I love football, and since the new season has started it's a great time to talk about the opposites in "the beautiful game." "All beauty," according to Aesthetic Realism, "is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." Every person who loves football is affected by opposites.
1. Strength and Grace; Assertion and Yielding. When you see Simeon Jackson*, say, leaping high in the air and getting onto the end of a curving cross from the left wing, meeting the ball just right and nodding it sharply and precisely into the back of the net -- you, my friend, are being affected by strength and grace, assertion and yielding, force and accuracy, straight line and curved line, near and far. These are opposites in case you hadn't noticed! Very often people feel yielding is weak, and then when they assert themselves they feel unkind. We lay down the law without thinking about what is good for the other person. If you tried to play football that way you'd mis-kick it, and your header (if you touched the ball that is) would go sailing over the crossbar.
2. Continuity and Discontinuity. The whole game is continuity and discontinuity. Forty-five minutes of almost non-stop action, but there are corner kicks, throw-ins, goal kicks, and, if you're lucky, a penalty for your team. One of the marvellous things you can see when a team's playing well, is the stringing-together of one pass after another, some across the field, down or back, some diagonal, shorter passes, longer passes, and sometimes a quick one-two. Every person wants to feel that the world is coherent, that it makes sense; and that it can surprise us, has sharp edges. Otherwise it's boring. This is something I see as a teacher -- that young people want to feel that the lessons they attend have something to do with each other, and that school has something to do with the rest of their lives; and how they want change! Football satisfies our desire for continuity and surprise, especially when it is played well!
3. Individual and Collective Football is a team sport! Everyone depends on his/her team-mates, and we all know how frustrating it is when one person hogs the ball, tries to take on the whole opposing team, then loses control or is tackled just when the goal was beckoning with a teammate unmarked, just a few feet away. I think it's one of the reasons why Becks/David Beckham is so great. It's not just his precision, it's the fact that his bread and butter is passing the ball to teammates. This is like the Aesthetic Realism definition of good will; wanting other things or people to be stronger and more beautiful because this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.
Check out Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites, by Eli Siegel. Next time you see a game, look for opposites!
*I'm a Gillingham fan
