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How would ethical philosophers redesign Soccer?

Essays on technology, psycho­analysis, philosophy, design, ideology & Slavoj Žižek
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Appreciation

May 3, 2011

How would ethical philosophers redesign Soccer?

Aristotle: regardless of the final score, the team that practiced the hardest wins.

Bentham: each team’s players stand directly in front of the opposing goal, kicking in balls as fast as possible for 90 minutes. Add up both scores at the end.

Kant: a goal is worth zero points, and 1 point is subtracted for each rule violation.

Rand: 1 person on each team. Every game ends because they both immediately walk off the field when the other refuses to forfeit as an acknowledgement of their superiority before the game begins.

Lao Tzu: everyone just kick the ball around & don’t worry about getting it in the net - soccer is about the journey, not the destination.

Hobbes: the referee unifies both sides into a single team under his rule, forming an orderly bureaucracy to coordinate scoring of goals

Rawls: every game ends in a 0-0 draw because the players decide what the final score will be before they know what team they’re going to be on.

Levinas: the players simply gaze into each others eyes for 90 minutes in a profound encounter with radical alterity.

Lacan: each team fantasizes that they started the game down by one point, but they unconsciously sabotage their own team whenever they’re about to score

Habermas: the game is played inside a cafe, where teams try to persuade each other that their soccer strategy would be more successful