Intellectuals and Football

The newspaper reports on a symposium held in Berlin at which 12 authors talked about football, and prints a polemic by Thomas Steinfeld: "And when the enthusiasm reaches the pitch of that of the fans, people will say football is a perpetual machine of social narrative, and that it is the task of all socially aware intellectuals to be part of it and to depict it in their writings. That may be true, and it may be true that virtually all the world's problems can be illustrated using football analogies, including the problems of the modern soldier and globalisation. Yes, it may be true. And yet this theoretically exalted enthusiasm bypasses the core of the matter, namely that king football is an absolutist monarch – albeit an educated and clever one – who won't tolerate contradiction or criticism, and who demands unconditional and ritualised support. And the intellectuals go along with it. They're especially happy when they have official approval to join in."

» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Society, » Germany
All available articles from » Thomas Steinfeld

» To the complete press review of Monday, January 23, 2006