Catherine Kintzler on rugby as a means to domesticate violence

Interviewed by Jean-Louis Aragon about the educational function of rugby, the French philosopher Catherine Kintzler says that "Rugby has a role to play. The fact that it can't be played on the tarmac after school is both a handicap and an advantage. Rugby is not a recreational sport for playgrounds. It needs to be supervised, because any wrong moves can be dangerous. Rugby can forge characters by training people to master strength and violence. If completely forbidden, violence comes back in the most terrible forms. We have the right to be strong and violent, to knock over, but according to certain rules. It is a transposition of the violent relationships that exist among people in everyday life. In rugby the violence is clear, confessed. In order for it to be confessable, there is a limit to which moves are allowed."

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