I have a favorite thing to read, one that both boys have heard me read often. It’s a weekly magazine published in London and sent to us and millions of others around the world: The Economist.
I started reading it on long Saturdays in Montana towns, working with my friend Brian to keep aware of world affairs. Your mom rekindled my love for it, and for the past 11 years I’ve rarely missed an issue. I’ve even read chunks to the both of you (which was easier when you were wee babies than it is now).
Dear Boys,
The Economist covers just about everything under the sun. Even an article a week has better informed me about passions of mine (international education, diplomacy, race) and cares of friends and family (Scottish independence, Ghanaian funerals, Hindu nationalism). But most relevant here is when it talks about soccer.
In the madness of the last few weeks I read one article that touched on soccer in a way that lines up neatly with this blog and my advice to you. To wit, soccer is a blank slate, and what we see in the game is a reflection of us. I’ll just tack on this thought to an already sterling column: acknowledge that your perspective is just that, your own.
Consider one of my most common topics in all these posts: how awesome Rosenborg Kvinner are.
To me, the story of RBKK is a story of cohesion, cooperation, teamwork and excellence achieved. We cover the exploits of Blakstad, Utland, and Rulyte because they are excellent, and covering women’s teams with as much enthusiasm as we have for men’s teams is only fair. I believe women deserve equal pay and recognition…I can’t change the pay but I can definitely add to the recognition in my own small way.
But that is my perspective.
Across the street from us, during the annual street festival each year, is a stand for the Minnesota Men’s Rights Group who advocate for men as a disadvantaged group (despite our disproportionate power politically, socially, culturally and economically). As part of the “Mano sphere” they believe that the limited erosion in our strength over the past few decades is discriminatory, and traditional (male dominated) society should be restored.
If you were to show some of their members (to say nothing of the radical wings of the internet) they would see something very different. (I know…I’ve heard it in real life already).
To them, this is another sign of the diminishment of men. I’m too hidebound by political correctness to acknowledge that the men’s game is superior. I’m too scared of my own authority to put the men’s game, the better game, first. That women are playing at all is a sign of how weakened men are in the first place. That I’m “pushing” these ideas on you will further weaken the future of men. (And that’s before we get into some of the more crude assumptions about soccer being effeminate in the first place).
That is there perspective.
I believe that my perspective is founded in truth, optimism, and equality, and theirs is founded on fear. Therefore, I think my reading is both more accurate and better for your future in society than theirs.
But of course I do. I’m writing this thing.
It’s less about whose perspective is right and whose is wrong (for the record, I’m right…me…your dad). It’s more about the fact that we each voice our perspective, and that soccer gives us both a space to explore our beliefs and a means to express them.
Soccer helps us to talk about gender and equality, about race and prejudice, about capitalism, socialism, authoritarianism, colonialism, and any number of other ideals, beliefs, questions, and issues that arise.
Whatever you take away from it, that’s your perspective. You can and should acknowledge that it’s one perspective among many. By all means, hear others, consider different points of view, and refine and revise your perspective as you feel best.
It can be very easy to seek ways to blame others, or insist that you have cornered the market on truth. But when you acknowledge the power your own perception has over what you see, you acknowledge that you know you’re thinking. You acknowledge that you have a power to think critically rather than believe blindly. When you admit that it’s your perspective, you own your place in the broader world.
As we face down a resurgent pandemic and an erasure of borders, I hope you listen to the thoughts of others, read good writing about the whole wide world, and own your perspective.
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