Okay, first subject: soccer and America.

What, too trivial a first investigation, you say? I disagree. I think it's a great jumping-off point: a surprisingly rich topic that has been preoccupying me for a while. In examining commonly held world opinions about Americans' not liking soccer very much, then looking at what are, in my opinion, the real reasons Americans don't like soccer very much (if, in fact, that is the case, which I think is more debatable than many commentators would have us believe), I'll tilt a specific example at the massive windmill that is the general "culture of America versus that of the rest of the world" issue--suffice it to say, a very popular opposed pairing these days.

This is kind of a fascinating subject for me (like I said, I'm fucking obsess...I mean, preoccupied), so I'm breaking my blog posts up into palatable portions. In Posts the First and Second, I'll claim that foreigners' attempts to explain Americans' diffident attitude towards soccer reveal more about foreigners than Americans themselves. In short, the foreign folk theories are completely false, but through them you can see foreign insecurities and foreign posturing against the American juggernaut. At the same time (I'll say in Post the Third), the more I think about why Americans actually haven't embraced soccer, the more I see that there are some interesting and particularly American reasons that we haven't, reasons that do set Americans apart from much of the rest of the world. They're just not the reasons foreigners would like to think we have.

So here's my general outline:

Post the First: Foreign folk theories about why Americans don't like soccer, and how they're wrong. Including such rhetorical gems as The Canadian Rebuttal, which I permit you to use next time a boorish European tries to lecture you about soccer.

Post the Second: What the foreign folk theories about Americans and soccer reveal about foreigners themselves. Including such revelations as The Inherent Contradiction in the European Mindset.

Post the Third: My own theories about the reasons Americans haven't embraced soccer, and how those reasons are peculiarly American. Including such war-horses as The Persistence of Puritanical Thinking in America.

Sound good? Post the First shall appear forthwith.