Jun 26 2006
Pride in my country? No thanks
I’ve made no secret of my disliking of the World Cup and the hysteria that surrounds it. I don’t get any of it if I’m honest. I’ve mentioned my issue with the stupid flags that people have on their cars previously, as well as hundreds of other dumb things you see during tournaments like this. I’ve tried ignoring it, which doesn’t work too well. I’ve even tried to understand it, but no matter how much I try, it’s still 23 men chasing a ball around some grass for a couple of hours. It does absolutely nothing to me, and I fail to see why I should care.
I don’t have anything against football in itself. I find it pretty pointless, but I feel that about all sport. I guess my point is that I’m not singling out football because of the game itself. I don’t understand, but I’m okay with that. People want to play, that’s fine. People want to watch, that’s also fine. I do however take issue with how intellectually bankrupt a large portion of the fans are.
I could very easily sit here and rant about the rioters in Germany, but that’s just far too easy. I haven’t paid all that much attention, but I haven’t seen news reports about any other groups of fans rioting in the streets. It seems to be a wholly English thing to take football far too seriously. I quickly discovered this first hand when I found myself in a pub at the start of the England match against Ecudor yesterday afternoon.
Now I have a “problem” where I feel intellectually superior to nearly everyone around me. I use problem in that context because apparently it is one, even if I don’t see it as such. It’s not a particularly arrogant attitude, I just look at most people around me and know that I’m smarter. I also realise that somewhat contradicts the arrogance part. I can’t help it though. People are largely dumb. You can’t have an intelligent conversation with most people because they either don’t understand or don’t care. Try talking politics, culture or literature to people and they will stare at you blankly. Bring up the World Cup or Big Brother and they can engage with you for hours. Assuming you don’t mind turning your brain off of course.
Anyway, back to the pub, and the mentality of the people there actually scared me. Some people were bellowing “Come on England” at the television, as if magically these words would be transported to Germany and would help the team. Others seemed to bury their head in their hands at something even close to a goal, which I thought was the point, but they seemingly couldn’t bear to watch. Worse still were those trying to start chants in a pub. I mean, seriously, what is the reasoning there? Oh, and let’s not forget the way any objectivity goes flying straight out of the window. If an Ecudorian player committed a foul, outrage ensues, but if an England player does the same thing and gets caught, the referee is “having a fuckin’ laugh”. The whole exercise was so wilfully ignorant that I didn’t know whether I should be terrified or laughing.
I only made it until half time when I had to flee the place in search of some kind of intellectual stimulation as I could feel my brain cells wasting away while sitting in there. During the conversations I’ve had with people, I shouldn’t feel this way largely because I should “take pride in my country”. If this is what pride in my country represents, I’d rather not. Unless of course my country wants to return the favour by taking pride in something important. I think I might be waiting a long time for that one though.
MP3 Arctic Monkeys - Riot Van (expired)
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yuck. double yuck… while i rarely agree with the opnions and thoughts of this blog (or any blog for that matter), i’ve at least enjoyed and/or respected such views. but i think AFOR may be taken off my bookmark bar today.
since i am an american (and a pretty dumb one too), i can certainly understand the confusion of futball fanatcicism. but i am so utterly tired of this argument that sports are void of all intellect and that any rube who enjoys watching sport is less of a person. and this where i really take offense. you actually believe that because you have a couple more IQ points than jon Q futball fan, that you are a better person than jon Q. once a year or so, I actually come across a person that i am smarter than. but i don’t, for a second, beieve that i am any better than this mentally handicapped person.
we are all people. whether we enjoy shakespeare or hopscotch (hopscotch!)
triple yuck…
Well I appreciate your views, and while you apparently may not be stopping by again, I’d still like to respond.
I never claimed that everyone who enjoys watching sports is less of a person. Hell, all of my friends have been watching the damn thing, and while I find the whole thing rather baffling, I respect their decisions. My comments were aimed at the mob mentality that seems to accompany the sport rather than the people themselves.
Despite this though, I did indeed say that I feel intellectually superior. That is not the same as saying I am better than everyone. I don’t see how my comment there is any different to your comment about coming across someone smarter than you only once a year. The intellectually superior comment is a general view of mine, and not one that is directly tied to sports, it just lent some context in this case.
I’m sorry if you were offended by my views, but that’s all they are. I’m not setting out to piss anyone off, but I’m not going to write solely about fluffy clouds and rainbows just to avoid offending someone.
”It’s not a particularly arrogant attitude, I just look at most people around me and know that I’m smarter.”
… and that’s supposed to be not ‘particularly arrogant’? I know you, I know you are reasonably intelligent, I’m not disagreeing. But, come on, thats a really arrogant thing to say.
Also, I could probably talk to you for a while about Big Brother. That doesn’t mean I can’t also talk intelligently about culture and literature.
“… and that’s supposed to be not ‘particularly arrogant’? I know you, I know you are reasonably intelligent, I’m not disagreeing. But, come on, thats a really arrogant thing to say.”
You’re not disagreeing, so therefore there’s a fair chance I’m right, but if I actually say it, it’s arrogant? There’s way too much pandering to making everyone feel good about themselves that god forbid the intelligent actually say that they are.
“Also, I could probably talk to you for a while about Big Brother. That doesn’t mean I can’t also talk intelligently about culture and literature.”
I know that you could. My point isn’t so much that being able to talk about Big Brother is a bad thing (hell, I watched one of them), it’s that most people have an inability to be able to talk about much else.
It’s not about pandering to thick people. You just sound like you’re bragging about your intelligence, and bragging about anything is not a good quality.
Depends how you define bragging I guess. I just saw it as me posting my own opinion on my site. It’s not like I’m walking up to people and yelling “I’m smarter than you” at them.
You so would if you weren’t so afraid of strangers.