Discussion on answer by Dale M: Why was nine-pin bowling illegal in most states, unlike ten-pin bowling?

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23:35

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A: Why was nine-pin bowling illegal in most states, unlike ten-pin bowling?

Moral panic Nine-pin bowling was the violent video game of its age - the people who were in power didn’t like it, didn’t like the type of people who played it, linked it with vice - like gambling and laziness - and, therefore, banned it. It’s a perennial that older people, who tend to be the ones...

mathlander

"A nine-pin alley can fit in a relatively small room." According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-pin_bowling, a nine-pin alley is 64 feet long.

Hasse1987

"the biggest driver was taking this grain of truth and then blowing it out of all proportion." Any evidence for this claim, which is really the entire tenor of the answer? In other words, what's the basis for claiming that "those in power" weren't mainly concerned about gambling/crime, rather were "despairing" over "working class peoples' recreational activities"?

Dale M

@Hasse1987 because I live in this world and those in power are only interested in crime to the extent they can profit from it. I’m in a cynical mood. It’ll probably pass.

user2357112

Even from a cynical perspective, that doesn't hold up. Why would "those in power" be indifferent to crime, but motivated to take a stand against... working-class people having fun? That's not the behavior of someone callous and self-serving. That's the behavior of a cheesy cartoon villain.

Maybe you'll respond with some justification for how they might expect to benefit from banning bowling, but banning bowling because they expect to personally benefit from banning it is very different from "despairing over the recreational activities of working-class people". (Or maybe you really do think people in power operate on cheesy cartoon villain logic instead of self-interest.)

user253751

@user2357112 is this not the same as today's world? Those in power care a lot about retaining their power, which they cannot do if people are violating the social order they used their power to create. Nowadays power is measured in dollars, of course, so we see them banning unionization, as well as banning free speech.

user2357112

23:35

@user253751: So you seriously believe (or seriously believe that the people in power at the time believed) that those in power could not retain their power if people were allowed to go bowling? That seems quite unrealistic.

user253751

@user2357112 it is just one additional way to control the population. They were also banned from drinking alcohol, and having premarital sex, for examples.

David Hammen

@user253751 The people in power back then were "good Christians" (Catholics did not qualify as such) -- people defined by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun. Like the author of this answer, I too am in a cynical mood that I hope will pass.

B. Goddard

@DavidHammen Bigotry noted and flagged.

occipita

@mathlander - that article describes modern, standardized continental Europe style 9 pin. The variant played in America is likely to have been much more like the traditional English game of Skittles, which is very similar but typically has smaller lanes and lighter balls. Many British pubs have a Skittles lane out the back, particularly in the south west, but generally they're much smaller than the 19.5 metres suggested by the article you link.

David Hammen

@B.Goddard What bigotry? Mine or the bigotry of the time? JFK barely squeaked by Richard Nixon as the first Catholic President, despite JFK having run a much better campaign, and that was 1960. At that point in time, American Protestants debated whether Catholics even qualified as Christians. The US was bigoted, racist, religionist, and sexist in 1960. In the 19th century, when these laws were made, the US was extremely bigoted, racist, religionist, and sexist. That "haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun" is not my phraseology. It's from H. L. Mencken.

B. Goddard

23:35

@DavidHammen Yours. The stereotype of Christians not wanting anyone to have fun, worse "haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun" is 1. false and 2. insulting. You may as well say Moslems are haunted by the fear that a skyscraper won't get blow up. It wouldn't be any more bigotted and offensive.

David Hammen

@B.Goddard The 18th amendment was religiously motivated based on Mencken's "haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun". As was the movie Footloose, which was based on a law that banned dancing in Elmore City, Oklahoma. As were the witch trials in Massachusetts and elsewhere. As were the lynchings of African Americans due to the color of their skin. As was the Tulsa massacre. As was handing out smallpox-infested blankets to native Americans. The USA has a bit (actually, quite more than a bit) of an ugly bigoted, racist, religionist, and sexist past.

Dale M

@DavidHammen its charming that you think this only happens in the past. Or only in the USA.

David Hammen

@DaleM I am not anywhere close the impression that this only happened in the past, or only in the USA. Xenophobia is an infliction that occurs worldwide and has occurred throughout time, and it is still present.

@DaleM I was objecting to B. Goddard's objection. Right wing US snowflakes apparently are very sensitive to being called out for their current bigotry, or for their ancestor's bigotry. That said, that nastier side of human behavior is ever present. We can see it in anti-immigration / anti-refugee sentiments in Europe. We can see it in China's treatments of its minorities. We can see it in Russia calling Ukraine Nazis, when they should turn the mirror on themselves.

David Hammen

23:54

We can see it worldwide. The problem is that humanity evolved to handle a group size of about 100 people, where everyone knew everyone else by name and by face, and where everyone more or less thought alike. Biological evolution is slow. We have yet to come to grips with living with hundreds of millions of people who might think and look differently.

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Discussion on answer by Dale M: Why w…