The Rugby World Cup and the Scottish Enlightenment

I feel embarrassed at writing about sport. Financial crisis is unravelling key institutions. We learned this morning that the wealth of the average American family has receded from its high point, attained in 1973, back to the level it was at in 1959 and is still falling. A major social movement is unfolding in New York. Any serious person interested in the Atlantic world has a lot of things to respond to and I am going to waste valuable time writing about a game. I should blog anonymously.

Were the Irish rugby team to win through to the final they would be tested psychologically, morally and physically (obviously) in ways that no group of Irishmen have been tested before. The cracks get opened up by that sort of pressure and these guys directly reflect the shattered nature of Irish history. They are riven by stresses and differences. The sort-of-anthem (Ireland's Call) had to be made up because the team represents two states. Half the team think they are part of a GAA club and the other half think they just stepped out of the Trinity JCR. Moreover this pain-racked circus are playing in a competition only JGA Pocock could love. The ex-colonies, formal and informal, reassert their connection playing a game codified at Thomas Arnold's school. It should be a disaster, but of course it isn't. However the joy and love reflected back at the team by the people on the terraces is a little hard to explain, especially as the island is again suffering.

And that suffering and pain is the root of why the whole thing hangs together, why the team bonds and why the public loves them. The other main contenders, apart from France, who in this as in so many other ways are a category unto themselves, all integrated into the culture of empire. The countries they represent bought into the promise of the Scottish Enlightenment; that civility, moderation, politeness and an imperial division of labour would lead to individual and collective flourishing. Even when the Australians or the New Zealanders are hammering the Poms they are fulfilling a role in the imperial imagination (hardy colonists). Ireland, as Paul Bew explains in his latest book, rejected the Scottish Enlightenment. The culture, for whatever reason, makes nigh on impossible demands and resists compromise in the name of loyalty to the transcendental. There is no more Irish slogan than "No Surrender". And of course if you live in a world structured by the institutions of the Scottish Enlightenment, like markets or individualism, to demand the transcendental is to invite pain and failure into your collective life. And so two things that give us hope. We are fueled by pain, that is what we share, and as Sophie de Grouchy said shared pain, or compassion, is a powerful force. And the beauty of rejecting Hume is that though you get to be maladapted to the modern world, you also get to believe in miracles. A comfort, when in truth it would take a miracle for us to win this.