Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

All round the planet excitement is mounting as people get ready for the first “World Cup of Ideas” of the 21st Century. Pankaj Mishra has written the event program, with an introduction to all the teams, to their top players and to some of the best and worst ideas we are going to see on the field in the coming years.

The 20th Century saw this contest held three times, starting with a hard fought championship in France in 1914. The kickoff for the next round was Poland in 1939 while the surprise venue to start the third and final match of the last century was Fulton, Missouri in 1946 - only a year after the last match had finished.

As always the Liberal-Democrat-Cosmopolitans are expecting to do well, fielding some top notch players known to us all. We should see the highly talented Frenchman Francois-Marie Arouet (better known to his fans by the nickname ‘Voltaire’) take the forward spot. He will be ably supported by mid-field mood-maker Emmanuel Kant playing alongside the solid Jeremy Bentham. Diderot and Montesquie will be out on the wings with the rest of the team made up from other well known players from the Enlightenment League. This is a team that loves to play with ideas and their supporters are expecting great things.

The problem with the Liberal-Democrat-Cosmopolitans (whose fans call them the “Philosophes”) is, of course, identical to the problem faced by Brazil: they are a great team on paper with individual players guaranteed to give 110 percent but they all have their own style of play, rarely work well together and just don’t seem able to maintain the same team-discipline as their main rivals, the Anti-Modernist-Nativist- Authoritarians (to their fans, the ‘Nationalists’). The Nationalists are well known for sticking together and playing ruthlessly on the field even if their individual skills just aren’t at the same level.

A lot of supporters are blaming the recent poor run of the Philosophes on their merger with the Liberal-Capitalist team around thirty years ago. It's certainly true that we’ve seen a lot of shabby tactics from them since then, with players like Adam Smith or John Locke hogging space in front of the goal mouth and not letting the rest of the team get a look in.

This trend has lost the Philosophes a lot of fans. After all - except for some very rich season ticket holders - who wants to go to a match where Voltaire is left in the dressing room while Milton Friedman plays up front? Some of the fan base are so turned off they’ve even gone back to the Socialist-Communist team (known as the “Reds” after their supporters’ favorite color) even though the Reds placed bottom when the last Cup ended in 1989.

Part of the drama of a good World Cup of Ideas is seeing Voltaire up against his arch rival on the Nationalist team, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Knowing that they are both French, that they played head-to-head for top teams in the Enlightenment League, while also knowing that they hate each other with a passion off the field just adds to the spectator’s enjoyment.

Although the ‘Nationalists’ have Rousseau on their team the rest of their players are far less well known. We expect to see them field a mixed team with a bias towards German and Italian players: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Giusseppe Mazzini, Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau, Adam Mickiewicz, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Herbert Spencer, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar are all expected to catch the manager’s eye along with a few less well known players.

Just like in previous competitions, this century we expect both the Philosophes and the Nationalists to make a pitch for the controversial but incredibly talented young German player from Saxony in Prussia: Friedrich Nietzsche. Some fans say Nietzsche is good enough to swing the balance in favor of any team he plays for but Nietzsche’s critics complain that it's often difficult to tell which side he is actually on. Either way we can be pretty sure he will be taking to the field for this Cup as well.

It’s time to touch on an important subject that comes up in every World Cup of Ideas. That subject is Hooliganism. I am sorry to have to report that, yet again, the offending supporters are all fans of the Nationalist team.

It’s often said that Nationalist fans don’t know and don’t even care who is playing on their side in the World Cup of Ideas because they  just see the whole competition as an excuse for a fight. It is sad, but true, that if you asked the average Nationalist in the US, the UK, France, India, Turkey or wherever who Giusseppe Mazzini or Johann Gottlieb Fichte is they would struggle to answer you.

Supreme (but often misplaced) confidence in their own team’s abilities doesn’t seem to stop the Nationalist fans playing dirty in the pre-tournament fixtures. In recent years we’ve seen them beating up other fans, taking over the sound system around the pitch and even trying to hack the score board thinking that no one would notice. This behavior has got to stop.

Despite overall poor placing in past matches the Anarchist/Nihilist team (the “Blacks” to their fans) is also expected to be well represented in the up-and-coming Cup.

The Blacks always amuse the crowd with their antics on the field of play given how they love to kick the ball in random directions and are often tackling members of their own team. The Blacks can be dangerous to watch though, as they have been known to attack the spectators - much like Eric Cantona with his famous drop kick in the 1995 Manchester United v Crystal Palace game. While they might please the crowd, their erratic play means the Blacks often disappoint and I wouldn’t put money on them even getting to the semi-finals.

The Reds are still a weak team after their defeat at the end of the last century. They have been steadily losing fans, mainly to the Nationalists and the Blacks. There is even some talk that their star player from Trier in Prussia, Karl Marx, might be waiting for the transfer market to open up so he can make a move to the Nationalists team or even the Philosophes.

As anyone following the World Cup of Ideas knows, the choice of venue is still wide open. Europe has always been a popular location ever since the tournament was first held in France in 1789, but where the next championship will start is anyone’s guess.

The leading contender is a brand new location for the fixture: the South China Sea. The Korean Peninsular nearby is also a possible venue, as is Kashmir. That perennial favorite “somewhere in the Middle East” is never out of contention.

A few fans have suggested that the next World Cup of Ideas should be a purely domestic fixture held in the US, with a team of Liberal Democrat Cosmopolitans from the coasts (the ‘Liberals’) playing a team of Nativist, Evangelical Authoritarians drawn from the American South and mid-West (the ‘Rednecks’).

This sounds like a rerun of a much earlier Championship of Ideas that kicked off in 1861 in South Carolina but which only had regional match status rather than being a full World Cup. It looks unlikely that the US would be the venue for the very first Cup in the 21st Century, but you never know. If things continue as they are in the US it could well be a venue for the next fixture after that.

Well, that’s just about it for my round up of prospects for the next World Cup of Ideas and thanks to Pankaj for his efforts in getting the program together.No point sitting on the sidelines anymore. Pick your team and get out there with your support.