Читать книгу One Game at a Time. Why Sports Matter онлайн

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Similarly, art has always claimed to civilize, and certain forms of creativity rarely make the cut, getting relegated to “folk” or “primitive” art, or “craft” status, or just derided. Much of the art world’s historically aspirational flaunt is a Cartesian prejudice for mind over body, and soul over mind. That’s why “art” claims to elevate us, to lift us out of our corporal and sensual lives, with all the deeply problematic metaphysical assumptions and epistemologies that infers. Sports can turn those elitist presumptions back on themselves and insist that materialist collisions, bodies-on-bodies interactions, are where everyday politics is played out, understood, and contested. It is a primary site for apprehending who we are, how we get along with other people who may be very different from ourselves, and what ethical grounds we ascribe to.

I also think we can ask more of sports than just straight rabble-rousing. There is a constituency of political fans who view sports instrumentally, pointing to specific incidents, athletes or events as progressive flashpoints—like the Los Suns, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Billie Jean King, or Muhammad Ali getting stripped of his title. Those, and so many others like them, are super-important for sure—galvanizing moments, and icons to rally around and incite the imagination. But only seeing the specific seems an inadequate rendition of politics to me. Sports matter in-and-of-themselves, not just because of how they might be leveraged.