Thomas Hobbes & English Mechanism
WCC has noted previously that the England team appears to operate somewhat mechanistically. Even over a successful qualification campaign it seemed that Fabio Capello’s efforts had yielded mechanical rather than organic solidarity. The team was playing well together, but like an ordered collection of components rather than a smooth functioning whole. This reflects English society to a degree: this nation is closely defined by the temporal framework of a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday culture. Collectivist solutions to social problems such as the Welfare State, which were predominantly put into place in the immediate post-war era, also have something of an overarching mechanistic quality.
The philosophical principle mechanism is based on the notion that living entities are essentially machines. Thomas Hobbes provided a famous exposition of mechanism in his work Leviathan: he stated that society or the state was like an artificial man. Humans are a work of nature who comprise an artificial collective which requires the control of a powerful sovereign source. The parts of the machine may interrelate, but an external agent prescribes the ordering and nature of this relationship. This contrasts with organicism which states that social forms are best understood as organic wholes. Macro phenomena are not reducible to the parts which make up the whole. Emergent properties arise via complex interrelationships within and between different levels of the social body. Order is therefore emergent rather than imposed by an external entity.
The mechanism which animates life in England has changed however, and the parts have become increasingly fragmented. Neo-liberalism has been the key political philosophy since the 1980s and this requires a footloose and individualized workforce. One of the aims of neo-liberalism is to free people from the restraints of unresponsive and unwieldy state systems. The problem with this approach is that legitimate authority becomes eroded as an atomised consumption-oriented populace comes to view personal material gain as its sovereign guiding principal.
There is accordingly some uncertainty with regard to the best way to prompt cohesion and functionality from the England team. England aren’t flexible or talented enough to comprise an organic whole, but neither are they team-oriented enough to diligently serve a more mechanistic team ethic. During the Sven Goran Eriksson years, a ‘neo-liberal’ laissez-faire approach seemed to be adopted, with the focus on fielding the best players with the hope that they work the system out between themselves. But the team usually operated as a disjointed collection of components, rather than empowered free spirits. For World Cup 2010 it was decided that a more Leviathan-like approach under Capello was required: it was hoped that authority could wring the machine’s parts into some sort of working order. However, whereas managers such as Eriksson (and Steve McClaren) were viewed as too weak, Capello has been viewed as too autocratic. If the players are referred to as ‘JT’ and ‘Stevie G’, then the coach is an insufficient sovereign authority. But stop them from having a beer and you’re denying them fundamental human rights!
Germany were traditionally viewed as a machine-like, efficient team but have evolved into a more organic unit with fast and flexible attacking players in the side. In contrast Capello’s England looked very laboured at World Cup 2010, as the coach tried to prompt a semblance of coordination from his collection of individuals. Capello imposed enough mechanistic order for England to bulldoze lesser opposition in the qualifiers. But under tournament pressure, and presented with superior rivals, the machine faltered like an overused VHS recorder. It could take some time for England’s football ethos to meet the requirements of the international game. Until it does, the best we can hope for is a machine that can make it to the quarter-finals of major tournaments – before it is then outmanoeuvred and outwitted by more organic entities.
4 Responses to “Thomas Hobbes & English Mechanism”
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Bring back VHS recorders I say.
DVD players are a con. You need a degree to operate them, you can’t skip the 5-minute copyright notice and the discs start to jump/freeze at the sheer sight of a jam sandwich!
Sorry about the rant, but I haven’t commented for ages, and I couldn’t think of any Thomas Hobbes jokes.
If videos had never existed there popular culture would have been completely different:
- DVD Killed the Radio Star
- Naked DVD
- Other stuff
[...] World Cup College: England’s tension between neo-realism and Hobbes’ mechanism [...]
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