Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Soccer and Nihilism
I've actually been enjoying watching the World Cup, but I thought that this article was mildly entertaining, in which the authors, in addition to citing the game as the perfect postmodern sport (a game about nothing in which nothing happens), claim that it is the most unhuman game for human beings to play, since it forces homo sapiens to batter a ball around with unprotected head and denies to homo habilis the right to use the hands--i.e. it flies in the face of two things (big brains and opposable thumbs) that, in the authors' view, make us distinctively human. Here's a little taste:
(LvRef21.)
In truth, soccer could be played without using a ball at all, and few would notice the difference. The game consists of 22 men running up and down a grassy field for 90 minutes with little happening as fans scream wildly. When the ball actually approaches one of the goals, the fans reach fever pitch and the cheering becomes a deafening roar.
Of course, these infrequent occurrences in which the soccer ball approaches the end zone--where goaltenders wile away their time perusing magazines, trimming their fingernails or inspecting blades of grass--rarely result in a shot on goal. Most often the ball ends up high over the goal, missing everything by 20 or 30 feet. These "near misses" typically send the fans into paroxysms; TV announcers scream themselves hoarse. Then the players mill about the field for another 20 or 30 minutes or so and the goaltenders return to their musings before the ball returns, like Halley's comet in its far-flung orbit, for another pass in the general vicinity of the goal.
(LvRef21.)
Comments:
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actually, i REALLY don't agree with it. It's a game that exhorts human ingenuity to overcome with that which makes us human, a thinking, problem solving brain, a problem of not being able to use our hands. Makes it mo' betta.
I reckon, or hope, that these two had their tongues in cheek while they wrote.
I wish I had learned to construct sentences properly.
I reckon, or hope, that these two had their tongues in cheek while they wrote.
I wish I had learned to construct sentences properly.
Yeah, I think it was pretty tongue-in-cheek, which is one of the reasons I found it humorous. As I said, I've been enjoying a lot of the games, even though I've never really watched soccer before--I commented on what I thought were some of the good ones on one of yer pop's posts. I agree with your point that the game actually engages to a certain extent one of the things that makes us human--making folks use them big ol' brains to figure out how to succeed in an abnormal setting. Still not my favorite game, but a pretty good and interesting one. I just thought the article was kind of funny.
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