Zidane in Tartarus
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Zidane in Tartarus: A Neoaristotelian Inquiry into the Emotional Dimension of Kathartic Recognition © Stephanie Alice Baker Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Sydney 2010 Copyright Stephanie Alice Baker 2010 For Richard Stephen Baker & Andrea Gale Baker Acknowledgements There are numerous people to whom I owe gratitude for the completion of this thesis: Firstly, the faculty at the University of Sydney, who nourished my passion for the classics and subsequently sociology. I am particularly grateful for the scholarship encouraging me to pursue a PhD and the generous funding provided to conduct fieldwork, archival research and to present at international conferences during the initial two years of my dissertation. The University of Western Sydney must also be thanked for the scholarship and funding opportunities offered during the final year and a half of my dissertation. I would also like to thank the University of Chicago, and more specifically Hans Joas and the staff at Regenstein Library, for their hospitality and allowing me to access the unpublished manuscripts of George Herbert Mead in 2006. Special thanks must also be made to the University of Leicester for hosting me as a Visiting Fellow from 2007-8, a fellowship that was to shape the direction of my dissertation in innumerable ways, and Patrick Mignon for inviting me to participate in a series of seminars at l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales during the academic year of 2007-8 in Paris. I owe special thanks to my parents, Richard Stephen Baker and Andrea Gale Baker, who have continuously encouraged my educational pursuits, Joanne Finkelstein for her ongoing mentorship during my tertiary education, innumerable friends for their affections and my partner, Adam Peckman, whose unconditional love and support throughout this process will be eternally remembered. Finally, I would like to thank my associate-supervisor, David Rowe, for his meticulous editing, guidance and generosity during the final year of my candidature and last, but certainly not least, my supervisor, Jack Barbalet, for his direction, sincerity and having a profound affect on my life. The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. Stephanie Alice Baker ………………………… Table of Contents List of Figures vi Synopsis vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Conceptualising Katharsis 10 Katharsis: The Modern Problem 10 An Aristotelian Paradigm of Katharsis 33 Mythos as a mode of Emotional Intelligence 46 Classical Conceptions of Myth: From Myth to Mythos 48 The Relevance of Katharsis to a Theory of Emotions 61 Chapter 3: Configuring the Body Politic around Social Myths 65 Tragic Praxis 65 The Conceptual Apparatus of Mythos 68 Collective Fusion 71 Framing ‘the Social Tragedy of Zizou’ around Social Myths 77 Muslim Fanaticism 80 The Civilising Process: Taming the ‘Oriental Other’ 82 The ‘Race Ambassador’ 90 Chapter 4: From Myth to Mythos: The Emergence of a Critical Community 110 Sacred Stature 112 National Pride 117 National Pride or Fallen Hero? 123 Celebrity Sporting Scandals: Humanising ‘Zizou’ 130 The Birth of the Anti-Hero 139 The Media Event: From Mythos to Mythoi 144 Chapter 5: EQ: Zidane’s Social Tragedy as a Mode of Kathartic Pedagogy 153 The Rational Configuration of Emotional Consciousness 154 Mythos as a Form of Emotional Education 165 Sporting Performances as Mythos: Play, Self-Realisation & Collective Fusion 169 Moral Sentiments of Rationality 181 Zidane: Hero or Villain? 183 Kathartic Instruction or Violent Aggression? 187 Chapter 6: Virtue Ethics in Cultural Constellations 193 Pluralism, Globalisation and the Democratic Hero 195 Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait 201 Embodied Affects in Cultural Constellations 216 The Progressive Hero 219 Universal Morals or Moral Emotivism? 229 Chapter 7: Conclusion 240 The ‘Fall’ of Public Man? 241 Reasons to Revive Katharsis: A Neoaristotelian Perspective 246 Re-cognising the Future of Katharsis 255 References 261 Glossary 295 Methodological Appendix 297 !otes 300 v Figures 1.1 Image of Zinédine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi at the World Cup Final in 2006 64 1.2 Image of Zinédine Zidane felling his opponent, Marco Materazzi 64 vi Synopsis Katharsis occupies an important place in the social imagination as a mode of emotional clarification. It was the term used by Aristotle in the Poetics, where he argued that through observing tragedy audiences could experience kathartic recognition by affectively rationalising the events constituting mythos (the tragic plot) in a process synonymous with feeling-realisation. Research on katharsis has generally fallen into disrepute following various interdisciplinary interpretations, cultural changes and the term’s common conflation with Freud’s hydraulic theory of emotional repression. While Attic tragedy has lost the prominence it formerly held in ancient Greece, it has been replaced to a large extent by manifestations of ‘the tragic’ in contemporary scandals which are played out in popular culture and mediated for public consumption. It is in this context that Zinédine Zidane’s World Cup sporting scandal will be explored, not merely as a personal tragedy for the French footballer or confined to the domain of sport, but rather from a sociological perspective with regard to the civic implications that his ‘tragic’ coup de tête afforded - a social tragedy with consequences for those members of society with symbolic investments in his-story. This thesis will draw upon Zidane’s transgression as a case study through which sociological accounts of emotions, namely pragmatic and Durkheimian contributions, are employed as means of amplifying Aristotle’s account of katharsis and the broader social significance of tragic mythos in contemporary life. An analysis of katharsis requires a reconsideration of tragedy’s primary component - mythos. Corresponding to Enlightenment principles, the emotional foundation of mythos has engendered much scrutiny in the climate of rationalism permeating the modern Western world. This thesis proposes a novel way of understanding mythos. Applying Aristotle’s kathartic paradigm to Zidane’s scandal, it is suggested that this contemporary manifestation of ‘the tragic’ presents a lens through which to examine mythos as a form of rational inquiry. Despite the fact that tragic instruction was inexorably politicised in antiquity and, therefore, susceptible to operating as a mechanism of social control, it would be an oversimplification to reduce mythos to rhetorical modes of persuasion. The tendency to conflate mythos with political ideology points to an important distinction between what is referred to in this thesis as a social myth and mythos – the former operating as a common referent and ideological framework through which the conscience collective is solidified around Durkheimian feelings of collective effervescence, while the latter is conceptualised as a heterogeneous, metaphorical construction through which the very foundation of social myths may be examined, challenged and revised. Such an understanding moves beyond the popular conflation of mythos with fabrication; emphasising the significance of the ways in which this social phenomenon is communicated, symbolically contested and affectively rationalised in the public domain. A re-evaluation of katharsis has implications for the way in which emotions are more generally conceptualised. The problem with conventional theories of emotion are that they maintain a misleading dichotomy between thought and emotion, derived from a limited understanding of rationality that couples cognition with reason over emotion as appetite, polarising mythos and logos. Contrary to such Neoplatonic views, which consider emotions to be impediments to ‘critical’ faculties and the objectivity demanded of scientific thought, the emotional foundation of mythos is understood as not only susceptible to reason but intrinsically rational. Moreover, the orthodox notion that emotions are essential to well-being emerges from an established tradition of Aristotelian ethics. Despite significant differences between Aristotelian and contemporary notions of ‘emotional intelligence,’ corresponding to a series of broader historical developments from the Greek’s moral concern with ‘being good’ to modern psychology’s quest to ‘feel good,’ both emphasise the instrumental role that emotions play in sustaining well-being. It is suggested that, by excavating the mythic heritage of katharsis, mythos may be restored as a valuable apparatus of critical inquiry which recognises the broader social implications of the ways in which ‘the tragic’ is represented in the public domain. vii All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts – William Shakespeare. viii When passion boils, reason evaporates (Phèdre, 1677). Chapter 1 Introduction “When passion boils, reason evaporates” ([1677] 1998: 28) laments Hippolytus during the tragic climax of Racine’s, Phèdre, an appropriation of the Greek myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra. But what precisely does this statement entail? Is the protagonist suggesting what many Enlightenment philosophers belonging to the scientific revolution held true that the cognitive faculties of reason supersede impulsive passions? Are passions merely negative capacities