. Neesham is different, obviously being a CWer he's likely far too well-rounded (
) for the monofocus and obsessiveness required to be a truly top cricketer. Instead he's going the Flight of the Conchords, Air NZ safety video, beached as bro stream of modernised self-deprecating NZ appeal. I don't want to write him off, though even his future as international T20 mercenary is not looking so good right now.So never fear, all that coddling and nurturing of young kids may yet give way to the sporting prowess we desire.
... and that's my pretend sociology babble fanfic for the day. Please don't subscribe and do tell me it's a load of ****. PS: That guy Molyneux looks like a real pillock - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Stefan_Molyneux.
