Mastering the Social Game

In response to the middle paragraphs on page 10 of 12 of Jennifer Senior's "Why You Truly Never Leave High School"

       High school has prepared us for the social culture of America. Success in modern life is determined by interactions with other people - business relations, marriages, friendships. We are all monitored by public opinion. We learn this in high school, where we are constantly being judged. You either learn to deal with it, or you fold in upon yourself. In high school we develop our social methods, and it will affect our success. How successful can you really be if you don't have the social skills to get your point across? It is a cruel world, but high school tells us that we must learn to play the game.
       Senior notes how in high school "you learn how to master social relatioinships - and to understand how, basically, to 'play the game.'" Socializing is sometimes a game, and there have been many times when I knew I was a player in it. Senior once mentioned reality TV, such as Survivor, where groups of people are playing each other and guessing at one another's true beliefs and alliances. Except the social heriarchies that form are not exclusive to television games; they are everyday formations in our lives. We must choose to live by them, or we will not win the million dollars. We are taught to conceal our emotions, put on a smile or a laugh, and come up with something witty to say. All of high school "readies us to cope." We learn how to deal with people and conform ourselves to the ideas we believe they hold. We crave acceptance, and model our actions on our beliefs of what is socially acceptable. The harsh modern world is all about confidence and the social standards that are never taught to us directly by an instructor. These standards are part of the hidden code of our society, and we are forced to learn them if we want to be successful in American culture.

Manufacturing Soccer Players

       Youth academies have become a major part of European soccer. Every famous club has their own academy. These academies manufacture talent, and they are not going to deny it. Arsenal's academy even proclaims that the "Academy production line looks set to continue and produce players to grace the Emirates Stadium for many years to come." The production line has been smoothly running; Jack Wilshere, currently one of the most central players to the Arsenal first team, has been with the club since he was nine years old.
       The Bleacher Report ranks Arsenal's academy as one of the top eight youth academies, along with academies from West Ham, Gremio, El Semillero, Sporting CP, Manchester United, Ajax, and Barcelona. Ajax football club is the founding facilitator of youth academies, where the Dutch idea of "Total Football" was originally taught. Barcelona has renowned pride for filling its team with homegrown players. Members of this group of elite academies might have one of the largest advantages in the business of the modern soccer transfer market.
       Clubs sell alums and reap the profits, or raise them and establish them in their first team squads. The football transfer market is expensive, and youth academies provide an economic alternative. With record-breaking transfer fees in recent years, youth academies definitely have a place in international soccer.

(graph of record English transefer fees from BBC News, February 2011)

 

       Most clubs eventually sell their youth players when they become stars. When famous clubs with deeper pockets come seeking new players, it can be difficult to hold on to budding stars. Arsenal still laments the loss of players such as Ashley Cole, Gael Clichy, and Alex Song. But in the unique case of clubs like Barcelona, viewers can see the true power of a youth academy. Barcelona regularly fields a majority of players that are alums from their youth academy. These players have been trained in the Barca style, and they have learned to play together over many years. This method has built argueably one of the best soccer teams, and arguebly the best player, of all time.

(depiction of Barcelona's top youth players from the Daily Mail, April 2010)

       Clubs have turned youth development into personal factories for success. While this turns youth soccer into a competitive job market, it gives opportunities to the most gifted youngsters. At the Ajax Youth Academy, parents only pay the annual insurance fee of twelve euro (Sokolove). The clubs pay for everything else: coaches, facilities, uniforms, travel fees, educational tutoring and much more. They do this for the possible future: the development of one of the next stars. They can either sell their players for millions of euro in transfer fees, or keep them as a first class acquisition. Either way, youth academies have an important role in the current professional soccer market.

Post-9/11 Sanity

I have been oblivious to the issue describes in the four essays for most of my life. I have grown up in the post-9/11 America of lack of privacy for the sake of national security. I never knew any more than that airports needed security that took two hours. I didn't wonder why airports had time-consuming security; I only wondered why I didn't see more security measures elsewhere. And I have only been profiled as someone who could not have possibly done anything wrong. When I showed up to detention, the instructor took one look at me and then laughed at how it must be my first time and that a trivial offense. I am not of the racial profile that is harassed, like the authors of these essays, and I am young, so I have not experienced anything different from the post-9/11 norm. While this makes me feel of inadequate status to address these issues, these essays gave me perspective into the ways government operations can affect human lives.

Yet now that I have seen the way security and profiling can change lives, and I have seen minority authors on both sides of the issue, I don't think I wish for any changes to security and profiling in my life.

Over the course of history, there have been many infractions on human rights, but several have been declared necessary. I feel they usually are. If there is direct statistical evidence that a certain group commits more crimes, it is wrong to ignore it. It is a loss of freedom for the protection of the majority. And maybe it is just not for safety, but for sanity. Once a fear is installed we cannot remove it. I have been instructed by those videos in health class, and they show every person to which an unfortunate event has occurred, from teen pregnancy to drunk driving accidents, saying "I never thought it could happen to me". At least to me, this has created the fear that if it can happen anywhere, it can happen to me. Once there is a disaster, the media spreads it across the globe, and I, and I think most all, want more protection. The new millenium has created a society of fear, and I am part of it.

But there are also those who ground themselves in freedom, not fear. Their main fear is the loss of that freedom, and so it upsets people most when they directly regard regulation as a restriction of freedom. Liberty and individualism, the great American ideals, are regulated. People are so accustomed to being told of their presence, that any infraction feels like a major crime. But I feel that we subscribe to the government operations if we wish to live with the benefits of a society based on freedom. And after all, the government is only trying to keep us safe and sane. We must relinquish a little freedom to savor it.