Philosophy
On the flight home last night, I was talking with a couple who had an adult child who was a lawyer and raising their grandchildren in a typically upper/upper-middle class suburban fashion. One element was to put the child in an orgnaized soccer league at 3 1/2 like everyone else.
It started me thinking about soccer as a class indicator. Soccer is popular around the world in part because it is easy to play, but hard to master, but also because you can play anywhere with anyone and only need one thing, a ball. It makes perfect sense why less affluent nations would take to soccer, but why has it become a mark of bourgieos life in contemporary America? Is it because it is the "not-football"? Because football is blue collar, it is full-contact, it is associated with communities that are not chock full of lawyers, doctors, and corporate middle managers? Or is it because it gives you a continental or more worldly sense, just like Thai food is so much more cosmopolitan than Chinese? Or is it something else? Why has soccer become a class indicator?
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I love football. Have since I was a kid. But I made a point of not watching the Superbowl last night. I couldn?t bear to watch it. I grew up in Baltimore, a Colt fan, the child and grandchild of Colt fans. When I was two, I carried Earl Morrall?s playbook...
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Philosophy
Soccer as Class Indicator
On the flight home last night, I was talking with a couple who had an adult child who was a lawyer and raising their grandchildren in a typically upper/upper-middle class suburban fashion. One element was to put the child in an orgnaized soccer league at 3 1/2 like everyone else.
It started me thinking about soccer as a class indicator. Soccer is popular around the world in part because it is easy to play, but hard to master, but also because you can play anywhere with anyone and only need one thing, a ball. It makes perfect sense why less affluent nations would take to soccer, but why has it become a mark of bourgieos life in contemporary America? Is it because it is the "not-football"? Because football is blue collar, it is full-contact, it is associated with communities that are not chock full of lawyers, doctors, and corporate middle managers? Or is it because it gives you a continental or more worldly sense, just like Thai food is so much more cosmopolitan than Chinese? Or is it something else? Why has soccer become a class indicator?
- Opening Day
It's opening day for the Gettysburg College intramural softball league and I'm playing right field for the faculty team which has the throwback name of "The Faculty 9." Dave, our skipper, had intended to call us "The Fighting Schmuckers" after...
- Social Facts And The Media
Jonathan Verson of Dead Horse and Hugo Zoom made some interesting points about my claim that class-based insecurity was a motive force in contemporary American culture. (His post is titled "Security State," a double entendre that gets him instant credibility...
- Reclaiming Sports
A number of sports stories in the news lately. Today, the trial began for a football coach from Louisville, Kentucky charged with reckless homocide for running his team so hard in the heat and depriving them of water that two of the kids ended up in the...
- What Makes Sports Fans So Nuts?
I love football. Have since I was a kid. But I made a point of not watching the Superbowl last night. I couldn?t bear to watch it. I grew up in Baltimore, a Colt fan, the child and grandchild of Colt fans. When I was two, I carried Earl Morrall?s playbook...
- Magical Balls? Nope. It's The Magnus Effect.
When you think of gravity, your first thought is probably just 'down,' but then you might remember Bill O'Reilly's "tides-go-in, tides-go-out" fiasco, and start thinking 'possibly horizontal.' Then, you might start to think about...