The world and Mr Foer explain football.
Note to self: in the future, when you've read a book that you're very sure that you have things to say about, say them immediately after reading the book. That way, you won't have to furiously flip through the pages, looking for whatever it was that you're sure the writer said somewhere, if only you could find it again.
How Soccer Football Explains the World is an interesting book, you know. As the title would suggest, it's also a somewhat silly book, based on any number of exceedingly silly assumptions that I'll try not to put down to the writer's education and political inclinations. It's entirely possible, of course, that I might be severely tempted to make some of the same assumptions - in fact, I can't even deny that I might have done so at some point in time. The most telling thing, really, is his support of Barça. Or, rather, his reasons for supporting said club. Let me quote a bit:
"If you have liberal politics and yuppie tastes, it isn't easy to find a corner of the soccer firmament that feels like home. The continent has too many clubs that have freaky fascist pasts bleeding into a xenophobic present. And this is only the first obstacle to finding a team. You could never accept clubs with a cloud of virulent fascism trailing after them. (Remove from the list of potential favorites, then, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Glasgow Rangers, Red Star Belgrade, and almost half of the teams in Italy.) And for the sake of the underdog, you couldn't possibly abide the multinational conglomerates, like Manchester United and Juventus, which buy championships every year.
Barça elegantly fills this vacuum."
Now, for the sake of honesty, let me just say that I have no love for Barça. It's personal and it's petty, and I realise that I should know better than disliking a club with such a poor excuse, but I can't help it. I hate Barça. That, however, is not why I have gripes with Foer's admitting to being a fan. Apart from this one particular person who has caused me to hate Barça (I said it was unreasonable), I have no problems with Barça fans. Provided that they're not fans for the reasons listed above. I hope you'll excuse me for saying so, but his reasons strike me as singularly patronising towards almost all of Europe and our dirty, rotten, fascist past. Except for Catalonia, because they were anti-fascist, and The Clash wrote a song about it, and that's really cool. And Catalonian nationalism is always the good kind of nationalism. Or something. Now, I'm not denying that most (if not all) of Europe has a dirty, rotten, fascist past. It comes with the territory, I'm afraid ("territory" and the way that it defines people being very much key here). And yes, it seeps into the present, because history has a way of doing that.
Foer begins his book by announcing his intention to examine the effects of globalisation on football. An interesting and worthy subject, certainly. He juxtaposes global identity - something that I don't think anyone is convinced actually exists, at least not in this form - with national identity (which, all other things aside, is still a relatively new invention - a few hundred years, I should say), and juxtaposing these with tribalistic, religious identity - which he may indeed be right to point to as the original forms of group identity. They are, I think, the only forms imminently fit to the human cognitive system, however adaptive this system can be - our default group form is the tribe, and the ritualised behaviour, along with the codes it provides, of religion is capable of stitching together something very much like society. Of course we all have grand and beautiful ideas about global identity as human beings, but we have them precisely as individuals - in groups, they tend to work less well (witness, for example, the hesitancy with which most European nations embark on the great European project, even if it has kept France and Germany out of each other's hair for more than sixty years). Foer ends up defending nationalism as the most viable solution, and it's possible that he's right - but being anti-fascist in one particular case (and anti-fundamentalist in another) does not turn nationalism into something right, and it might not even turn it into something durable: and in many cases, tribalism latches onto nationalism, and then how do you separate the two (other than washing the masses, as Foer seems to think we should)?
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that my problem with Foer's views is that he seems to have read all the history books, and then completely missed the point. He has decided to view European history - and some Brazilian history, and Iranian history - through football, and that's all very interesting, but he likes his allegory a bit too much at times. Football will tell you a lot, certainly, but it won't tell you everything, and it certainly won't tell you everything if you've decided that football fans, yourself excepted, are uneducated bullies whose political views are determined by ignorance and fanaticism. Possibly, I'm overreacting here. But the fact that you can view your own club - whether it's Barça or not - as the good guys with the good cause and turn league football into a tale of high moral value does not mean that you should do the same with history. Yes, Arkan was a criminal and a war criminal and a murderer. I would be a bit more careful in implying the same about the entire Serbian people. And I still maintain that there is no moral high ground to be found in football. Playing football on terrain that isn't flat is usually an exercise in absurdity.
Other gripes with Mr Foer's book that I will refrain from getting into as much of a mess about: how much the Foers (cf. Everything Is Illuminated) seem to dislike and patronise all things Ukrainian. It is unbecoming, really. Also, Foer's naming Denmark as being nice towards Jews during World War II, as more or less the only ones (it's in there somewhere, if only I could find it)? Thanks for the vote of confidence, I'm sure it's very flattering - but check your facts before you start believing all our revisionism.
(I'm going to stop now. My point being, I think, though I'm obviously not doing a very good job of making it: he has a few good points - in fact he's got half a book of very excellent points. If he'd get rid of the over-generalising, patronising attitude, I'm sure I'd take him much more seriously.)
eta: basically, if you want something more to your liberal and yuppie tastes, where nothing ugly and human ever happens, I'd suggest staying far away from something where people are actually involved, and especially far away from football.
In less messy news, I think there's too little cheese in Denmark. I have decided to have a go at making cappelletti (a variety of tortellini) tomorrow, because I had a lovely dream in which I was making them with Pippo, who was surprisingly skilled at doing so, and surprisingly patient and sweet about my lack of skill at doing so (though I'm still not sure why I was wearing his clothes in the dream). I need stracchino for these cappelletti, dammit. Why can I not find stracchino anywhere? And why must proper parmigiano (I am not using grana padano) be so ridiculously expensive? Hrmph.
(And would you look at that? La Gazzetta are saying they know who won the Golden Ball. Apart from taking this with a grain of salt, I'm mainly just miffed that their list puts Andrea as number five. I can't quite help entertaining hopes and dreams that he will win it.)
How Soccer Football Explains the World is an interesting book, you know. As the title would suggest, it's also a somewhat silly book, based on any number of exceedingly silly assumptions that I'll try not to put down to the writer's education and political inclinations. It's entirely possible, of course, that I might be severely tempted to make some of the same assumptions - in fact, I can't even deny that I might have done so at some point in time. The most telling thing, really, is his support of Barça. Or, rather, his reasons for supporting said club. Let me quote a bit:
"If you have liberal politics and yuppie tastes, it isn't easy to find a corner of the soccer firmament that feels like home. The continent has too many clubs that have freaky fascist pasts bleeding into a xenophobic present. And this is only the first obstacle to finding a team. You could never accept clubs with a cloud of virulent fascism trailing after them. (Remove from the list of potential favorites, then, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Glasgow Rangers, Red Star Belgrade, and almost half of the teams in Italy.) And for the sake of the underdog, you couldn't possibly abide the multinational conglomerates, like Manchester United and Juventus, which buy championships every year.
Barça elegantly fills this vacuum."
Now, for the sake of honesty, let me just say that I have no love for Barça. It's personal and it's petty, and I realise that I should know better than disliking a club with such a poor excuse, but I can't help it. I hate Barça. That, however, is not why I have gripes with Foer's admitting to being a fan. Apart from this one particular person who has caused me to hate Barça (I said it was unreasonable), I have no problems with Barça fans. Provided that they're not fans for the reasons listed above. I hope you'll excuse me for saying so, but his reasons strike me as singularly patronising towards almost all of Europe and our dirty, rotten, fascist past. Except for Catalonia, because they were anti-fascist, and The Clash wrote a song about it, and that's really cool. And Catalonian nationalism is always the good kind of nationalism. Or something. Now, I'm not denying that most (if not all) of Europe has a dirty, rotten, fascist past. It comes with the territory, I'm afraid ("territory" and the way that it defines people being very much key here). And yes, it seeps into the present, because history has a way of doing that.
Foer begins his book by announcing his intention to examine the effects of globalisation on football. An interesting and worthy subject, certainly. He juxtaposes global identity - something that I don't think anyone is convinced actually exists, at least not in this form - with national identity (which, all other things aside, is still a relatively new invention - a few hundred years, I should say), and juxtaposing these with tribalistic, religious identity - which he may indeed be right to point to as the original forms of group identity. They are, I think, the only forms imminently fit to the human cognitive system, however adaptive this system can be - our default group form is the tribe, and the ritualised behaviour, along with the codes it provides, of religion is capable of stitching together something very much like society. Of course we all have grand and beautiful ideas about global identity as human beings, but we have them precisely as individuals - in groups, they tend to work less well (witness, for example, the hesitancy with which most European nations embark on the great European project, even if it has kept France and Germany out of each other's hair for more than sixty years). Foer ends up defending nationalism as the most viable solution, and it's possible that he's right - but being anti-fascist in one particular case (and anti-fundamentalist in another) does not turn nationalism into something right, and it might not even turn it into something durable: and in many cases, tribalism latches onto nationalism, and then how do you separate the two (other than washing the masses, as Foer seems to think we should)?
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that my problem with Foer's views is that he seems to have read all the history books, and then completely missed the point. He has decided to view European history - and some Brazilian history, and Iranian history - through football, and that's all very interesting, but he likes his allegory a bit too much at times. Football will tell you a lot, certainly, but it won't tell you everything, and it certainly won't tell you everything if you've decided that football fans, yourself excepted, are uneducated bullies whose political views are determined by ignorance and fanaticism. Possibly, I'm overreacting here. But the fact that you can view your own club - whether it's Barça or not - as the good guys with the good cause and turn league football into a tale of high moral value does not mean that you should do the same with history. Yes, Arkan was a criminal and a war criminal and a murderer. I would be a bit more careful in implying the same about the entire Serbian people. And I still maintain that there is no moral high ground to be found in football. Playing football on terrain that isn't flat is usually an exercise in absurdity.
Other gripes with Mr Foer's book that I will refrain from getting into as much of a mess about: how much the Foers (cf. Everything Is Illuminated) seem to dislike and patronise all things Ukrainian. It is unbecoming, really. Also, Foer's naming Denmark as being nice towards Jews during World War II, as more or less the only ones (it's in there somewhere, if only I could find it)? Thanks for the vote of confidence, I'm sure it's very flattering - but check your facts before you start believing all our revisionism.
(I'm going to stop now. My point being, I think, though I'm obviously not doing a very good job of making it: he has a few good points - in fact he's got half a book of very excellent points. If he'd get rid of the over-generalising, patronising attitude, I'm sure I'd take him much more seriously.)
eta: basically, if you want something more to your liberal and yuppie tastes, where nothing ugly and human ever happens, I'd suggest staying far away from something where people are actually involved, and especially far away from football.
In less messy news, I think there's too little cheese in Denmark. I have decided to have a go at making cappelletti (a variety of tortellini) tomorrow, because I had a lovely dream in which I was making them with Pippo, who was surprisingly skilled at doing so, and surprisingly patient and sweet about my lack of skill at doing so (though I'm still not sure why I was wearing his clothes in the dream). I need stracchino for these cappelletti, dammit. Why can I not find stracchino anywhere? And why must proper parmigiano (I am not using grana padano) be so ridiculously expensive? Hrmph.
(And would you look at that? La Gazzetta are saying they know who won the Golden Ball. Apart from taking this with a grain of salt, I'm mainly just miffed that their list puts Andrea as number five. I can't quite help entertaining hopes and dreams that he will win it.)