Reflections of a stormy petrel

... I confide that 'boring' is quite the kindest thing that can be said of footer as it now exists, particularly now that it's so appallingly global. A deeply unbeautiful game played by appallingly unbeautiful little people.

And surely your argumentum ad populam is fallacious? After all, were you the last surviving RC in the world, that shouldn't cause you to doubt the truth of your professions, I can't think.

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There is a difference between religion and games.

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Why then become exercised over footer and the Yanks? In any event, this distinction hardly renders an argumentum ad populam valid, surely.

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Actually, the vast majority of mankind find cricket boring.

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And the argumentum ad populam still isn't valid, you realise.

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Sir: I and 5,000,000,000 of my friends like it. What is it to you?

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If 'it' is footer: what it is to me: dead boring.
If 'it' is the argument from popularity: what it is to me: an informal fallacy.
If 'it' is your having 5,000,000,000 friends: what it is to me: a pleasant and wholly incredible surprise, dear boy. I'd not thought you quite that popular, by yr own account - however deserving, of course.

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... been quite so glad to be C of E.

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TBPH, I consider this little short of blasphemous. And I'm a Catholic. The only reason it's short is because I think the people don't mean to be blasphemous, and there is some forgiveness for ignorance. It's a work, in its way, of piety. They believe in Jesus and in Mexico and they want to put the former to work for the latter.

The picture remains, however, a great example of overlap of sports and religious fervor.

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http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2010/06/01/133-the-world-cup/

It really is in appalling taste, isn't it. Mind, unless Christ not only returns this Summer but is a spin-bowler, not even divine aid will help in the Ashes, so....

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joetexx.livejournal.com

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I take it that running is not a sport, then? You don't run on your hands, either.

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He's referencing George Carlin, who did a routine about why basketball, baseball and football were the only sports, and then went through all kinds of other sports explaining why they weren't sports. Some of the rules were purposefully ridiculous. For example, gymnastics is not a sport because Romanians are good at it. Anyway, the rule excluding soccer was that you don't use your hands.

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sanscouronne.livejournal.com

If you lived amongst Americans, I think that you would find that rather than denouncing soccer as boring, most are pretty indifferent/neutral about it. Most importantly because it is just not popular--for whatever reason, football/baseball/basketball, etc. have filled the niche of popular professional sports. That being said, soccer is popular as a sport for children/teens. All five of the children of my family played in local teams.

The American bloggers who lambast soccer as "boring" are not representative of the indifferent masses. They are probably just trying to cover their bemusement at its popularity during World Cup time. It's only boring because it has not saturated the national/regional consciousness (and feelings of pride associated with it) the way that football/baseball/etc. have.

This comes from someone who finds most, if not all sports, incredibly boring to watch. And I find it silly when people attach personal feelings of pride/shame/hate/love to favored teams. But I admit that I have been following the results of the World Cup avidly, mostly due to the element of nationalism present in such a large-scale event.

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Indeed. There is a whole bunch of people on both sides who annoy me by failing to see the difference between local habit, however pleasant, and universal value. Of course they are not representative, but there are an awful lot, and they repeat each other's talking points till they convinced themselves that they made sense. At which point you have a consensus that is very hard to dent. I am sure you must have come across this mentality?

As for me, I love most sports, but soccer is also a matter of national pride. I may post about it in the future, though of course I don't expect you to change your tastes just because of that.

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joetexx.livejournal.com

Just heard it somewhere and it sounded funny.
I actually am with sanscouronne in the 'indifferent' wing
though soccer when viewed in the flesh does look a little
silly to me - mind you, I've only seen kids pay it at the local
park. Since about the age of 20 I can endure watching any
televised sport for more than a few minutes.

" failing to see the difference between local habit, however pleasant, and universal value."
Of course and this can be a serious fault if you can't keep a sense of humor about the whole thing.

I do understand why some Americans are hostile to the massive coverage given the World Cup; whether it is or not it looks like a calculated attempt to denigtate traditional American sports by exalting one that has no real constituency in this country save among kids amd Moms. Why are they so anxious for us to get excited about this?

"The Metric System in Short Pants", one blogger wrote about soccer, and while I'm tepid about any sport
I understand exactly how he feels.

Enjoy yourself, though. Your passion for the game is entirely admirable, given the deep roots it has sunk in your country.

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sanscouronne.livejournal.com

Actually, I can appreciate your love of soccer from a nationalist/nostalgic perspective, which is why I am not antagonistic to the international aspect of the World Cup. Indeed, I am much more sympathetic to this kind of fervor than to the ridiculousness of my countrymen who start fist fights over whether the White Sox or Cubs are the better team (these are two baseball teams in the same state).

A lover of American football once tried to intellectually explain its appeal along the lines that it is a tactically sophisticated game. As long as visions of screaming masses, drunkenness, and other unappealing social gatherings pervade my overall impression of most sports, I do not think that such explanations will be very effective.

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Honestly, it gets to be defensiveness turning into aggression which results in more of same on the other side, and a vicious circle results.

There's no "who started it" at this point... joining it in medias res, it's:

Your football isn't real football! -> Soccer is boring! -> Your football is just wimpy rugby! -> Soccer players are cheats! -> Yanks aren't smart enough to understand the game!

We could keep going, but let's not.

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