I don't follow soccer--the sport the rest of the world stubbornly insists on calling football--and I can't pretend to be terribly engaged by the ongoing World Cup. I understand the game is intricate, but it is a language I don't speak. Mine might have been the last generation that didn't really play it as kids. I remember some international students coaxing me into playing goalie in a college pickup game one time, and when I lived in Brazil my friends dragged me to Maracana Stadium, where I watched a match between Flamengo and Botafogo, two of the most storied teams in Brazilian--and world--futbol history.
All I really remember of that match was the ferocity of the crowd. There was a moat around the field to prevent it from being overrun. It was loud.
So I wasn't heartbroken by the U.S. Men's National Team's exit from the competition last week. I assume we overachieved. It would have been interesting had they gone further, but I was not much invested in the games. In a way I think it is good for our national psyche for us not to be the best at everything; it's good to strive and fail from time to time. Losing in athletic competition doesn't necessarily indicate anything other than the immutable nature of physics. Bigger, faster and stronger generally prevails over pluck and desire. It's interesting when any American team can legitimately be considered an underdog in international competition.
And I think we can be proud of USMNT without necessarily rooting for them. I have mixed feelings about the ways politics invariably infiltrates sports, and I don't think that rooting against one's own country's representatives in a soccer match or basketball game is evidence of a lack of patriotism. Plenty of good Americans were probably appalled by the Dream Team we sent to the Olympics in 1992.
I wasn't--the Games' pretense of amateurism needed to be demolished. But there were ugly moments, such as when Charles Barkley cracked Angolan forward Herlander Coimbra with a gratuitous elbow after scoring an easy lay-up on the way to a 68-point win for Team USA. Coimbra said he was shocked that Barkley would "make violence" with him. Barkley said he was afraid Coimbra would attack him with a spear.
Especially if you follow soccer--and I know people who claim to--I don't think anyone is necessarily compelled to root for the national team. You might prefer the way the Brazilians or the Argentines play the game; you might feel some sentimental attachment to your ancestral home. Were I a soccer fan I might favor the Brazilians, for their style or for their colors. I liked this U.S. team with their flinty German coach (who's married to an Asian-American). But if I'd paid attention, there may have been teams I'd have liked a little more.
Patriotism is a strange thing. We all know we are supposed to love our country the same way we are supposed to love our parents and our fellow man. Patriotism is so seldom questioned that it may seem self-evident. But there is no biological imperative that drives our feelings of patriotism. There is nothing natural about geopolitical boundaries. A nation is a man-made thing, respected only by human beings disposed to respect such things. National identity is acquired; patriotism must be learned.
Patriotism assumes that it means something to be an American, that no matter how diverse the various backgrounds and personal histories of its citizens, there is an essential "Americanness" shared by all Americans, an American character shaped by the blending of peoples in an atmosphere of political liberty.
This especial American-ness is obviously not based in mutual religious or ethnic heritage, nor even in a prevailing political sentiment. One of the tenets of American patriotism is that not every government is supportable. At the root of the Christian Identity movement is the idea that authentic America has been subsumed by cabalistic plotters. Just because everyone can claim to be a patriot doesn't mean everyone is a patriot. Even anarchists can claim to be patriotic, at least in the sense that they feel an affinity for those living in similar circumstances. They can feel a kinship with their countrymen, even as they strive to unknit the legal fabric that spells out our rights and obligations in regard to one another.
Like a soul, a nation can be dismissed as a superstition. It is not a particular plot of land, nor the government installed over the inhabitants who live within the ultimately arbitrary borders of a state, but the mysterious component that binds all citizens of a state together.
Maybe we share a set of historical fables, of legends whittled down to life lessons, an array of fuzzy dates and fusty names of (mostly) dead white guys who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to found an experiment in self-government. Revisionists insist on the problematic humanity of the founding fathers. They were admittedly pragmatic and cunning men, but there's something more than the will to power that motivated their actions. No doubt they were possessed by some of the same human drives for sex, power, fame and money that explain the exploits of history's great nation-builders like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. Yet our founding fathers famously risked everything they had, not to establish themselves as rulers of a new nation, but to put themselves among the people to be governed by the people. We are an unprecedented experiment.
America is a nation of assimilators; we are all the products of history. We come from all over, and we field a soccer team that looks "like us" (except that the players are invariably young, fit and male). Our remarkable goaltender Tim Howard has a black father and a Hungarian mother; his backup, Nick Rimando, is Mexican and Filipino. Chris Wondolowski is Polish and American Indian. Omar Gonzalez was raised in Texas by Mexican parents. Mix Diskerud is Norwegian-American. Alabama-born Aron Johansson's parents are Icelandic. Jozy Altidore is the son of Haitian immigrants. There are five German-Americans on the squad.
You don't have to know much about soccer to understand that they weren't the best team in this year's World Cup. But they were Americans who represented their mongrel nation well. And that's reason enough to cheer for them.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Editorial on 07/06/2014