In the preface to his introduction to Schizoanalysis, Eugene Holland makes an interesting and enlightening analogy between D & G’s approach and jazz (as compared to classical music (and soccer (as compared to American football. He points to the improvisational and democratic nature of the formers (those that equate with D & G (and hierarchal nature of the latter: classical music, as compared to jazz, has a strict hierarchy with the composer at top and the strict doctrine of the musical script, while American football also has a strict hierarchy that works up through the quarterback to the coach who is more involved (for instance, in what plays are called (than his equivalent in soccer.
And we get an interesting sense of the sensibilities involved when we focus on the sports aspect of this as concerns the difference between America and other western industrialized nations. Football, being the American obsession it is, we can see in it America’s propensity towards too easily accepting such hierarchies for the sake of a kind of distributed Will to Power. And we see it in the semiology: we have bull-like boys competing, not just through pure will, but craft and cunning as well –that is of the coaches involved. In soccer, that bull-like physique is not required as everything is dependent on the craft and cunning of the individual player which the coach instills in them before the game. In this sense, soccer coaches take the more theistic approach of winding up the clocks of their individual players and seeing what happens during the actual game. Furthermore, in American football, there is the effect of the music: BOOM BOOM! DEFENSE! BOOM BOOM! DEFENSE: expressing the Will to Power. And let’s not forget the totally hot, Capitalism-friendly cheerleaders who look like they could be centerfolds for Playboy: another institution of Capitalistic values. And what I would note here is how republican/conservative women (Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter, etc.)tend to look like ex-cheerleaders while democratic/liberal women tend to look like college coeds majoring in poly-sci or something: Janeane Garofalo, Tina Fey, Stephanie Miller, etc.
Now, of course, the fact that jazz is primarily an American phenomenon complicates the issue (and I hope to get to that tomorrow (but what I mainly want to get to for now is what America’s obsession with football says about us as compared to other western industrialized nations who are more obsessed with soccer. And one only need go to your common American sports bar to see what I’m getting at here. When you walk into it, you’re immediately bombarded by media: TV’s all over the place giving you access to any sporting event you could possibly want while drowning out any thought that could run through your head. (And think here of the competitive mode of evolution as compared to the cooperative one.) And there are, of course, the beautiful soccer moms who look like ex-cheerleaders driven there by their bulky men (likely ex-football players (in 4 by 4 trucks. There is, of course, confidence all over the place.
Now imagine every man there in a uniform and ask yourself how different it really looks than a German pub back in the 1930’s.