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The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature.
Thorstein Veblen
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that a strong obsession with sports reflects an immaturity in moral development.

Thorstein Veblen implies that when individuals become excessively invested in sports, it signifies a stagnation in their ethical growth. Instead of nurturing deeper moral values, the fixation on athletic competition can divert attention from more profound societal issues, indicating a level of developmental delay in understanding and engaging with the complexities of human nature.

Themes

AddictionSportsMoral DevelopmentStagnationValues

In practice

Example use cases

Discussing the impact of sports culture in a school assembly.

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With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.
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The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.
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In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
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