Tag: timbers

Three Arrows

Four days ago, shortly after I published my previous blog post, we got word that a political event of considerable importance — and one which is dear to my heart — occurred. No, not that one, but rather that Major League Soccer had lifted the ban on the emblem of the Iron Front.

Look, the President getting impeached is important. I get that. But a ban on whether you can publicly display anti-fascist symbols? That hits me very close to home. And somewhat to my surprise I’ve become a rabid Timbers and Thorns fan and, over the course of the summer, have genuinely come to care about the struggle against creeping fascism in a city in another country on the other side of the continent which I have never visited. Perhaps it’s because I recognize and can sympathize with the challenges they face.

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Community and Betrayal

I’ve always been interested in how communities work. Like, in the sociological sense: people coming together, more or less spontaneously, to do stuff and support causes and just generally be together. You know, basic human interaction stuff.

I think part of my interest stems from the experience of being very much on the outside during high school. Some kids were popular, some weren’t, and I was very emphatically on the “not popular” side of that line. Like many smart but awkward teenager males, I therefore tried to cultivate an air of dispassion and sneering superiority at the horrible microcosm of society which is the standard high school environment… in short, I was a snotty teenage douchebag. (No wonder I didn’t get invited to parties.) Thankfully, I mostly grew out of it.

But one of the residual effects has always been this interest in how and why people interact the way they do. I find it fascinating, even when I’m one of the people doing the interacting. Or perhaps especially. In any case, the way people self-organize into communities, their contributions to and the demands they make on them, are just plain fascinating — especially when those communities face challenges, doubly so when those challenges come from within, and triply (is that a word?) so when they come from the nominal authorities within the community.

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