 |
|
|
Politics v. Soccer. "Evidently, it is much easier for soccer teams to re-enact Europe's divisions than for politicians to pretend they no longer exist," writes Alan Cowell in The New York Times. Just as Europeans registered a "mass display of indifference" by pretty much not voting in Parliament elections (turnout was as low as 26 percent in some places), the Continent was consumed by soccer (okay, football) in a madness over the "Euro 2004 European soccer championships, euro2004.com, currently under way in Portugal." Observes Beppe Severgnini, the Italian author and soccer fan: "This is Europe, not the European elections ... People need to be involved emotionally ... Things that work in Europe belong in this category. When I say emotional, I mean simple, accessible."
That wouldn't include, then, the European Parliament, which arguably is neither simple nor accessible. Unlike, say "roaming cellphones, the euro single currency, reduced border patrols -- anything, in fact, that allows a new, younger generation of Europeans to crisscross a playground from the Baltic to the Mediterranean." And, most definitely, unlike soccer, which stokes emotions that reside deep down inside its followers. These emotions are "written in the genes of a Continent that shies from its centuries of war, but has not forgotten them either." Soccer, suggests Alan Cowell, is "a joust, a tournament of champions, a medieval war of nation states."
After all, when a British newspaper attempted to intimidate the French soccer team via a personal threat to French President Jacques Chirac -- only to watch their boys get beaten by the French -- it was only "several hundred years after the English carried out the threat somewhat more bloodily at the Battle of Agincourt." Sometimes, Cowell adds, "it is hard to avoid the feeling that the big-name heroes are champions in the medieval sense of fighting for a patron's cause, particularly at clubs owned by Europe's wealthiest tycoons." But just as athletes whip up deep-seated divisions, politicians try tamp them down. Sadly, the result, as noted by Liberation, the French newspaper, is "that at the moment when Europe of soccer is witnessing its maximum mobilization, Europe of politic is distinguished by minimum participation."
American Paradise. "What unites Americans?" asks David Brooks, in his new book, On Paradise Drive, which is reviewed by Joyce Maynard in The New York Times. Mr. Brooks offers up a patchwork quilt of an answer. Americans, he says, are "energetic, hard-working, radioactive (radioactive?) ... hungry, grasping, optimistic, dreamers, moralists, cowboys, vulgarians, bimbos, pioneers." What makes Americans so? Mr. Brooks writes: "Born in abundance, inspired by opportunity, nurtured in imagination, spiritualized by a sense of God's blessing and call, and realized in ordinary life day by day, this Paradise Spell (as he calls it) is the controlling ideology of American life."
So it's not a simple matter of either loving or hating the New York Yankees? Guess not. Anyway, Mr. Brooks, whom you may know as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, has written a book, opines Ms.Maynard, with great appeal to "advertising honchos, marketing gurus, political consultants and pop culture addicts." She says they (and you know who you are :-) "would do well to check out Mr. Brooks' theories for insights that might help identify what helps sell a candidate, or a candy bar, in the United States of the early 21st century." His thesis centers on a study of middle-class Americans, and yields what Ms. Maynard terms "original data." He got there, she says, by making "meaning (or the appearance of meaning) out of a seemingly unrelated but vastly entertaining assemblage of images of American life."
Mr. Brooks considers, for example, "golf course design" and the pages of Sky Mall. He quotes Ray Kroc and Cotton Mather. He contemplates "the new addiction prevalent among airline passengers, that has us turning on our cellphones the moment our plane touches down." He tracks the adventures of Patio Man, "striding through the aisles of Home Depot in search of the ultimate symbol of manhood: a gas-fired grill (doesn't he know that real men use charcoal?). Ms. Maynard compares the eclectic analysis to that of Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point and, yes, Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine. So, what's it all mean? Mr. Brooks explains it like so: "Just beyond the next ridge, just with the next entrepreneurial scheme or diet plan; just with the next political hero, the next credit card purchase or the next true love, there is this spot you can get to where all tensions will melt, all time pressures are relieved and all contentment can be realized ..." That spot is: On Paradise Drive.
Tim Manners, editor
|
