En passant
Catching up on The Nation, I came upon a passage that had, for me, the effect of a bombshell in reverse: it created order where there had only been disarray. It's Terry Eagleton, reviewing Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Dancing in the Streets.
Sport is one of the most formidable adversaries of the political left, one that offers ordinary people a uniquely powerful alternative to political engagement: cherished traditions, camaraderie, strenuous competition, a glittering pantheon of heroes and heroines, factual erudition, aesthetic appreciation, technical prowess and a good deal more. It is all rather more entrancing that the average cell meeting. The bad news for baseball-loving leftists is that they are going to have to choose.
I try not to write about sports, because I have nothing good to say about the subject. Sometimes I think, grand-inquisitorially, that it's just as well that the circuses keep the hoi polloi distracted, because who knows what mischief they'd get up to if it weren't for Super Bowls. Another inversion: whereas as racists usually get on well with individual members of the despised group by treating them as exceptions, I have no strong feelings about the mass of sports fans out there but am disappointed and hurt whenever a friend tells me that he's just enjoyed a game. My antipathy has grown much worse in the current century, because I am convinced that American sports madness is a sine qua non for the election of types the likes of George W Bush.
Comments
Blaming sports for the current political state has the same resonance for me as blaming homosexuals and pornograohy and godlessness for the state of America and the reason for Katrina.
Simply, those dogs don't hunt.
America, as Bill Clinton described it, is 45% Republican and 45% Democrat, and the struggle is for the center. As 2006 showed, well-run campaigns with attractive candidates can get the vote out, no matter how much football is on in November. (And don't blame us sports junkies for Bush : had that idiot Gore bothered to cultivate the state of his heritage, he'd be President today.)
The real problem, gentle reader, is not sports. Among the problems are the media, the abdication of parental responsibility (one manifestation is to turn on the tv rather than to have discussions at the dinner table) the fast pace of today's culture, etc...
I grew up being politically active and playing sports at the same time. Somehow, politics for my generation was very important in a way it sometimes doesn't seem to be for the younger generation but then they didn't face three political assassinations in 5 years, a horrific war that rent the country and then a traumatic end to the Nixon Presidency.
And you haven't taken into account the enormous wealth that has been created in the past decade, the affluence of the middle class and a natural tendency to want to protect what you have. The graying of the Baby boomers has also meant the graying of all that political angst. The real problem for the Democrats is to be relevant during times of affluence and ennui. When I was coming of age, this illegal war in Iraq would have seen millions in the streets protesting, demonstrations in front of the White House, etc.... we are so bombarded and manipulated by the media that it now seems normal.
You have never stood on the 18th hole with a chance to best your score, or narrowed the gap on a tennis court, nor have you been part of a ball team that has defeated a nemesis and then shaken hands afterwards. Reading some Roger Angell, Herbert Warren Wind, John Updike, Thomas Boswell, Donald Hall might give you a different slant. Otherwise the weekend sports player or the avid triathlete might just take offense.
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February 5, 2007 07:57 PM