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How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad
How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680101041299201.html
Mar 5, 2009
Stephen H. Webb
Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way. Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive, and competitiveness is being undermined to the point of no return.
What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.) The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.
For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points, which is more points than most fans will see in a week of games—and more points than most soccer players have scored since their pee-wee days.
1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal’s dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer. We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.
2) Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding. Even its language was intimidating, with bases, bats, strikes, and outs. Striding up to the plate gave each of us a chance to act like we were starring in a Western movie, and tapping the bat to the plate gave us our first experience with inventing self-indulgent personal rituals. The boy chosen to be the pitcher was inevitably the first kid on the team to reach puberty, and he threw a hard ball right at you.
Thus, you had to face the fear of disfigurement as well as the statistical probability of striking out. The spectacle of your failure was so public that it was like having all of your friends invited to your home to watch your dad forcing you to eat your vegetables. We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, “Hey batter batter!” as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.
3) Everyone knows that soccer is a foreign invasion, but few people know exactly what is wrong with that. More than having to do with its origin, soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair. Americans would never invent a sport where the better you get the less you score. Even the way most games end, in sudden death, suggests something of an old-fashioned duel. How could anyone enjoy a game where so much energy results in so little advantage, and which typically ends with a penalty kick out, as if it is the audience that needs to be put out of its misery. Shootouts are such an anticlimax to the game and are so unpredictable that the teams might as well flip a coin to see who wins—indeed, they might as well flip the coin before the game, and not play at all.
4) And then there is the question of gender. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football. Soccer penalizes shoving and burns countless calories, and the margins of victory are almost always too narrow to afford any gloating. As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.
Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America. For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer’s success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism, and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.
Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves. Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and relevision are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.
I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time. My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. “Why not,” she asked? “Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? “Not at all,” I replied, “I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end.” That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.
Stephen H. Webb is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College. His recent books include American Providence and Taking Religion to School.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesqua...ining-america-
Soccer is a game for girls...WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But that means....that....that....that i'm a girl!!!! What the hell? How could i not found out about that all these years, when I was young and full of energy and spent my afternoons playing this now apparently estrogeneous sport?
/sarcasm
lol
To speculate is human; to hedge, divine
What the hell???? I am going to ignore your blatant sexism and respond to your other points.
1) God can go to hell. When people want to shoot each other, they use their hands, not their feet. When a man beats his wife, he uses his hands, not his feet. How is that divine?
2) You were complaining about soccer being boring because it has linear and two-dimensional action, but like baseball? Soccer is one of the most dynamic, exciting and versatile sports around. Baseball, on the other hand is the ideal boring game, with extremely structured, linear play.
3) What the hell are you talking about? The better you get, the more goals you score. Maybe the MLS used to work differently, with better teams concentrating on defence, but even it has changed now.
Anyways, is that sexism grounds for restriction or banning?
I don't think that he agrees with the author of the article just because he posted the article. Perhaps he just thinks his views were so idiotic that OIers could use a laugh. I might be wrong, tho.
To speculate is human; to hedge, divine
Yo, at least in soccer people don't stop so often as in football...I can't even stand watching football much and in comparison to soccer I've actually enjoyed watching a few soccer games (like Barcelona vs Man Utd last summer).
His work/reasoning is stupid and I believe it only came about because he hates soccer and yet his daughter plays soccer. If I had a father like that I would probably despise him since he doesn't even care about the sport I'm trying to excel at.
For the life of me I can't understand why there're so many idiot "professors" in American universities.
"My heart sings for you both. Imagine it singing. la la la la."- Hannah Kay
"if you keep calling average working people idiots i am sure they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say. "-bcbm
"Sometimes false consciousness can be more destructive than apathy, just like how sometimes, doing nothing is actually better than doing the wrong thing."- Robocommie
"The ruling class would tremble, and the revolution would be all but assured." -Explosive Situation, on the Revleft Merry Prankster bus
What the hell is this guy talking about??
"The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth" -Chief Seattle
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist." Hélder Pessoa Câmara
Why did you post this?
Lol?
I think?
This is nonsense.
Soccer.... do they mean IL CALCIO!!!! Football
They are only saying that because of sour grapes and not having won anything....
American Football sucks! Rugby is a better and harder game, the only problem is Italy haven't been very good at it.... ! LOL!!!
-www.revleft.org-
Economic Left/Right: -6.00
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It's just about how your were brought up. To me soccer is a bunch of guys running endlessly back and forth in a field wearing short pants.
Football (American) is like watching a sales manager's conference on TV. All they do is talk and then occasionally move a few feet to the left.
Give me curling anyday. Sliding tea kettles on ice and wiping away any dust that may settle there with little brushes is what real sport is to me.
America is ruining football by calling it soccer.
BTW: 'American' football is just rugby for pansies.
Ok at first when I read the title I was like WTF, maybe its figurative language...
But no, its actually a long rant about how soccer is evil. Really?
"America is ready for another revolution" - Sarah Palin
My mistake. When I saw "For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points" I thought this guy this guy was being serious. Anyways, anyone ever heard of Wabash College?
Nope
But I looked it up and I think it's an all-guys liberal arts college
http://www.wabash.edu/
"My heart sings for you both. Imagine it singing. la la la la."- Hannah Kay
"if you keep calling average working people idiots i am sure they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say. "-bcbm
"Sometimes false consciousness can be more destructive than apathy, just like how sometimes, doing nothing is actually better than doing the wrong thing."- Robocommie
"The ruling class would tremble, and the revolution would be all but assured." -Explosive Situation, on the Revleft Merry Prankster bus
I thought it was an interesting if simplistic exposition of "American exceptionalism".
I listened to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto is a book written by Chuck Klosterman's idiotic rant about how soccer was destroying Ayn Randist will to dominate, and forcing egalitarianism Khmer rouge.
Heres another on the socialism of soccer:http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/id..._the_ball_kid/
Well while I certainly don't advocate this nut's views.
I think the author IS serious, if a bit tongue in cheek.The points in this article are perfectly in line with his "real" views so I don't think he's a Stephen Colbert.
He argues that Christians should support imperialism and globalization to build a world christian empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_H._Webb
Most recently, Webb has turned his attention to politics, culture, popular culture, and liberal advocacy. Within this field, Webb has generated positive and negative reviews with his book American Providence (Continuum, 2004) in which he defends the idea that the doctrine of providence has been a crucial ingredient in American history and American identity. Providential interpretations of American national aspirations went into decline after the Vietnam War, but with President Bush's openness regarding the role of faith in his presidency, providence has returned to the public square. Webb argues that even anti-Americanism is dependent upon providential logic, because conspiracy theories about how evil America is grant America a special role in world history. He also argues that the future belongs to the triad of capitalism, democracy, and various forms of evangelical Christianity, not limited to explicitly evangelical churches (a statement concerning Catholicism's role in this mission is forthcoming). One of his controversial essays on politics is “On the True Globalism and the False, or Why Christians Should Not Worry So Much about American Imperialism,” in Anxious About Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities, ed. Wes Avram (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), pp. 119–128. William T. Cavanaugh has criticized his connection of providence and politics in his essay, "Messianic Nation," in University of St. Thomas Law Journal (Fall 2005), pp. 261-280, available online at: http://www.jesusradicals.com/wp-cont...nic-nation.pdf
Last edited by heiss93; 4th February 2010 at 07:07.
He mentions his a teacher. Might be just a rhetorical example of writing for his students?
"America is ready for another revolution" - Sarah Palin
He sounds like an ideologue of sorts, part of the intellectual elite (not the liberal one but the social conservative one). He writes this stuff as an attempt to give a "popular" explicit justification (instead of the usual implicit ones given by the media) for U.S. imperialism, etc and to give some fuel to the American exceptionalism concept.
There are others like him, writing explicit "popular" justification for imperialism, etc but it seems they haven't really gotten far (I'm not sure anyone would out-right support American imperialism; and even if they did they would refer to it differently).
"My heart sings for you both. Imagine it singing. la la la la."- Hannah Kay
"if you keep calling average working people idiots i am sure they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say. "-bcbm
"Sometimes false consciousness can be more destructive than apathy, just like how sometimes, doing nothing is actually better than doing the wrong thing."- Robocommie
"The ruling class would tremble, and the revolution would be all but assured." -Explosive Situation, on the Revleft Merry Prankster bus
I plan on watching every single game of the World Cup this summer.
That doesn't really have anything to do with anything, I just think it's a great plan and want to tell the world about it.
Human life is not commodity, figures, statistics or make believe.
