Rugby isn’t child abuse. But it is dangerous

Why is no one only slightly wrong any more? We don’t say or do things that are foolish or ill-thought out – rather we are immediately guilty of fascism, genocide or child abuse. We don’t deserve to be merely argued against – we deserve to put before an inquisition, in a cage.

I guess that academics at Winchester University have deliberately chosen to use the words ‘child abuse’ in a paper in the Journal of the British Philosophy Association, arguing that schoolchildren shouldn’t be forced to play rugby in order to gain attention. If so, they have succeeded, because it is doubtful that the story would have made it into the newspapers, and I wouldn’t be writing about it now had they stuck to dry academic language. But I doubt that it will help them to make their case. Rather it will merely stir up outrage that they have effectively labelled the head teachers and sports staff at many of Britain’s schools as child abusers.