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June 28, 2006
The World Cup, Euro-trash, and American frontier people
As any school child knows, the US is a relative newby in the pantheon of world nations. Well, maybe today's school kids--or their teachers---aren't aware of that simple historical reality. (Anyone ever see Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" skits which recently featured an alleged World History teacher who firmly believed that the nation was founded in 1492?) But, we are relatively new by the standards of Old Asia and Old Europe especially. As a result, nations like Germany and Great Britain have long had a superiority complex toward us, still viewing, though they’d be loathe to admit it, the insouciant upstart across the pond as presumptuous new kids on the block, lacking their ancient history, their ancient monuments, their long-established traditions and civilizations, their maturity as peoples, their civility.
That's all true, to a degree. Americans still have a sense of optimism, a cockiness, that Europeans in their advanced national years have long lost. We lack their age-old traditions and civil codes, et al. We also lack their various past efforts at world domination, their numberless bloody and senseless wars, and their stultifying societies. Still, they DO like to believe we're still just a frontier people, out-classed and out-civilized.
I was reminded of European pretensions recently in the aftermath of the recent World Cup game between Sweden and Germany. MORE AFTER THE JUMP
Here we had a game being contested by old rivals and being played on German soil. The operative word would be game! Now, granted Americans have never really felt the blood lust over their version of “football” that Europeans and others have long felt. We play the game, sort of, but mostly to keep elementary and secondary school kids occupied and, for the latter, their hormones tamed and their bodies exhausted. Some kids move on to college soccer, but after that soccer is just something Americans pretty much just tolerate. If that.
Not so Europeans! Many live and breathe soccer and especially the Mother of All Tournaments, the World Cup. The recent display after a game in which Germany defeated Sweden showed these Anglo-Saxon nations in their true light. Not Germany and Sweden, mind you, but Germany and England! Rioting, stampeding, destructive and violent hordes from both countries played a post-game in the streets, trying to pummel one another into the cobble stones of Stuttgart. Why? I really don’t know–or care. I’m not even sure nor do I care who won either the field game or the street battles. (I did hear that the English were upset that Sweden lost; good enough cause for a riot, I guess.) No one was killed, I don’t think, which is a good and rare thing when the Brits take on the Goths. It was just fun to watch! Here we had two of our allies mixing it up wildly on public streets, thugishly and and fiercely showing the rest of the world how civil they are.
True, we have a violent element in our own society. But we “frontier people” can watch a World Series game and then generally file out of our stadia, a bit saddened by a loss, a tad elated by a win, but file out peacefully and then head for home or a few brews. Poor us! We have so much to learn from Euro-trash!
Posted by Gene Blogger at June 28, 2006 03:09 PM
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