Monday, March 15, 2010

Sport and Society 8 Marzo 2010 UBC



A. Agon

In his essay “Homer’s Contest,” Friedrich Nietzsche begins his explanation of the distance between the Classical and Modern forms of life and their understandings of the world. He uses Hesiod’s explanation of eris and Homer’s battle scenes to demonstrate that the Greeks had, what he called, a “trait of cruelty” which allowed them to “rejoice” over the excessively descriptive scenes of battle in The Iliad. That we moderns find them disturbing where the Greeks found them elevating and exhilarating gave Nietzsche cause to reflect on what we can discern from a “form of life’s” view of battle and victory.

The Greeks, Nietzsche explains, lived a life of “combat and victory” in which warring competition, and pleasure in victory were acknowledged; and even colored their ethical concepts like eris. To battle was a means of salvation, not just for one’s people or city but against the very chaos of the natural world. Perpetual peace, a very modern utopia according to Nietzsche, would not have been desirable to the Greeks because their lives were given meaning by the struggles and victories associated with war and contest.

However, for contemporary scholars of “agonistic pluralism,” a deconstructionist theoretical movement which seeks to explain the irreducibility of difference in democratic societies, the enemy is largely ourselves. Agonism for these scholars does not apply to the foundations or possibilities of greatness of a cultural system, as posited Nietzsche, but instead to the nature of democracy; which is pluralist and designed to maximize debate.

Where agonistic pluralism seeks a mutually affirming largely discursive struggle between multicultural or political combatants, Nietzsche understands the agonist to actually compete or fight in order to elevate their self-status, and the status of their city at the expense of others.

Agonism for the Ultras contains elements of both the Nietzschean and pluralist understandings of agon. The Nietzschean is at the heart of the Ultra phenomenon. They understand themselves as agonists who fight for the honor of their city, their team, their Curva (or, area of the stadium), and their group. They compete during games through songs, banners, and choreography for a sense of pride and victory that is felt just as strongly as the victories gained in the streets through fighting.

However, as Calcio Moderno, the idea and system of an industry of soccer that places the utmost importance on profits and revenues, has begun to be the hegemonic conception of the game in Italy, the Ultras have been forced to limit themselves to a form of agon which is closer to the “moralistic” option offered by pluralism.
In the post-Raciti world of soccer, insulting banners or songs now lead to games being played behind closed doors. Game-related violence, which was virtually non-policed until Raciti’s death, now leads to time in jail.
The new social barriers to Ultra agonism have done nothing to limit the oppositional nature of their mentality and means of self-understanding, however. “Being an Ultra,” I was told, “is embracing rivalry, hostility, and Romanita` (extreme attachment to Rome and things Roman). Without these, one is not an Ultra.”

B. Agon and Altruism

Agon is an important way to begin to understand the Ultras because of the way it connects with their extremely limited modes of altruism. During my research period it was often put to me that “Roman culture was the most beautiful in Italy;” but that the culture was being diluted by foreigners and foreign influence. Thus, I was told, the Romans must do something to protect themselves from dilution. Given statements like this, I was pressed to understand the implications of having such a narrow, protected, and antagonistic sense of self or inclusion.
If the altruism of liberal globalization is driven by a morality of total inclusion, wherein the universalization of man is made complete in a global marketplace, the altruism of the Ultras is one of exclusion, exclusivity, and local particularity. Their inter-altruistic co-identification is exaggeratedly restricted. And, I am suggesting, their narrow boundaries between us and them are related to their aggressive and militarist morality.

Where the moral thrust of the West is more and more associated with liberal civic and social principles like peace, stability, comfort, happiness, and equality, those of the Ultra can be identified in the words of counter-Enlightenment thinkers like Nietzsche and Evola and their explanations of cultural degeneration through the things celebrated by liberalism.

As Evola explained, “what is needed is a new radical front with clear boundaries between friend and foe. The future does not belong to those of crumbling and hybrid ideas but those of radicalism - the radicalism of absolute negations and majestic affirmations.”