TONIGHT ON THE TERRORDOME: War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
cjsr.com Worldwide FM 88.5 Edmonton 6 pm Mountain Time When we talk of heroes and icons, we use the language of war. People in search of justice are said to fight “the good fight,” to be battlers and “street-fighting men.” We speak of crusades and even holy wars, of vanquishing evil and conquest. Martin Luther King Jr., the consummate pacifist, has been called a “warrior for peace.” There are books with ironic titles such as The Way of the Peaceful Warrior . Even while hailing peace, we seem so enraptured with war that we fail to use metaphors suggesting creation, procreation, birth, production, engineering, teaching or artistry. We conceive of athletes such as ballplayers as heroes, even though heroes risk their privileges and their lives for other people’s betterment, whereas athletes are simply entertainers. Why? Because the physical clashing of bodies speaks to us of war. And that’s why runners and swimmers are rarely called sports heroes: it’s the sports that offer the potential...