Football is a historical point. It's meaning is limited to a historical period and between two points in time. I hav no doubt that it will die out, probably in the next hundred years or so, certainly in the next thousand. It has only been known around the world for a couple of centuries. In real terms, that is an instant.
Socrates did not know football, nor did Gautama Buddah or Jesus or Mohammed or Alaxander or Harold Godwinson or John Paston.
I disagree, according to the Monty Python, Socrates knew football and Archimedes even served him perfectly to score the goal of victory against Kant's German team
. Sorry, being stupid but i'm in a stupid mood
Anyway the question of a universal culture is one that has interested me for a while and especially over the last session (my work was titled :
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights faced with Cultural Diversity)... I am not going to bore you to death with the 16 pages I wrote about the subject but the question of universality is one that is subject to resistance and is - as I see it - conceptualised in the wrong way. When you pay attention to the different theories you realise that 'universalism' is perceived or used - both by its supporters and opponents - as a means of hegemony that is a vertical relation. It is not supposed to be...
The question to ask first is "what is culture?": one difficult thing to answer as it is... And trying to define it would reduce it somehow. But what I would like to emphasize is that it is one thing that is always in the making unlike what our politicians want to make us believe. It is not static and cannot be departed from identity somehow.
I tend to think that culture do require some sort of sense of citizenship, that is a critical perception from people; to me coca cola is part of the consumer society and not culture in itself. It is part of our life yes, but it is not what makes us who we are, now is it? Well I would not say 'I am who I am because I consume coca cola or buy my furniture at IKEA'...
Sadly my project is in French otherwise I would have posted some extracts in there. But there are many very interesting authors to read on the subject. I especially like Park in that respect who wrote his thesis in German "Masse und Publikum" and was translated into English as "crowd and public" I think... It is about the creation of something that is common to all but that is created by all, and not by one pole of creation and then imposed on every one else.
Just thoughts (not ordered at all
) about the subject.
Edit: And I agree with Eru, it's not the style of music but more music in itself.
And I also prefer Tchaikovski... me think I have seen all the ballets and operas he wrote
starting with Nutcraker; may I thank Disney for making me discover it when I was barely 7 years old
...