“Sport in the sense of a mass-spectacle, with death to add to the underlying excitement, comes into existence when a population has been drilled and regimented and depressed to such an extent that it needs at least a vicarious participation in difficult feats of strength or skill or heroism in order to sustain its waning life-sense.”

— Lewis Mumford, book Technics and Civilization

Source: Technics and Civilization (1934), Ch. 6, sct. 11

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Lewis Mumford75

American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology,… 1895–1990

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