Треба ли укинути фудбал? Спорт и савремена левичарска филозофија

In this paper, we would like to tackle two contrasted contemporary views on football and its relation to politics. Belgium-born political theorist Chantal Mouffe promotes the view of politics as ‘agonal’ and passionate, and advocates for the engagement in political sphere, similar to football fans, as a potential for heeling the depoliticized world of contemporary liberal democracy. In stark contrast to her stands the Irish-born Anglo-Saxon cultural critic Terry Eagleton, who shocked British public during the South African football World Cup by proclaiming that football should be abolished altogether. This contrast, we submit, is much more than a simple misunderstanding between two distinguished contemporary leftist thinkers. It testifies to the re-entrance of football and sport in general in the mainstream philosophical debates and, more importantly, enables us to grasp the diversity and, to some extent, the confusion of the New Left nowadays.

Chantal Mouffe: Football as a metaphor of ‘agonistic’ politics

In order to understand the relations of football to politics in the view of Chantal Mouffe, we need to provide brief introduction to her political ideas. Mouffe’s primary concern can be summarized around the two key issues: the disappearance of politics and the rise of the far-right and terrorism in the West (see her recent book On the Political, 2005). In her view, these two phenomena are closely related. As she describes, the disappearance of politics is the process triggered in the West after the failure of communist ideology. Without proper rivalry between “right” and “left”, between capitalism and communism, all that remains today, as many (would like us to) believe, is the world without conflicts, at least in the Western hemisphere¹ What remains after the end of the ideological battles of the twentieth century and the ‘final’ victory of capitalism hardly deserves to bare the name of politics at all, and is reduced to a set of technical moves and neutral procedures, promising to bring consensus among all political actors.

According to Mouffe, nothing can be further from the truth. The result of such faulty conceived consensual politics is the current trend of depoliticization in the European Union, which makes the voters increasingly disinterested in politics and drives them away from taking part in the elections and decisionmaking processes in general. What is more, Mouffe sees the rise of right-wing populism and terrorism in the West as a direct consequence of this allegedly consensual, depoliticized public sphere. As Antke Engel (2006) explains in her article on Mouffe’s theory, ‘[i]f there are no democratic channels to express political antagonism, if the political struggle between “right and left” is transformed into a moralistic struggle between “right and wrong”, this invites violent and anti-democratic practices’. That is, if the negative energy cannot be expressed within the political order, it manifests outside of it, and threatens to demolish this very order itself.

In distinction to the proponents of consensual politics, Mouffe assumes that antagonism is constitutive for a society and that conflict reminds the fundamental characteristic of the political. In that, she is a true Schmittian. Namely, according to Karl Schmitt, one of the most profound critics of liberalism, the essence of politics is not consensus, but exactly the opposite - the distinction between friend and enemy. In a nutshell, Schmitt claims that ‘a definition of the political can be obtained only by discovering and defining the specifically political categories’ (1996: 25). And such as ‘in the realm of morality final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable... The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy’ (Ibid, 25). In short, politics for Schmitt is the distinction between friend and enemy organized into groups that counts with the real possibility of war among them.

In order to counter the consensual view of democracy and its premise that political order should ‘be obtained through dialogue’ (5), Mouffe suggests three measures: strengthening political antagonisms, translating them into agonistic struggles, and creating political institutions for working on these conflicts. The aim is, of course, to create a vibrant ‘agonistic’ public sphere of contestation where different hegemonic political projects can be confronted. She thus readily employs Schmittian notion of politics, but in a ‘tamed’ form that excludes conflicts and antagonism:

Distinguishing between the categories of “antagonism” (relations between enemies) and “agonism” (relations between adversaries) and envisaging a sort of “conflictual consensus” providing a common symbolic space among opponents who are considered “legitimate enemies.” Contrary to the dialogic approach, the democratic debate is conceived as a real confrontation. Adversaries do fight—even fiercely—but according to a shared set of rules, and their positions, despite being ultimately irreconcilable, and accepted as legitimate perspectives. (2005: 52)

What has all this got to do with football? While Mouffe does not mention the game itself explicitly in the book, it has been noted that her passionate politics resembles football match. According to Robert Tally, football game offers a useful parallel to her notion of politics:

Mouffe’s image of a we/they politics in which collective identities vie with one another for hegemony looks a bit like organized sports. Consider the football game: rival sides squared off in a unambiguously agonistic struggle for dominance, with a clear winner and loser, yet agreeing to play by certain shared rules, and above all unwilling to destroy the sport itself (i.e., the political association) in order to achieve the side’s particular goals. Football teams have no interest in dialogue, and the goal is not consensus, but victory.

George Crowder, likewise, notices that ‘[n]o doubt some people may like her vision of politics as a struggle for power between “us” and “them”, like a football match’. Finally, Mouffe herself occasionally illustrated her idea of passionate politics by making comparisons with football fans cheering on their favourite team2.

In other words, Muoffe wants to temper Schmittian antagonism by translating it into agonism. The term comes from the Greek word agon, which means a contest or a competition. Its original usage in Ancient Greece applied to sport competitions at the Olympic Games but, as it appears, later became expanded to include the poetic competitions at religious festivals as well as verbal exchanges or debates in the Greek theatre.³

Herein lies the potential risk of her theorizing. Namely, as Crowder notices, “she wants us to endorse Schmitt’s notion of natural antagonism but also to oppose his dismissal of democracy and to accept the possibility and desirability of agonism”. The question is, to use a common proverb, can we make an omelet without breaking eggs? In other words, can we exploit Schmittian antagonistic conception of the political in the democratic order, without ultimately slipping into Schmitt’s political space, divided between friend and enemy organized into groups that counts with the real possibility of war among them?

No doubt that Mouffe would reject such possibility, but the football metaphor can serve us here as a warning. Namely, is it not that football fans, behind all their energy, loyalty and passion, ultimately function as mutually hostile groups, always ready for the violent clash with other fans, seen as their fierce enemies? Furthermore, it is no surprise that the paramilitary groups that mushroomed in the wake of the civil war in the Former Yugoslavia primarily recruited their members among the most dedicated football fans - in a way, these were already militarized and mobilized beforehand. In short, exactly by expanding the football metaphor in this context, one exemplifies the potential risks of Mouffe’s passions ultimately slipping into Schmittian antagonisms and hostilities, which prompts us to take her implicit appreciation of football culture with a grain of salt.

Terry Eagleton: ’Footbal should be abolished’

If the relation between football and politics in Mouffe’s theory remains implicit, Terry Eagleton’s critique of football is as straightforward as possible. In 2010, in the midst of the South African football World Cup, Eagleton enraged British public by proclaiming that football should be abolished altogether.

To be sure, Eagleton is not blind to the game’s attractiveness and power:

Modern societies deny men and women the experience of solidarity, which football provides to the point of collective delirium... Like a jazz band or drama company, football blends dazzling individual talent with selfless teamwork, thus solving a problem over which sociologists have long agonised. Co-operation and competition are cunningly balanced. Blind loyalty and internecine rivalry gratify some of our most powerful evolutionary in stincts.

• 2    For instance, this is the example she gave at her lecture on the political and political passions held at the Singidunum University in Belgrade on 22th of May 2008.

• 3    In this last form, it is found, for instance, as a common, if not necessary, element in Greek tragedy and comedy. For example, the famous of Antigone and Ismene in Sofokle’s tragedy Antigone constitutes one such instance of verbal agon, and is equally frequently found in Aristhopane's comedies.

So, why is it, then, that he sees the game in such negative terms? The answer lies, according to Eagleton, in its symbiosis with capitalism:

The World Cup is another setback to any radical change. The opium of the people is now football... If every rightwing thinktank came up with a scheme to distract the populace from political injustice and compensate them for lives of hard labour, the solution in each case would be the same: football. No finer way of resolving the problems of capitalism has been dreamed up, bar socialism. And in the tussle between them, football is several light years ahead.

Surprisingly, the way that football resolves these problems ultimately lies, according to Eagleton, in its (pseudo)religious dimension:

Football offers its followers beauty, drama, conflict, liturgy, carnival... Like some austere religious faith, the game determines what you wear, whom you associate with, what anthems you sing and what shrine of transcendent truth you worship at. Along with television, it is the supreme solution to that age-old dilemma of our political masters: what should we do with them when they’re not working?

Eagleton therefore does little to disguise his contempt for the game and concludes that it should be abolished altogether. His final verdict deserves to be quoted in length:

Over the centuries, popular carnival throughout Europe, while providing the common people with a safety valve for subversive feelings - defiling religious images and mocking their lords and masters - could be a genuinely anarchic affair, a foretaste of a classless society.

With football, by contrast, there can be outbreaks of angry populism, as supporters revolt against the corporate fat cats who muscle in on their clubs; but for the most part football these days is the opium of the people..., Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham. The Reds are no longer the Bolsheviks. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished.

It hardly takes more than a common knowledge to recognize here the paraphrases of old Marxists statements against religion that Eagleton appropriates to football. For Marx, of course, religion was the opium of the people that has to be abolished. For Eagleton, this position is nowadays taken by football, which, therefore, should be abolished in order to enable the true emancipation of the masses. But one cannot resist the feeling that these well-known Marxist statements are here somehow blended with the spirit of sermon and Puritanism. To put it simply, should we replace football with Marxist or with Catholicism? This paradox is by no means benign, as this dilemma seems to be applicable to late Eagleton in general. Namely, Eagleton, who comes from a family of Irish Catholics, recently started returning to his roots and describing himself as a Catholic leftist or Marxist Christian. This paradoxical position is evident in this short article, where football is seen as a modern surrogate for religion.

Finally, one might ask if such strict verdict perhaps outgrows the mere critique of capitalism to become the critique of humanism? This is the position taken by Dave Zirin, who replies to Eagleton by emphasizing intrinsic humanism of football and sport in general:

By rejecting football, Eagleton also rejects what is both human and remarkable in physical feats of competition. We can stand in awe of the pyramids while understanding the slave labour and misery that comprised its construction. We can stir our soul with gospel music even while we understand that its existence owes itself to pain as much as hope. Similarly, amid the politics and pain that engulf and sometimes threaten to smother professional sport, there is also an art that can take your breath away... like all art, sport at its essence... holds within it a view of human potential unshackled.

To sum up, while Eagleton’s critique of football for keeping the masses in obedience and pacifying them during their free bares leftist traits, his conclusion that it should be abolished altogether seems exaggerated. However, those who suddenly became concerned that as of tomorrow some political commissars will start disrupting their favourite football games, can be at peace; even though he formulates his conclusion about abolishing football, Eagleton himself is clear that this is impossible: ‘And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of BP has in taking over from Oprah Winfrey’. Thus, in all honestly, Eagleton could hardly be accused of really trying to abolish the game, especially when one bares in mind frequent references to football and its great players, such as George Best, in his books and lectures. This article was, therefore, apparently intended to shift the attention of British public hypnotized with the World Cup towards the burning issues of inequality and poverty in the society, and should be appreciated for that.

Conclusion

To sum up, this paper focused on the ways that football functions as a metaphor for the agonistic politics in the works of Chantal Mouffe, and can therefore be understood as affirmative and potentially emancipatory, whereas for Terry Eagleton, in distinction, football embodies capitalism, prevents any radical change, and should be abolished.

These two views, we submit, represent both the strengths and pitfalls of the New Left philosophy in the West nowadays. On the one hand, contemporary New Left is certainly good at showing us that we do not live in the postpolitical times and prompting us to reconsider our views and expand our political horizons. On the other hand, it also seems to lack a coherent, broad and appealing narrative that Marxism once offered. However, while the return to canonical or doctrinaire Marxism is out of the question, exploring new territories, desirable as it may be, poses certain risks for the New Left. In this particular case, this applies to Mouffe’s adoption of Karl Schmitt’s notion of the political, and Eagleton’s reaffirmation of religion, both of which seems to threaten to drag these authors away from the leftist camp. In any case, engagement with sports, be it an inspiration for agonal politics or the opium of the masses and new religion of today, promises to offer an engaging topic of investigation for the New Left, which is by no means exhausted so far. Therefore, to conclude in a conveniently sporty jargon, let the ball rolling.