Ideology

[MUSIC] Just in time for the World Cup to have already started comes this episode of why theory on sports, ideology, enjoyment and contradiction. Todd and I are huge sports fans and teased an episode on sports and theory all the way back in our first episode on theories of comedy. We hope this conversation is worth the wait and as always, thanks so much for listening. [MUSIC] All right, hello and welcome to this new episode of why theory. I am your host, as always, Ryan Angley. Todd, how are you? >> Hi, Ryan. >> I'm good. >> Today, we are doing a World Cup preview where we're not going to talk about the World Cup. And this is all about sports in theory, which you will have noticed from the title of the episode. And we're going to start from this simple, I guess, simplistic statement that is going to be the genesis for the rest of our conversation, which is that sport and theory is an important thing to think about together because sports bring people into theory and into politics, who otherwise would not be consciously thinking they were engaging in such things. It's very one of the more obvious examples contemporary, not the date this podcast is the anthem protests that are happening in the NFL and other sports. And it sort of shows you that not that this is sports becoming political, but it's an act that shows you how political sports are, like just imminently. And there are, of course, a lot of historical examples. But this is where we want to start, which is that sports brings people into theory and politics who otherwise would not think that they're a part of that. Yeah, I think that so, Jack, your office is the great example of this. Yes, right. Like you pointed out to me earlier that if you're Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the 40s and that you're just sort of, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're sort of all lives matter member of the time. Yeah. Whatever that would be the equivalent of what would be equivalent of that. Like you're not for that segregation, but you're, you're kind of, yeah, you're, you sort of accept Jim Crow, but you think like obviously lynching is bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The black leagues, you know, the Negro leagues that's fine, like that's, that's good that they have that. But you know, we should just keep that. Yeah. That's like, that would be exactly right. So, right. So plus versus Ferguson, separate, but equal thing of thing. Yeah. So, so, and then you're sort of thrust into the political thing and I, with, with Robinson playing in, in, uh, 48, 47. Yeah. 47. Yeah. So, that's, that's sort of interesting. I think, but I also am, and taken by this idea that, that even thinking about sports forces you to think in a theoretical way, even though it's maybe not, and it's not consciously theoretical and it's not something that you, you're not saying, oh, I want to philosophize about football and just think about it. But, but I think it forces you to think about even when you're thinking like, oh, what play should be called. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a pretty, that's a, that's a, that is a theoretical turn that you don't really, you don't make an, uh, it's interesting because I don't think you make it necessarily when you go to the movies or you watch a television show, right? You don't say necessarily like, oh, I think the director should have used a tracking shot here. You wouldn't say that during the movie. That's only something you say after. Like, I, I agree with that completely. Like, I think that when you're, when you're, when you're watching it, if you, if that's, if you're saying things like that, I think that you're not actually in the world of the movie. You're into the movie, right? Yeah. Yeah. And even afterward, I mean, both, I think just your garden variety person doesn't say that at all. That's true. Or just like, I liked it, I didn't like it. Yeah. And then that's it. Whereas I think one of the things about sports, you're constantly saying, why didn't they, they had that key moment? Why didn't they do this one thing and said this other thing? Yeah. You know, so there's, you're constantly into the, yeah. You're forced to think like, what would I have done in that situation? And I think, so I feel like that's a pretty important aspect of the sports release. Like it, it kind of, it kind of cuts that line between passive and activity, like the passive thing. And yet you're actively taking part not just by cheering, but also by thinking like, what would I do in that, in that situation? Absolutely. I have a quick story that is going to seem like a bit of a distraction, but it's kind of, um, it'll turn out that it really is just a bit of, that it's, yeah. And I know I saw, when I saw Interstellar and IMAX, I was, like, I was in awe of this movie. Like I loved it. Like I was, I was totally in it, like just everything. And when it ended, my jaw was open. The person sitting next to me, the second that the credits closed and there was just like a, like a moment's pause in the music, he just goes, cool. And he stands up and he walks out. And that, and, and I was like, and I was like, how, how, how? I was like, I was still thinking about everything. I was thinking about everything. I was like, I was like, he, he, he had a visual representation of four dimensional space and time. And I was, I was like, this is like, it was like a really cool thing to do and everything. I was, but in that, anyway, that, he just said cool. He just said cool and walked away. And I think that nobody who is, I would say this that nobody who's into sports would do that to something that happened to sports, like that casually. And, and, and, and, well, in fact, that your first instinct is to call something like, we constantly are texting you during sports events. And I think people are constantly like, and think about it with someone texted you during a movie. Yeah, right. You do it texting me. You're going to watch the movie. Right, right, right. So I feel like that's like you're constantly doing that. You're like, oh my god, why didn't they blow the blot? Right. Like, what, yeah. So I feel like that's, that's a, that's a great, I just still remember thing happened to me in Titanic, although it's much more embarrassing because I was crying at the end of Titanic. And so I just walks right past. And I was like, I can't wait to get out of here. And I'm like, oh my god, I could do you get up at a walk. That, how do you get at the end of the movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's super funny. But yeah, but I think it does go to this thing. Like, I mean, I think sports are on, one of the things we want to talk about is how sports functions ideologically. And I think that sports, particularly in America, this is happening a little bit in Europe with advanced statistics in, you know, football soccer for anybody here. Like, expected goals ratio, like this is a thing, like, you know, anyway, but we, we, the, the industry, the, like, the advanced metric industry in America is, is booming. And I don't know if, I've said this on a, on a podcast here, but it's, so on the one hand, it's sort of as we're saying it makes these sports, like inherently, like, analytical. And people have to take up a position. Like, you either take up this position in baseball where you are into, like, what this is this new thing where the success of a hit has to do with the launch angle of the ball off of the bat and the exit philosophy. You know, you're, you're either into that sort of thing or you're, you think this ruins the game as a spectacle and it breaks it down into too many, like, component, atomistic parts and you can't enjoy it. And for, so that I think is really interesting, but it's the wider import of this is this, I think belief in data and information, which is a totally ideological thing. It reminds me of, right. Freud's wild psychoanalysis that, like, information will, will, will, will cure the symptom. And it's almost like if we get enough information, like what, there won't be, like, bad teams or bad players, like every sort of, like, right. Perfect. Like, we can, we can reach a state of, like, of, of perfection and appreciating the sport. Anyway, yeah, you want to. Right. Right. I mean, it is true. It's fascinating that there's no, like, uh, Sala is not a good soccer player because of the amount of information that they're able to process about what he does. It's about what he does. Yeah. Right. Right. So, but I think that's true. And I, but I think you're exactly right to say that that's one of the ways that this, and I think people who talk analytically about sports today think that they're theorizing about it, right? So, I think that, yeah. And so, I think that you're exactly right that that is the way that ideology today really intersects with sports. I mean, the more fundamental way I would, I would say is that it gets you distracted, right? That's just a distraction. Yeah. I mean, that's the big thing, right? Like, it gets you, like, think about the incredible amount of time, people who don't have that much free time anyway, spend on thinking about sports, right? Like, they just, you know, rather than reading, rather than reading Hegel, they're, you know, watching a series of football game, you know, like they're getting drunk and watching football games. And so, I feel like that's, I'm not, I don't have anything against that, but I do feel like that's the way that it functions, it has the ideological function, in addition to what you're talking about, in addition to the way that it kind of, it functions, like, it brings all these, like, isn't data, I think this is your point, isn't data that the, are ideological way of, of accounting for subjectivity today, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, sports becomes a, like, nodal point or symptomatic point for that, for that thing. But I think it also just, even the attention it gets, even the incredible increased, you know, relative to, it's, like, it's, it's not, it's supposed to be a, a, a, amusement, and yet it becomes the central thing in a lot of people's minds. Yeah. No, I think that's true. I also think that this is exactly the point where it makes sports a vital thing to talk about with theory because it is its capacity and to act as distraction as bread and circuses that when it can be. no longer paper over the contradiction of the everyday, then if that becomes the theoretical thing to talk about. It's very easy to just watch sports and not think in America and not think about a police indiscriminately killing on our black men because they feel threatened. That's always the excuse. And then you have football players kneel and you are suddenly confronted with that. And now you're thinking that you engage in weekly to distract you from this. Even if that is a thing on an unconscious level, that's the reason why you're enjoying it. Well, you can't do that. And it creates a sort of dissonance. And that's what leads to these sort of thing. They should stick to sports. Like that makes you think that sports are a political, that they are just distraction. And they do function this way or they purport to function this way. But I think-- But that's what makes it such an important site for actual theorizing and political thinking. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think that-- no, I totally agree with that. I think it's wrong. I have a lot of friends. I think we both do. Because they're academic, they never were in sports. And they're just totally just miss of it all together. And I understand that position. And it doesn't make sense to-- I mean, Slavway, whenever you ask about sports, he says, I skiing is so dumb. You go up the mountain and you come down. You should just be happy or down. And I'm like, well, OK, but all sport isn't skiing. And it's whatever. So it's a kind of-- it's like a-- it's a pat. Yeah, sure. But I think there's a lot of-- and I know Bedou hate sports too. So there's-- I think there's something about the theorist being anti-sports. That makes sense. But that said, I think you're totally right to say that the fact that it's a distraction, it makes it the site for something-- some challenge to the ruling order to make itself manifest. Well, that's why Jackie Robinson is so important in America. Like that's such an important moment in 1947. Well, the important moment-- well, there's two. There's one that the Brooklyn Dodgers even sign him and want him to play in the first place. From what we're called-- I said this earlier, but maybe people heard-- I know we have a lot of European listeners. So I said this earlier, maybe it didn't make sense, but what we're called officially quote the Negro Leagues at the time. So they sign him. And that's the first thing. And then he's on the field. And P.W. Rees walks over to him from shortstop, puts his arm around him on the first game that he plays, because some people didn't take too kindly to it. Like that's another very, very important moment. And then he steals home against the New York Yankees in the World Series, and Yogi Barra goes nuts about-- So anyway, so-- That re-small moment is in-- I really like the-- do you like the Jackie Robinson movie? 42? Yeah, I do. I think it's good. My kids watched about 25 times. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of these things. I know we want to talk about this as a sport, as a site for event. And that's one of those things that-- So Civil Rights, it was going to take-- from that moment, it was going to take 21 years for Martin Luther King in the fulfillment at that point of really-- Well, Civil Rights Act is 17 years later, right? So it's 54? Yeah. Oh, OK. I'm 64. You're right, you're right. Sorry. King killed in 68. 68, right. So that moment-- But your point is-- I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's settled about dates, and your point is correct. It's a long time. Yeah. It's a long time. And I like this idea of sports as a truth procedure. And that do sense of the term. So there's these events. And I think in a certain way, isn't that why-- like, OK, it functions ideologically blah, blah, blah. But if it weren't for the eventual possibility of sports, I don't think anyone would ever be interested. No one would watch. And that's sort of the thing with the numbers, is it's like everyone's trying to find the data to understand maybe even like in a betting scenario, like how is this matchup going to play out? And the only reason why anybody is interested ever is that you don't know for sure. And I think that's absolutely right. Yeah, absolutely right. So I was at this-- I was at a Shiva two nights, three nights ago. And I know this person would never listen because of what they said to me. So I feel free to-- I'm not going to give the person's name, but-- Sure. Especially because I've forgotten it. But anyway, she said to me. So she says to me, you know, if your sons are looking for a sport to play in high school, my son played ultimate frisbee. And he really loved it because it's not like any other sport. And there's no jockishness involved. And no one cares if you win or lose. There's absolutely no competitors. They're just out there to get a little exercise and have fun. Yeah. And I didn't say this. But I'm like, OK, that's the worst advertise that I've ever heard for that sport. Did you imagine what a worst sport to go as a fan to? All the players are playing. They don't care who wins or just out to get a little-- No stakes whatsoever. I know. I could go down to the park and watch people walk around the park. I mean, it would be incredible. It's like, do you know that I do this when I see people jogging? I like to imagine in my head that everyone is either chasing or being chased by someone else. But there's a gentleman's agreement that they should never catch up with each other. So that's how I like to think about it. I like that. Well, anyway, that sounds about as interesting as ultimate frisbee, I guess. Right. I mean, actually, I think it sounds like they'd probably like playing. But my point is that the whole thing that makes sports interesting is that it has a stake. It has something at stake. And that's what makes it possibly eventual. Like, people jogging around the park can never-- the impossible can never happen. You're just jogging around the park. It's just every day life. And I think sports, because there's a stake that's outside of the everyday, it rips you out of your everyday concerns. And I think you're right to say it's political and this other-- it also makes people come together with people they otherwise would never come together with. That is true. Right? As fans of the team, you're all aware my little Boston Celtics had around. I was even in-- I was walking around Dublin, Ireland with the Boston South's fan. And a guy-- there was a Mormon handing out the book of Mormon. And I don't think they were giving out for free, because I might have taken it. But they were just wanting to hand a little leaflet out and talk to you. And he was like, you're a Celtic fan? And so we had a little chat about the Celtics that I walked on before he started proselytizing. Right. But I would never have even-- not only would I not have talked to, but if I walked to the other side, if he didn't spot my hat and say, you know-- Did you yourself say-- So yeah. Yeah, so there's a kind of-- I mean, of course, it relies on an exclusion of the people that aren't. So there's that at work, too. But I do feel like it does bring people together. And I think it's all around this possibility of the event, like you're the people that are faithful to that team and thus to the possibility of it doing this impossible, or this one person doing this impossible thing. I like this thing that you-- it's almost-- obviously, as you just said, that it does rely on exclusion. But it sports-- and I think this is more American than I don't think that this works this way. And England, for example, with football. But the sport identification is almost neutral. In a way, it's like almost like a neutral site of intersubjectivity. If you-- like what just happened for you, like you see somebody with a Celtics hat and you're in a place that's like-- but you're in New York. It doesn't matter who that person is. If you would talk to them, like you might identify just briefly with that person, you acknowledge the hat, or whatever. And I think even in the worst of the Yankees versus Red Sox thing here, there was-- this was me growing up when the Red Sox were like 80 years, 86 years of losers to the Yankees forever. Even when that-- and I was a Yankees fan in schools in Massachusetts because of my dad. And it was just teased mercilessly at times. But there's no violence. There's no gangs. There's no movie, like Green Street, Hooligans, about American sport violence. And I don't know that I really know why. I feel like part of it is that there are actually so few sports teams here relative to how big the country is. Like in England, there are well over 600 professional and non-professional football teams. And the identification can often be so local and so personal that it can become a sight of violence and overflow of-- Now, it's a fascinating question you're bringing up. So what you're suggesting is I think that the bond is not just between other fans of your own sports team, but just among fans as such. Yes. Right? Like I think that's what you're suggesting. And the only thing that I've ever experienced that contradicted that slightly was I was at a Bengals game in San Diego. And there was a Bengals fan who was loud. And he got beat now. [LAUGHTER] So-- But I do think if you're sort of polite about it, I mean, I don't know. So here's the boy. is we're fans of the team in Cincinnati, the professional football team, the Bengals. And so I would feel a little weird taking them to Baltimore, which is their arch-rival. - Sure. - And that's closer. So Baltimore's closer for us in driving all the way to Cincinnati. And like we were, we went to, so I did take them to a game at Buffalo, so they played the Buffalo Bills. And someone's a dash old, the boys were 11 maybe? Yeah, 11? And someone yelled 12 maybe? Someone yelled at Dashel, we were walking away had his Bengals hat on. And when he yelled at him, go back to Kentucky, you inbred fuck. (laughing) And he turned to me, he goes, okay, I know what a fuck is, but what's an inbred? (laughing) And I said, well, it's not exactly wrong, give it our family heritage. So, you know. - That's awesome. What a great, like a point of rupture for you. - Yeah, that was a nice one. But maybe that's kind of said in sort of, I know, I'm not gonna say this is fun. - No, no, it's not violent. And it's kind of like, you know. - It's really drunk, but. - Yeah. - I think it's, to me, I think that, or maybe I'm thinking too much of like the Jerry Seinfeld bit from the 90s that like, the thing with sports is you're not really rooting for the players or the people you're rooting for your laundry. - Well green. - Because, you know, a player like Johnny Damon, the guy who played for the Red Sox, he, everyone loves him. He goes to the Yankees and everyone hates him. Because that's what people, you know, they're rooting for the logo. Or you're rooting for your colors, right? And so it's this kind of-- - It doesn't, isn't that wrong though? I think that's wrong. I hear people, people repeat that on talk, really all the time. - Yeah, I think that, I think, yeah. - Go ahead, you defend it and then I'm gonna-- - Well, no, I'm gonna give you room for it because I think you're, I think ultimately, you're probably right. - I think that there is something to this naive understanding that like sports offers like a superficial kind of identification that is, it's, or I mean, again, sports in this American context that we're talking about, that it is permeable and it's changeable, I think, in a way it's not fixed. It's like any other kind of, like again, you know, maybe, maybe this is a way in which, like maybe this is a different way of talking about identity politics in America, but like, sport identification is like a lot more, I don't know, is it a lot more queer in a sense than-- - Yeah, well, I wouldn't say queer, but yeah. I'm gonna say what I think. - You go ahead, yeah. - Okay, okay, so I do think that, let's think about the way the levels of identification as being commonly assumed is happening, right? So, on the one hand, like the identification with the player is more, I imagine, kind of, imaginary identification, right? - Sure, that's great. - Like, it's just, I'm identified with the other player as kind of like, I see myself in that player, and then there's this symbolic identification, which I think is with the laundry or with the logo, even the laundry is not necessarily a symbol, but I think it is a symbol, right? It gets a symbol for like, I'll identify it and-- - You put something into it and make it mean something. - I give it consistency that it otherwise doesn't have. - And I think that's the sign-filled theory, and I think that is the talk radio theory. I mean, they all think they're clever, they say, oh, it's just the laundry, that's all you're rooting for, but I think that's totally wrong. Like, I think what they're rooting, like, isn't there, now we get to the third category, which I think is the key one, like, isn't there a real identification as well? Like, there's identification with the genussequat of the team, and that's the whole thing is disputed, I think it's not. It's not like the law. I mean, no one is that dumb, it's not the laundry. It's like there's a certain thing that's in the team more than the team. - Yeah, no, that's the same thing. - And that's why I feel like putting the corporate logo on there is so threatening to that, right? Because it threatens to turn that genussequat into an economic quantifiable number, and then I think that you can really lose that, if that's true. Like, I think a roller ball is the image of that being lost, where the teams don't even have a really a logo anymore, they're just identified with purely with corporations. - That's really interesting. I mean, it's funny that in, you know, and obviously in football and England, and I mean in in Europe, that the corporate sponsor is much bigger than the team logo. - She, right. - And I mean, I'm not sure when that started happening. It wasn't forever. Like, it was maybe, I don't wanna put a date on it, 'cause I'll sound dumb. But like I remember, like, you look back at like the, the like famous Liverpool shirts, they were sponsored by Crown paints, and the company called, just called Candy, Karlsberg for a really long time. And I think that something happens that where the, the team, this is I think is kind of interesting. I don't know what you say about this, but there is a point at which like the, the identification with the team becomes greater than the team identification with the sponsor. - Yeah. - So that like, so there's like, if you imagine it as like a, like a graphical war between the logo, the team logo on the top, like over the heart of the player, and then the sponsor, which is over the chest, at some point the logo wins out, and you just like, it takes on another kind of identification, which is like, I mean, I can't remember if Manu are still sponsored by AIG anymore, but like, like you're just like, oh, that's in Manchester United, sure, you know, and like. - Right, that's interesting. So the corporate, so in that sense, it's kind of like the failure of the corporate thing to come out of fire. - Yeah, yeah. - Like it does, I think it does when it's new, and then it, well, you know what? I mean, this, maybe this is not a proper way of understanding the event, but it does eventually get subsumed into the, yeah, into the situation. Or just to, right, right, yeah. - That's interesting. - Yeah. - I do think, like, so we just watched, or we didn't just watch it, but the, the Nidal just won his 11th French open, and I was, I did watch it, so we did kind of, we just weren't texting about it. - We did watch it, we didn't do, weren't texting. I think what's interesting about that is, I mean, I think there's everything to love about Ravian and Adal, I mean, like to me, he is like the personification of doing the impossible in a sport, right? Like he, he think, so I think, I feel like he's, it's so easy to root for him because that dimension of his play and, and so, but what I wanted to say was, he, and this is true of every tennis player, so he's not at all an exception. I mean, there's, the exception would be someone that didn't do, his body has totally commodified. - Yeah. - I think it's Nike as everywhere. It's golf, this is true in golf, and obviously in car racing, it's, - Oh yeah. - It's a comedically true. But I just thought to myself as I was watching him, you couldn't imagine someone, like, does he need any more money, no? I mean, they put up his career earnings, it's like 100 million something. What if someone just said, I don't need to wear a logo, I'm just gonna wear a regular shirt, you know? You know, it would be, we just, it seems unthinkable. But that would be, I think, I mean, that seems to me a way that, that capital has like invaded the world of sport and just made itself totally entrenched there, that you can't even think about a team not doing it. And I remember when the NBA, the basketball league was thinking about, should we put the ads on the shirts or not? - Yeah. - It got the, there was a sense of like, there's no need to resist it because it's coming no matter what we do. - Yeah. - So, I guess I'm a little bit pushing back against your idea that the logo gets subsumed. I think you're right, the specific logo gets subsumed. But the commodification of that, what I would, I wanna call that real identification, like that embodied by sort of the team. - Monica? - That gets, I think, taken over by it, Cap, I think it threatens to be taken over. - You know what, to support your point, in soccer, they just, in England, and I'm not sure other leagues in Europe, 'cause I don't, I don't watch them throughout the year. But the, there are shirt sleeve sponsors now. So, like, there, so Western Union sponsors, Liverpool, and I know, like, Angry Birds sponsors Everton, and it's just on the, like, one shoulder of the shirts sleeve. And there are people who were not happy about this, and there are people like, that this is gonna be, like, oh, so, like, every inch of the shirt is gonna be covered in advertisement. It's gonna be like a NASCAR persons. - Yeah, that's something to ask. - Yeah, and so it's kind of, it is interesting that it's like, whatever pushback there was about shirts being sponsored at all, is largely gone away, and now the shirt sponsor has been accepted, and almost, as I was arguing, it almost doesn't feel commodified at all. But when you further commodify it, it's like, suddenly, brings back that threat, and I think it maybe makes you aware of the thing that, that, like, we were saying earlier, that, like, the shirt, perhaps, as ideology, like, you long accepted the presence of the corporate logo, but when you add another corporate logo, it threatens the consistency of the thing, or it makes you aware of its inconsistency. - Right, right, right. So I think it works both ways. I mean, I think that's a good point, that there is even in this total corporatization, there is the point that you can see the disjunction within that, and it feels, you can feel the corporatization or the commodification, and that, and become aware of it in a way that you otherwise maybe wouldn't. Right, I mean, I think that's a point. I do want to touch on something, but I think I'm going to further move down this line of the event because I think it's really the key thing. We often talk about this, you and I together, and so I wouldn't get it wider. But I feel like that the, or develop it further. I feel like the, and maybe you said this, I don't know. I said this, that the event kind of works in two ways. It can one work with, in the case of like the US hockey team in 1980, this miracle, in fact, the film named after it's called Miracle, which again, I think is pretty, I think most sports movies are pretty good. And I think it's a pretty good sports movie. There's something about sports and cinema that kind of works together. I feel like. I think that's, I think it's totally true. Like, well, you get to move, like, again, like you can get people, I think it just goes back to the first point, right? Which is you can get people who don't think about civil rights to watch 42 or remember the Titans. And they'll totally like, yes, absolutely. This is great. But like, they'll be crying because they're so happy that integrations take us away. That's not right. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. Yeah. Anyway, so I think that's one version of the, of the impossible happening. This, this team that couldn't, or this person, you don't think could ever triumph, and then they work incredibly hard and they're able to triumph. And then the second thing is just the incredible, like, this level of domination over the opponent that's just, you just can't believe it's happening. Like, I feel like this is true of Nadal. Like, when he's playing in the French open, you're just like, I mean, he injured his finger and you're like, that's the only way he could be beaten. Like, there's no other player. There's nothing they could do. And I feel like there's, in both those instances, there are different versions of this impossible happening. But they're nonetheless kind of both at work and an operational on the board. Did you see him apologize to the guy at the end? I didn't see that. I'm pretty, I like, so I, because I, I get to emotionally invested, which is, and that there was no such thing like that is engaging with sports. But to try to, to put it like a layered distance between me and the thing, I usually watch sports with the sound off. Sound off. Yeah. And I, so, with Nadal, you don't hear the constant grunting. Yeah, so maybe for tennis it works, but he, I was just not that I'm like, I'm magic and I can read lips, but he, he hugged the guy, his opponent, and he looked at him and he, I, he, on his lips, I told you, he said, I'm sorry. Like a, and I, and I know that, um, could he just been sorry for beating a crap? That's what he said. He was, that's exactly what he was sorry for. Like, uh, this guy who plays, the guy who plays for Liverpool, uh, Mo Salah, he said, he does that to defenders. He apologizes if he, like, he's turned them on their backside and they've fallen and he's scored and he apologizes for making them look stupid. And, and, and not a, and not like a jerk ass way where it's like, sorry, a major look bad, but like, really, like, I'm sorry I did that, like, you know, but that's just the sport. Um, and anyway, yeah, so that, yeah, that's a great, yeah, I think it, well, it's interesting. Like, the, the him saying is sorry, he's sorry. Doesn't that show exactly how kind of, or how eventual it is? Yes. It's something that almost happens to him. Like, yeah, of course he does it. He's the one playing and he hits the shot. But he's, it's almost like, the thing is happening to him and he can, and he can then, he has to deal with its repercussions afterwards. Yeah. And one of those things means I have to sort of apologize to this guy who I just crushed. Yeah. Right. Who this, who he might not get to another final and he lost like this and I can, or he's just a young, I mean, this, Dominic teams, a young guy is kind of coming on and he felt, and it all probably felt like he should have won. He played well. He should have won. And he had no chance, which is, I mean, that's why he apologized. Yeah. But I think sport, I think the other thing I really like about it, and this is tied to this event to last, is that it asks you to push yourself, and when you're playing, and I also think, when you're a spectator, you watch this, push yourself beyond what you could humanly do. Yes. You know, like, you're, you're going when you, you're, you're playing when you're injured. The Ronnie Lot story, I think is crazy. Okay, you tell that. Okay. So this guy who played safety, which is a, a position in the football, an American football for anybody, less than he doesn't know, he broke his pinky and what was it, the Super Bowl, or was it a, like, NFC championship game? I don't know the story. So you're really, oh, okay. So he, it was either a Super Bowl that the 49ers were playing or it was an NFC championship game. I apologize for getting the details wrong, but either way, he broke his pinky and he, he had it, like, he had it. Kind of amputated. He had it just taken off the broken part so he could keep playing. So they couldn't just tape it to the other finger? I don't know, like, it was too bad and he, he got, yeah, it's like, so you can, you can see it. Oh my God. Yeah, I should probably take a, take a second and I can, I can, I'm going to do a little googling to make sure that I'm right about this. But yeah, I don't want to, I, let's be clear, we're not endorsing cut off your pinky to finish football. Absolutely not. I do think like that's a, I mean, that seems like I would not go that far. Yeah, okay, this is the hole on. I got that. I got that. It was from Wikipedia, which is the best resource. So he had the, the tip of his left pinky finger amputated after the night, oh, after it was not during the game. So I was wrong. After the 1985 season when it was crushed by running back to me, Newsom and a bone graft surgery wouldn't have him ready in time to play in the 1986 season. So that's not his heroic. It's not his heroic, but he, yeah, no, no, no. I mean, he need, I, here's what I thought, here's, I think, here's, I have a good one actually. Yeah, here we have a good one. So, so Super Bowl 10 maybe I think it's the Rams and the Steelers and Jack Youngblood who played for the LA Rams at the time. Broke his leg in the NFC and the championship game right before the Super Bowl. Yeah. So and he had two weeks, they had a two week at the time. Maybe they still do. Yeah, two week layoff before. And he obviously his leg couldn't fully heal, but he played. He just, he played. He just said, I'm going to play and he played. You know the broken leg. So I tire Woods won the his last major with a broken leg. With Torneeligamins. I thought it was Torneeligamins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Torne, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like there's something fever right like that. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's something to that, you know, like, I mean, what's nice is that you could equally say, God, that's so dumb. Right. And wow, that's so heroic. And I like that it has this both like, and both are right. Both are right. Like from the perspective of everyday life, that is really dumb. But when you're in the like when you're in the sporting event, you're like, you can't believe a person wouldn't do that. Right. Like I remember we were at a football, I was playing in a football game, my senior year of college and our best player, uh, spring to his ankle. And he's like, he was a wider student. He's like, I'm out. I spring my ankle. I'm like, tape it up. The game is close. What are you doing? Like, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't do the player was a different logic. Like that's the thing. And that's why that's why if you, that's why if you're like the guy who I was supposed to sat next to it, Interstellar, and you're just like cool and you walk away, that it's a sport, you're like, look, this is just a made up game. They're just people like, why are they even doing this? Which is true. It is. It is totally true. Totally, totally true. But you're not, you haven't really submitted yourself to the logic and to the eventual possibility of the game then. It's sort of the, it's the non-duped air, right? Like that's what that's, you know, you have to be duped by the sport to, you know, to, to, to, to, to get it and to see the, well, um, to, I don't know, I guess like the, I mean, to see why, um, you know, football is called the beautiful game, right? Like that's, you have to, you have to be duped by it. You have to be, you, it's not, so the World Cup starts on, I said at the beginning, we weren't going to talk about it. But like the World Cup starts on Thursday, when at the time of this recording, um, and you, people probably shouldn't watch because of how corrupt FIFA is. I mean, my god, it's in Russia. And like, it's in Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do they do to, to, to get that and how many people were killed to get it to put the stadium together? Right. I've been like, what's going on in Qatar for the next World Cup? Like, people have, like, um, the environment. Like, um, the environmental view. Yeah. It's terrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. And this is not a, like, an excuse for that. But like the, the sport itself, like the, it is, it is, it's beautiful. Like when you, when you watched, like, these people, it's, it's, again, like, I think at this point you made about Nadal, like, the, the sort of, like, the play is going through him to, like, a certain degree is, like, you see, like, uh, 11 people or, or maybe even four or five put together, uh, or just one, like, Maradona scoring, like, from his own half against England in 86, like, you just see people do things, like, like, they're unlocking secrets that you didn't even know were, were mysteries, uh, you know, and it's like, I, I, I think that, that to get caught up in that is to, like, is, is to really, really get it and to really get the point. There's also the point about the environmental, you know, political and, and, like, human rights of violations that happen. Right. I think you're, I think you're right to say, like, that you cannot reduce the one totally to the other. Like, in a certain way, it's like, I think there's, God, this is a terrible comparison, I'm probably a little regret that I even ever said this, but it's certain, like, it's like a historic, historicist approach to the work, the work of literature or film, right? Like, that, you, you say, like, oh, wait a minute, that just reflects the, uh, you know, Like Hemingway, Sun also rises, just reflects the sexism of the times and the racism of the the times and the entire summit and the, you know, the. class logic of the time and that's all it is. Or you say, look, sorry, there's something about Sun also rises that actually challenges and sort of gets out of that logic, even though all that stuff makes it possible. But it's still-- it's like there's a disjunction there because it goes into a different-- the aesthetic is a different realm. And I think the artist-- I mean, sorry, the sportive is also a different realm. It takes you out of that precisely because the everyday concerns, they don't matter as much. It's interesting how if a fan becomes ill at a sports match, everything shifts. Like all of a sudden you're like, OK, wait a minute. This is a real-- this is a different thing. We're going to take care of this. But at a certain point, you're like, OK, get that person out of here and get back to the-- the game actually has more worth than the sick or injured person at the time. And I feel like-- and that's OK, on the one level, that's bad. But on the other level, that's the thing that allows us to cease these kind of possibilities and otherwise wouldn't be visible. Yeah, that's great. I think that's totally true. I mean, I think to your point, I'm not sure. We talked about this when we talked about Foucault. But no one who's a historic-- I mean, Foucault's-- if we take Foucault's idea about things being constructed or emerging out of epistems, or things even being the productions of power, that means, as I can't remember if I said in this episode or not, I know I've said to you before, that means that his history of sexuality volume 1, it's just not even that creative or interesting or original that it was inevitable production of relations of power. And it's like-- would have to apply it to the person who's writing it or herself. Exactly. And I wouldn't say that about that book. And Foucault certainly wouldn't say it. And no historicists would say that about the book. So like-- Because it should-- I book probably changed their lives. Absolutely. And I mean, it really did. And I mean, it's like-- I think that to go back to the previous thing, if you want to get people like Foucault, you probably have them read that book. If you have them start somewhere else. But if you don't want them to like Foucault, which is the part of those episodes. But anyway, yeah. So you're right. To not be able to not reduce the one thing to the other. And this, I mean, maybe this gets to our latter half of this latter portion of the episode, that it's crucial for thinking with contradiction sports. And I think that is one of the things that there is a shortage of, especially politically, is that there is nothing that-- the right, particularly in America, likes to do, then to make someone seem like a hypocrite. And then it means you don't have to listen to anything that they say. Like, contradiction is this thing to be afraid of. Is this thing that ruins-- Except-- OK, yes, except. Isn't that-- it's ironic because the greatness of Trump is his ability to contradict himself with impunity. Right. Right. Yeah. That's part of his-- isn't that part of the Juizans factor of being of Trump and why his support is so solidified? Well, it's exactly. But that's exactly why-- So this is why people-- I guess it's never a vowed, right? Well, it's not-- yeah, you're right. It's never a vowed. And that's the point. And this is what people-- I want to say on the liberal left, not on whatever actual left is in this country, that going back to one of the first things, like wild psychoanalysis and data collection is that people think, especially like your John Stuart, it's your Colbert, as your Trevor Noah, is like Bill Mar. People think that if you point out the logical inconsistencies in the rights thinking that then you'll win. And that's never the point. Like, the point is-- as you're just saying, the point is the contradiction. And it shows a failure on the mainstream left to understand how contradiction works against them. And make something more attractive. Absolutely. I think you're right. And sports fandom or sports as such is, I think this is a great point, that it's a real-- a place where contradiction really plays itself out. I'm a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. I hate Black Lives Matter, or I'm indifferent to it. And then I have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the National Anthem. And all of a sudden, I have to think about all this kind of stuff that I otherwise didn't think about. I'm going back to this sort of more-- the point that's kind of-- that example seems to be a pretty weighty one. But even in non-political ways, right? I think it's in sports forcing us to deal with contradiction. Like think about American football. To me, it's one of the great. And you and I talk about this all the time. It's like a total socialist enterprise, which is yet-- it's a huge money maker-- Absolutely. --only because it's a socialist enterprise. Everyone's a socialist. But if it wasn't socialist, it would be terribly boring to watch. And it'd be like American baseball. Yeah. American baseball is too capitalist. And it has other problems, of course. It's slow and both. But the main problem is it's too capitalist. There's winners and there's terrible losers. And there's no parity. There's no interesting competition. But the NFL has competition. Because it has a social-- like it has the draft, which is the incredibly socialist mechanism, where the last become first and the first become the last time. It's like Christ wrote the draft guide. I mean, that's excellent. And then the salary cap. So they have a certain amount. And the union has tremendous power and swaying maybe more than any other union in America. Well, I think the NBA player is probably-- Maybe that's true. Yeah, because I think that-- Well, right, because they can make more. They make all of them. They're few of them. They're not the advantage in their fewer. The contract's the NFL aren't guaranteed. No. Because they are afraid that if they have a guaranteed contract, they won't play his hard getting them headbashed in. Yeah, probably, which is also-- Probably true. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Like, this is one of my big things and one of the reasons why we did this episode is that I think your racist Trump voter who is a big fan of the NFL, I'm not going to pick a Southern team because that's the great North South bias thing showing. But also probably. But they totally support the idea of revenue sharing. They totally support the salary cap. They totally support the draft. These are all things that, again, that as political concepts, that these people would be against. They would be against what? Universal health care or universal-- Universal-- I can't even-- Basic income. Basic income, right. I repressed the term because it's impossible to do. So they would be against that. Welfare for all things. But they get it for sport. Because if you don't have those things for football, then the people who-- it's just like baseball-- and baseball is getting-- trying to get better at this with the luxury tax thing, where you can't just have the teams that pay the most for players to have the highest possible cap that can absorb the most amount of financial hits. If you allow that, then there's just going to be two or three good teams who ever have a chance at all. And even when you have a football dynasty, like the Patriots, they still lost to the Giants, and they lost this past year to second string quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. And they definitely should have lost one of the two zubbles against the Seattle Seahawks or against the Atlanta Falcons. But they were this sort of like Tom Brady magic and/or failures on the other team. But so this sort of like sports event thing. But everybody supports that. There's not these people who want to take away welfare for real people calling up conservative radio. These are the same people who utterly support the well-sharing that goes on in NFL, because they realize that sort of fairness makes the product more enjoyable. And that's interesting. Yeah, I wonder if you would want to connect this to the fact that sports writers and sports talk radio tends to be left or, if I can use it more to the left, than regular talk radio. I think that's-- I think it totally true. It's really kind of stunning. Because when you grow up in high school, the kids that are into sports are not exactly the smartest or the most left-leaning political kids. In fact, the opposite. It's usually their parents are conservative. They're conservative. I remember when I played football in college at a very liberal school. And all the football players were united in their conservative, except me and maybe one of their guys. And their conservatism against the rest of the school. So and I think that's not uncommon. I think everywhere I've ever been, the athletes tend to be more conservative. And yet, sports writers and people that talk about sports, there seems to be much more of a left word than ordinary talk radio. And I mean, maybe that's partly because ordinary talk radio is so conservatively dominated here in the United States. But I don't know. I mean, I think there is something about the sports thing that opens up this political-- It is interesting because to have a conservative voice be the sports voice is a thing. As in, it seems odd. There were people who did a morning show, one of the two major sports stations in Boston, and they were well-known conservatives, and they always made things about conservatism. That was a thing. Like you listen to that show, if that aligned with your politics, and I don't think that they do. I don't know if that is a call of hand, still do the more. Yeah, I know who they are. Yeah, right. That was their thing. I think Mike Francesca, the big guy in New York, he's definitely conservative leaning. It's funny how it ends up being surprising. It's surprising. I remember Bill Belichack wrote this note to Trump. To Trump. Yeah. I was shocked, but I thought it was forged. I thought it just was faked. But I just couldn't believe you would have done it. But it turned out, the NFL is a little, the players tend to be more, the white players at least tend to be more conservative. The owners are incredibly conservative. Right. And the, I mean, look, all owners are probably in every sport are probably conservative because they're rich, right? They want control. They want control over profits, etc. Like, they understand to the degree that like social justice, they don't give a fuck. Probably. Because they're just like, they're like, whatever. Like racism, bad, I guess. I don't care. Well, it depends. I mean, isn't that the thing? Just don't get in the way of me accumulating. Yeah. I think that's their view. I think that's true. I mean, I think that's the Starbucks guy that's now going to run for president. Yes. Yeah. Right. He wants accumulation to keep going and then, okay, these social, let's solve the, you know, I read an interesting thing that said, and I think this is the position of Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the NBA, too. Like I think a lot of these, sort of the more liberal owners, their position is always, let's be progressive on social issues and then like, tyrannically conservative and libertarian, economic issues. Right. And I think that's the reason this thing that said, that's the position of 5% of America. That is economic, you know, liberal, economic libertarian and socially, socially liberal. Like, like that 5% of people agree with that. And it doesn't, it's not surprising, right? Because the people that, I mean, the more, the position that, it's interesting is the position that I don't think anyone in sports takes up and which is, would be the most popular one. And what makes it politically would be socially conservative and economically progressive or socialist, you know, like that would be the, that's, I guess there's a, there's a precise name for that philosophy, which is national socialist. Which is probably why no one takes it up. Probably why no one takes it up. Yeah. Of course, even, it wasn't even true of Hitler, though, right? Like he wasn't, I mean, so like the economic, like he was, Hitler was fine for business. So that, I mean, it really, it's interesting that that has been a position so seldom taken up when it's, it's like a ripe position to really occupy. I mean, that's the, that's why you get like the, I mean, I, I remember, I read this, I'm not sure where to what website to attribute this to, but like if you look at many, many, left policies are majority supported, like apparently universal background checks on guns are like, that's like a left policy. It's, that's like the last like big poll was 86% of people. Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. You know, 52% of people, or 54 maybe, like support universal healthcare. There's even some growing support for universal welfare, you know, and basic income. But it's like, I feel like it's good. No, no, no, no, no. I feel like it's exactly like this point about sports, right? Like you can't, like the identification is around like the, the, where the person's enjoyment is mobile on. Yes. It's not around the specific data points. Yeah. It's, or the specific questions. It's, it's about the whole, like this thing that is in, like, as a genus say, "Quad", it's like, I don't know what it is, but that's what I might. And I think that's where it seems like to me, that's where sports really has something to teach us both about contradiction in the way, but also just about the way that, that power of that identification works. And so the way people could be, like I'm for universal background checks, but I'm going to still follow, slavishly, this party that is fighting against the tooth and nail, right? Right. Because I have, I'm identified with it in some way. In some way. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's the, you know, I feel like, you know, I don't know. I've almost think that that kind of enjoyment, you can see the way that it's mobilized in sports better than anywhere else. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like, like, how can, it's, well, it's the same. It works in both ways, right? Like, well, like, sort of, we were talking earlier. Like, how can you be, like, like, a socialist and also support a team in this league that, you know, is going to force people to stand for national anthems or, or, or, or, or, or, or, basically, or just lays down to the, like, the most, like, right, fichistic president of the United States. Right. Right. Not that, but also the way that it sacrifices young men's lives for the sake of the enjoyment of the spectator, right? Right. Like, their, their heads are destroyed and they're, you know, they're, they're, their, heads are, you know, they're, they're, they're suffering from brain disease from, you know, right? And then their career, so, and it works the other way. How can you care about the players when you support, you know, like, how can you support your team when you support this thing that happens to you? Right. Like, yeah. I know it's a, I, so I think you're right. It doesn't just force people on the right to face contradictions. It's a force people on the left. Maybe even more so. Like, I constantly am abarded with questions. Like, how can you possibly be a football fan? Yeah. And, you know, and I think it's a tough question. Like, I feel, I feel like I'm, I have a great, I mean, the only thing I would say is every thing that, every human achievement requires sacrifice, right? Like, there's no, like, it's not, there's not like a great thing people do that they just come out of it unscathed. Like, I know, I know, I know, I elenest in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and she, she, she's debilitating, like, lifelong debilitating injuries just from, and she says you'd liquidus among the players in the, and I'm like, well, what instrument would really, like, can get you through without debilitating injuries? She goes percussion. So have your kids go to percussion, not only, you know, just beg of the timpity a little bit, that'll be fine. But every other one, like, she has like chronic, you know, like jaw, chronic neck things that are just, you know, it's just, so it's a life of pain. The guy who, the guy who played, I'll win. Yeah, from best from violin, the guy who played guitar for Megadeth developed a, um, a carpal tunnel, like, really, really bad. They've mistained. I'm not sure you can play guitar anymore. So I mean, those things aren't as bad as people have, you know, getting brain, just, yeah, brain injuries and they can't, they, they kill themselves when they're 50. I mean, clearly those aren't. But I, the only thing I would say about football is it could easily, the head injuries could be totally taken out very easily. Yeah. I feel like, yeah. Yeah, I think that you, well, I mean, not, not to offer policy. Like I think that you, I mean, for one, well, what is it? Well, or are you going to say like, like, you, I was just going to say you make any hits to the head illegal and then it's, it's, it's solves the problem totally. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's even a, yeah. So they don't want it, it's the questions where they want to do it or not, but right, right. Yeah. That's right. Anyway, on the, on the practical policy suggestion, maybe we should, we should come to an end. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah, no, I thought that I think that we, uh, we got all, given all our basic points out. All right, Ryan, you're talking to, you're talking to each other. I get over it. For now. Yeah.