{"id":3410,"date":"2014-06-28T14:12:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T18:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=3410"},"modified":"2014-06-29T08:22:01","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T12:22:01","slug":"flopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=3410","title":{"rendered":"flopping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"busquets1\"<\/a>The extroverts scream; the introverts scowl.\u00a0 \u201cThere he goes again!\u00a0 Can\u2019t everyone see it??\u00a0 It\u2019s so obvious… so manipulative!\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 It\u2019s also — sadly — part of the game.<\/p>\n

For years, grown, seemingly mature adults have \u201cflopped.\u201d\u00a0 They fake injury by another in order to draw a sympathetic, perceived foul.<\/p>\n

Watch the current, uniquely exciting FIFA World Cup, for example.\u00a0 While never accused of any soccer fanaticism, the Intramuralist is repeatedly baffled by the feigned fraudulence on the professional futbol field.\u00a0 The number of times the players attempt to seduce the officials into flagging the opposition for wrongdoing is astoundingly frequent!<\/i>\u00a0 I will, in fact, admit to a hearty chuckle last week, when Uruguay\u2019s star striker, Luis Su\u00e1rez, actually bit another player (the 3rd such incident of his career),<\/i> and then immediately fell to the ground, as if he was the one most hurt…\u00a0 feigned foul… at least exaggerated emotion… all in a desire to seduce a sympathetic response.<\/p>\n

Hardly indigenous to soccer, with the foul forgery increasing with ample frequency, the NBA has instituted fines for flopping.\u00a0 Talented stars such as Manu Ginobili, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade, who are known for their professional prowess, are also each known for their penchant for faking the foul.\u00a0 Note that the motive is to create an offensive advantage by having observant others wrongly conclude you were mercilessly attacked.\u00a0 You draw the foul; the opposition is penalized; and the entire process is intentionally inauthentic.\u00a0 It\u2019s manipulation by mature and even intelligent adults.<\/p>\n

The NBA identifies \u201cflopping\u201d as the following:\u00a0 “any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 They add that \u201cthe primary factor in determining whether a player committed a flop is whether his physical reaction to contact with another player <\/i>is inconsistent with what would reasonably be expected<\/i><\/b> given the force or direction of the contact.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The Intramuralist poses that flopping is not primarily a \u201cphysical act.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps such is true in athletic arenas; however, my sense is that the most frequent societal flopping is rhetorical.\u00a0 Politicians and pundits and ordinary people — again, often grown, seemingly mature adults<\/i> — embellish injury by another in order to draw a sympathetic, perceived foul.\u00a0 One politician claims another hurt them, is bad, foolish, obstructive, mean, or even — egad — evil. \u00a0Notice how all focus is on the other<\/i><\/b> and the other\u2019s wrongdoing.\u00a0 The attempt is to seduce a sympathetic response — staring at the embellished \u201clog\u201d in the eye of another — in order to gain a self-serving political advantage.\u00a0 The goal is to get observant others to cry foul in the existence of minimal foul at best; the goal is intentional; and the goal is to manipulate observers.\u00a0 It is an impure, deceitful approach.\u00a0 It\u2019s also — sadly — part of the \u201cgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, fans of both the professional politician and athlete tend to ignore the faking, giving the object of our admiration a very generous benefit of the doubt.\u00a0 The opposition\u00a0 — along with that extrovert, perhaps — then screams at the television…\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t everyone see it??\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>The question isn\u2019t whether or not we can see; the question is why we choose to ignore.\u00a0 I have a hard time concluding such is wise.<\/p>\n

To believe that athletes are the only engagers in this frequently repeated exercise — and to believe that flopping is only physical — is seemingly, unfortunately only a convenient exercise in na\u00efvet\u00e9.\u00a0 To believe that only one party rhetorically flops seems equally naive.\u00a0 And to believe that only one branch of government engages in this manipulative process of feigning a foul seems also, obviously errant.<\/p>\n

Poll after poll depicts the public\u2019s eroding trust in government.\u00a0 The subjective reasoning in how to rebuild that trust is substantial.\u00a0 Allow the Intramuralist to propose that we start by taking a page from the NBA; let\u2019s start by fining for flopping.<\/p>\n

(P.S. \u00a0Such might actually be enough to balance our debt…)<\/em><\/p>\n

Respectfully…<\/p>\n

AR<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The extroverts scream; the introverts scowl.\u00a0 \u201cThere he goes again!\u00a0 Can\u2019t everyone see it??\u00a0 It\u2019s so obvious… so manipulative!\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s also — sadly — part of the game. For years, grown, seemingly mature adults have \u201cflopped.\u201d\u00a0 They fake injury by another in order to draw a sympathetic, perceived foul. Watch the current, uniquely exciting FIFA … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “flopping”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[452,453],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-issue","tag-fifa-flopping","tag-nba-flopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3419,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}