Santayana on Athletics

Abstract

The good things about America, Santayana wrote to Van Wyck Brooks, ‘ are football, kindness, and jazz bands ’. To many this remark would typify the philosopher's lifelong disdain of American life. But Santayana meant his description as a compliment. For he saw football and jazz as manifestations of a healthy spontaneity and goodwill. Of course, there is no question about his ambivalence towards the United States; he loathed what he took to be a lethal presence in the American psyche – a prosaic utilitarianism and moral poverty. Yet he could not write off those qualities that in part redeemed the brave new world: ‘ There is much forgetfulness, much callow disrespect for what is past or alien; but there is a fund of vigour, goodness, and hope such as no nation ever possessed before.’