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

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In a twenty-first century where what’s real, what’s fake, and what the difference is seems tenuous at best, fighting is a simple, pure pleasure. In the face of a plague of reality TV, WMDs, Facebook “friends,” “conversations” on Twitter, Second Life, and the average kid spending almost eight hours a day staring at screens, looking for “reality” and “truthfulness” is a disorienting mess. Pining for the authentic mostly just sounds nostalgic, trite, and/or painfully quaint. But there’s nothing fake about a sharp right cross in the mouth. There’s no irony, no subtext, no spin, no fabrication, no “reality” in quotes, no disclaimers, no reset function, no replaceable avatar to start over with. It just hurts. And if you’re watching, there’s no way to pretend it’s not happening. That kid’s nose really is pouring blood, his neurons really are scrambling.

But wait. That’s exactly the Fight Club story. Didn’t Pitt and Norton and Palahniuk do all this already? Isn’t the idea that fighting is particularly “authentic” just another lame Maileresque, patriarchal cliché? Really, what’s real about scrapping? And what’s so great about “real” or “authentic” anyways?