content analysis

CA continues to follow the globalization of basketball.  Here’s a Times story on soccer’s influence on basketball.

I have to say, I’ve always been somewhat skeptical about the notion of culture as an independent variable. Like many sociologists, I tend to think primarily in terms of the structural forces that shape social behavior. For example, how race/class/gender shape life chances. However, a fair number of scholars working within sociology’s “cultural turn” are interested in the independent effect of culture. To be perfectly honest, such arguments often baffle me.

But last night I came upon a great example of how culture can affect behavior independent of structural factors. As one of the five American soccer fans, I was doing my part and watching ESPN2’s MLS Primetime Thursday, the one time per week when games from our national soccer league are shown on basic cable (several other games are shown on Fox Soccer Channel and Telefutura). The match-up was between the ever-disappointing New York Red Bulls and the red-hot Toronto FC. The game, played on a cold, windy, rainy night in Toronto, benefited from the enthusiasm of the wildly supportive and vocal fans, who sang and hurled streamers all night. A great description of the crowd by soccer writer, Ives Galarcep, is available here.

Toronto FC is an expansion team founded last season. Unlike American soccer clubs which have struggled to fill their stadiums at times, TFC has sold out of season tickets in both of their first two years. Nearly every game draws a wild capacity crowd. The only possible structural explanation for this disparity is that BMO Field is in downtown Toronto (or on its outskirts), unlike the other stadiums, which are usually hidden in the suburbs. Nonetheless, given the enthusiasm of the TFC fans, I’d guess they’d show up even in the suburbs.

It seems to me that the strong cultural imprint of British culture on Canadian culture has led to the huge base of fanatical Toronto fans. Many would be tempted to point to the fact that Toronto is a city of immigrants and, given that soccer is a global sport, the immigrant population might explain the high level of support. Of course, several other MLS cities have large immigrants populations: New York, LA, Houston, Dallas, among others (moreover, I saw mostly Anglo-Saxon faces in last night’s crowd). I’d guess that Canadian culture, more than American culture, (well, sporting culture at least) is derived from British and European sources. This cultural similarity leads to a greater understanding of and support for soccer among Canadians. This phenomenon seems to me a pretty good example of culture having an effect on behavior independent of structural forces.

Then again, there are well-armed forces that keep American crowds from acting too much like English supporters. Galarcep writes,

Seeing stadium security toss pass unrolled streamers to the crowd was amazing. Imagine seeing that at Giants Stadium. Not only would that not happen, if you tossed a streamer at a player at Giants Stadium you would get tackled by two state troopers as a state police dog mauled your leg.

I’ve decided to start a new feature here: the sunday reads. Growing up (and in my own family today), Sunday has always meant bagels and the Sunday New York Times.  It’s a time to sit back and dedicate some time to learning about the world around us. From the Week in Review (which as a pre-literate child I thought was the “Weekend Review”) to the Magazine to Sunday Styles to my beloved Frank Rich, the Sunday Times has much to offer.

In recent years, I’ve discovered that media does exist outside the Times. So, in the sunday reads each week, I will pick out a few key articles that I found significant this Sunday. Apologizes in advance if I end up linking to the entire Week in Review. Here are the inaugural links:

Postfeminism and Other Fairy Tales by Kate Zernike (NYT) – a good story on what appears to be season of growing consciousness about gender.

Five Years by John F. Burns (NYT) – Burns’ broad and inspired look back on our five years (!) in Iraq.

Republicans See Storm Clouds Gathering by Jonathan Weisman (WP) – a discussion of the poor outlook for the GOP this fall. I read this with great glee.

On My Faith and My Church by Barack Obama (Huffington Post) – Senator Obama clears the air about his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (See also: The Fox News crew deliberately manipulates the situation an interview with Obama).

Annals of War: Exposure by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris (The New Yorker) – The story of Specialist Sabrina Harman, the woman who took the notorious pictures at Abu Graib, gives a new look behind the scenes at AG, told partially through her letters. Written by one of the best journalists around and the documentary filmmaker behind The Fog of War.

Red Baron recast as a German hero by David Smith (The Observer (UK)) – I’ve been interested for a while in the way Germans continue to process their horrific acts during WWII. A new $28 million movie (a lot of money for German films) breaks a taboo by focusing on Manfred von Richthofen, “The Red Baron,” and depicts him as “brilliant and sensitive hero.”

Cuban Players Fled Their Team for an Uncertain Future by Katie Thomas (NYT) – for the non-soccer fans out there, North and Central American national teams are currently competing in their Olympic qualifying tournament (only players under 23 are eligible to play, so no Landon Donovan). As usual, several players have defected from the Cuban team, seeking asylum and better futures in the U.S. This article looks at their hopes and chances for the future.

If any of these stories were interesting to you, please return the favor and leave a link to a good article in the comments!

In the past year, I have read three books and seen a movie that deal with overlapping themes of tribalism in England. Two of the books — Paul Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea and Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs — and the film, the near-perfect This is England, are set in 1980s England and address the severe issues of poverty, nationalism, racism during that time. The third book, Bill Bryson’s cheerful romp through the UK, Notes from a Small Island, depicts England in the mid-1990s, a period of increasing prosperity. At the heart of all four items was a struggle for the meaning of Englishness in a time of growing diversity and a shifting economy.

This is England begins in the early 80s. Unemployment is high, England is involved in a war in the Falkland Islands, and PM Margaret Thatcher is denying that society exists. A young boy, whose father recently died in the Falkland Islands, is picked on in school and joins a group of friendly, harmless punks. However, when an older punk is released from prison, he introduces the boys to a brand of racist, white nationalism. What is presented as standing up for England is thinly veiled racism against blacks, South Asian immigrants, and Jews. In a similar vein, Among the Thugs notes the recruiting of football hooligans to the white nationalist organization, the National Front. Theroux notes that much of the language of economic downturn is couched in racist language. He writes,

“It’s the blacks, see,” a respectable-looking man named Strawby told me. “We whites are the original inhabitants of this country, but they make all the laws in favor of the blacks. That’s why it’s all gone bad.” Mr. Strawby saw me making notes. He was not alarmed. He gave me a little lecture on racial characteristics and offered me tea.

All three sources tend to suggest that faced with the dual threats of massive unemployment and increasing immigrant populations, many white British people began to formulate a brand of reactionary white nationalism and tribalism. These feelings were acted out in several ways. Theroux notices grafittied swastikas on walls throughout the country. TIE depicts a National Front rally in which feelings of patriotism are quickly turned into anti-immigrant language. Buford describes how white people who feel little sense of a unique ethnic identity turn to country and football club to develop a identity. Some supporters of various football clubs — Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United — develop tribal identities and engage in often horrific violence toward other supporters*. In sum, England of the 80s and early 90s was a place of bigotry, violence, and incredible inequality.

By the mid-90s when Bryson toured England, things sound a bit better. With dramatic interventions by FIFA and FA, football violent was significantly reduced. New economic prosperity was developing with the high-tech and service industries replacing many of the manufacturing jobs that disappeared in the late 1970s and 1980s. Whereas Theroux complained about historical buildings being neglected and falling into disrepair, Bryson’s gripe is about how new (ugly) construction was quickly replacing historic buildings. In 1994, Tony Blair, then regarded as the “British JFK,” was elected as Prime Minister.

Today, the outlook in the British Isles continues to be fairly good. The pound sterling is worth over $2. Building on tourism, the “Celtic Tiger” economy of Ireland has been one of the great economic success stories in recent years. Similarly, England has moved three quarters of the labor force into the service industry and Britain, as a whole, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe. While there are certainly major issues of inequality (especially for immigrant populations), they are nowhere near the levels of American stratification**.

I mention all of this for a reason. Last week, I was discussing Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American with a friend who studies global inequalities. My friend claimed that on most social, political, and economic measures, the U.S. is on the same trajectory as Europe, but lagging about 15 years behind. I am aware that several members of the pundit class have claimed that “the European social and political model” will ultimately prevail. This social and political model, I suppose would include an expanded social safety net, a more reasonable balance between life and work, a consumption model that emphasizes quality over quantity, etc. While I wish this would happen, I remain skeptical given America’s stubbornly individualist, free-market, materialist culture.

Nonetheless, spinning this idea around in my head, I was struck by the similarities between 1980s England and 2000s U.S. of A.: the reactionary anti-immigration attitudes, the economic difficulties (and disappearance of manufacturing), a war that the public doesn’t know how to react to, a right-wing administration trying to dismantle the social safety net, and so on. Of course, there are big differences (e.g., Iraq ≠ Falkland Islands). But the idea that in a relatively short amount of time, we could genuinely improve this country is encouraging. Naivete? You decide.

*Buford rejects the idea that the violence of football supporters is rooted in economics, noting that hooligans come from a variety of class backgrounds. He claims that rather than passionately being pulled into a crowd by dramatic circumstances, football fans rationally seek out the violent encounters for the adrenaline rush it provides. These claims would tend to be supported by recent rational choice, social movements literature (e.g., resource mobilization), which reject older LeBonian theories of crowd behavior.

**I don’t doubt that there are any number of problems I’ve neglected. I’m simply making to key contentions here: a) things have gotten a bit better, and b) economic disparities in the UK are not as bad as the US.