Because sports keep male minds filled does not prove sports are a greater cultural influence than the arts, which don’t. So we disagree with C. L. R. James’ remark:
I believe and hope to prove that cricket and football were the greatest cultural influences in nineteenth-century Britain, leaving far behind Tennyson’s poems, Beardsley’s drawings and concerts of the Philharmonic Society. These filled space in print but not in minds.
(Quoted from page 24 of Race, Sport and Politics, by Ben Carrington. Sage, 2010)
For a brief biography of C. L. R. James, click here. For images of or relating to C. L. R. James, click here.
For a brief biography of Ben Carrington, click here. For images of or relating to Ben Carrington, click here.
Under the very powerful spell of Andre Agassi's autobiography, which I've just finished reading (indeed, I found your site because of your discussion of the book a few years ago), I sense a possible argument in support of James' contention, namely that sports embody -- maybe enact, as well -- a story/myth that's central to Christianity and, apparently, central to the lives of lots of us who maybe have never been Christians (Andre's father from Iran, perhaps; I'm just guessing) or, in any case, who don't think of themselves as Christians in their daily lives, the story/myth, that is, of a single individual's strenuous struggle (in front of the altar of alliteration, to be sure) being somehow essential to the welfare of the whole group.
I can't offhand think of any other of the arts that provide this -- what are we going to call it? --- embodiment, enactment, reprise? as vividly or immediately.
Posted by: Errington | January 14, 2012 at 10:23 AM