> ...how about this from Adorno or Dorkheimer or both in Dialektik der
> Aufklaerung (in the John Cumming - pace Dennis - (mis)translation):
>
> The teams of modern sport, whose interaction is so precisely regulated that
> no member has any doubt about his role, and which provide a reserve for
> every player, have their exact counterpart in the sexual teams of
> *Juliette,* which employ every moment usefully, neglect no human orifice,
> and carry out every function. Intensive, purposeful activity prevails in
> spirt [sic...my 1989 Continuum Publishing Company edition] as in all
> branches of mass culture, while the inadequately initiated spectator cannot
> divine the difference in the combinations, or the meaning of variations, by
> the arbitrarily determined rules.
Actually, not too bad, as translations go. The German original:
"Was Kant transzendental begruendet hat, die Affinitaet von Erkenntnis und Plan, die der noch in den Atempausen durchrationalisierten buergerlichen Existenz in allen Einzelheiten den Charakter unentrinnbarer Zweckmaessigkeit aufpraegt, hat mehr als ein Jahrhundert vor dem Sport Sade schon empirisch ausgefuehrt. Die modernen Sportsriegen, deren Zusammenspiel genau geregelt ist, so dass kein Mitgleid ueber sein Rolle einen Zweifel hegt und fuer jeden ein Ersatzmann bereit steht, finden in den sexuellen teams [in English in the original] der Juliette, bei denen kein Augenblick ungenuetzt, keine Koerperoeffnung vernachlaessigt, keine Funktion untaetig bleibt, ihr genaues Modell. Im Sport wie in allen Zweigen der Massenkultur herrscht angespannte, zweckvolle Betriebsamkeit, ohne dass der nicht ganz eingeweihte Zuschauer den Unterschied der Kombinationen, den Sinn der Wechselfaelle zu erraten vermoechte, der sich an den willkuerlich gesetzte Regeln misst." (pg 107, Dialektik der Aufklaerung, Collected Works Vol. 3, Suhrkamp edition)
My own, equally fallible translation:
"Sade carried out, a hundred years before sports, what Kant grounded transcendentally, namely the affinity of the cognition and the plan which stamps the most minute details of rationalized bourgeois existence, even in its occasional moments of rest, with the character of being inescapable businesslike. The modern sports teams [Riege also means squads], where teamplay is so organized that no member has any doubt over their role and a substitute stands ready for everyone, has its precise model in Juliette's sexual teams, wherein no moment is wasted, no body-opening left unused, no function left unexercised. In sports as in all branches of mass-culture, a suspenseful, businesslike [zweckvolle] engagement predominates, such that spectators not completely familiar with the arbitrarily-constructed rules cannot tell the difference between the combinations of play and the meaning of the various moments."
In other words, sports is the road to perdition. As a lifelong Mets and Jets fan, this was of course clear to me from the beginning.
Have I mentioned that the Braves suck?
-- Dennis