[lit-ideas] Re: Gentleman's Sport: Anyone?
- From: "Torgeir Fjeld" <phatic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 23:19:24 +0100
JL ecritted the distinction btwixt: *us* gentlemen (fox hunting,
sailing, etc.) or 'amateur' and PROFESSIONAL
performer, which all well and good, except sports were born as vulgar
games by the common folk, gentrified and manicured, reinvented as
pasttimes for amateurs (a kind of bodily art-pour-l'art), and finally, as
Bourdieu knew, returned to the masses as spectacles. At which point they
are no longer games, perhaps, but more like plays -- producing a
catharctic effect, pace Geary's sports fan -- . What is the role of the
gentleman in sports today expect providing the kind of philosophical
alibi that secures the monopolistic capacity to define the body and its
uses to the masses.
I remain,
Torgeir Fjeld
----- Original Message -----
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Gentleman's Sport: Anyone?
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 11:38:16 EST
>MY LIFE AS A SPORTS FAN
>how it excites me this...
> this...
>
> this...
>
> watching.
>==== Thus reads Geary's poem for Halloween. Serious stuff. It's a
metaphor on voyeurism (the leaves and 'ardent foliage' become a skirt) .
And he provocatively titles it "My life as a sports fan" -- Some would
say 'hooligan', for what _is_ a sport fanatic? The phrase can be
understood _only_ in the sense that you are a sport _spectator_.
Who invented that?
Sophocles said that there are two types of people: those who play, and
whose who watch and get excited by it. At that time, Sophocles' time --
the only players were 'gentlemen', or 'gentle' if you like, as they were
basically minors, rather than 'men'. In England, the Greek distinction
was re-born. To the gentleman versus the public, they: -- avoided the
public. They think (and rightly so) that fox hunting is a sport, but
can't see the stands. -- MORE IMPORTANTLY: they added a distinction: *us*
gentlemen (fox hunting, sailing, etc.) or 'amateur' and *them*
(convicts, like the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race, or the Eton 4th of
July or PROFESSIONAL or simply "Player" Then we have Virginia Woolf
complaining that it's only William Heinemann (of the LCL) who has shown
any sign of respect for the amateur. What is she talking about. England
almost never showed respect for anything _but_ the amateur (or
gentleman). Things _have_ changed, but while Beckham can live in his
Beckhamgham Palace, he still has an "offensive accent" -- I quote -- to
mark he is a pro, a player, and therefore NOT a gent.
--
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