by Mark Dyal
The instinct of revenge is the force that constitutes the essence of what we call psychology, history, metaphysics, and morality. The spirit of revenge is the genealogical element of our [i.e., modern] thought, the transcendental principle of our way of thinking. [. . .] We do not really know what a man denuded of ressentiment would be like. A man who would not accuse or depreciate existence — would he still be a man, would he think like a man? Would he not already be something other than man? To have ressentiment or to not have ressentiment — there is no greater difference, beyond psychology, beyond history, beyond metaphysics.148
Deleuze is clearly talking about the Übermensch, but whereas other thinkers — perhaps drunk on Nietzsche’s poetic proclamations of his arrival — discount the sacrifices necessary for moving men in his direction, Deleuze is unsparing in connecting ressentiment with the very tools of modern consciousness:
Evaluations, in essence, are not values but ways of being, modes of existence of those who judge and evaluate, serving as principles for the values on the basis of which they judge. This is why we always have the beliefs, feelings, and thoughts that we deserve given our way of being or our form of life. There are things that can only be said, felt, or conceived, values that can only be adhered to, on condition of “base” evaluation, “base” living, and “base” thinking. This is the crucial point: high and low, noble and base, are not values but represent the differential element from which the value of values themselves derives.149
The intense physicality of the Ultras, and the ways that they not only use it to defend their life of rivalry and hostility, but also incorporate it into that life, take transvaluation to this second level, leaving behind what the bourgeois fans or passive political subjects of the State need to survive. In their place, the Ultras justify small — pack-like — social aggregations with philosophies and actions that, as we have seen, place them beyond the purview of the State.
Nietzsche, Ultras, and Conflicts with Fascism
In language closer to Deleuze and Guattari’s spatial dynamism of A Thousand Plateaus, Nietzsche creates thoughts no longer suffering the administrative machinery or moral economy of the State, but that are instead displaced into frontiers and labyrinthine streets where new movements and distributions become possible.150 This is apparent in the violent and aggressive form of life celebrated by the Ultras, just as it was in the interventionist position and revolutionary politics of D’Annunzio, Marinetti, and Mussolini before World War I.151 However, there is a current of elitism that runs through Nietzsche’s philosophy that is at odds with Fascism.152 This is because his thought is presented primarily to individual readers and with a deep suspicion of mass-based political organization.153 He demands readers who are able to cast-off the need for broad co-identification, especially in the terms of modern liberal politics. Thus, Nietzsche’s ideas come at the cost of some level of social disengagement. Although it cannot be put to the influence of Nietzsche alone that makes AS Roma’s Ultras less inclined to unite with other Ultras, there is no denying that the groups tend to be fiercely independent, while those in the Curva who refuse to join a group are even more so.
But even amongst the groups, the tension between the macro-and-micro-political levels is not always alleviated. At the December 2, 2007 Ultras protest against the killing of Gabriele Sandri and attempts by the State to remove the Ultras from soccer stadiums, held at Rome’s Circo Massimo (discussed at length in Chapters Seven and Eight), the group Romulae Genti formed. This group of former AS Roma Ultras, Monteverde, and Antichi Valori members calls itself a ‘Fascio Nietzschiano’ (Nietzschean band, but also in the sense of a Fascist organization) in an attempt, as Federico, one of its founders told me, ‘to bridge the gap between Nietzsche’s noble superuomo (superman) and the Fascism of Romanità, order, hierarchy, discipline, and squadrismo. In this way,’ Federico concluded, ‘we have an Ultra [group] that is committed to Rome and to understanding the city as a site in the war against the modern world.’
A longtime acquaintance of Federico is Lorenzo, a twenty-eight-year-old political science graduate of La Sapienza University who now works for a multinational consulting firm but spends many free evenings at the office of Foro 753, a Fascist social-cultural education center on Rome’s north side. In January 2008 Federico and I met Lorenzo at a nightclub just off of Piazza Navona. Although Federico was there to celebrate his fiancée’s birthday, he and I were able to speak with Lorenzo about the new group (Romulae Genti) and Federico’s conception of the Ultras as a form of the Nietzschean superman. However, where Federico understood the superman to have Fascist possibilities, Lorenzo related the superman to a form of Anarchism. ‘This is the man,’ he told us, ‘that has overcome the morality of others and can create his own ideas and thus his own freedom.’
‘Odio Napoli’ (I Hate Naples)
Returning to the media build-up to AS Roma- SSC Napoli in October 2007, the Ultras of Boys Roma understood the situation, particularly the offensive between the press and the Ultras, as a war between a ‘moral regime’ against the Ultras’ right to ‘tifare contro’ (root against) and to ‘odiare Napoli’ (hate Naples). In the offices and locales of these Ultras I heard one word above all: ‘moralismo’ (moralism — a form of discursive control akin to ‘political correctness’ in the USA). According to Jean-Paolo of Boys, ‘what is at stake in this battle is our rivalries, not our ability or willingness to throw punches, flares, or rocks at one another. What the media, and Calcio Moderno have always wanted,’ he continued, ‘is a soccer without enemies.’ To make sure I really understood, Melo, also of Boys, went further. ‘Just as the hyper-capitalists want an Italy without defense against foreign invasion or cultural destruction,’ he said, ‘the soccer industry wants to be rid of those who will defend the “old ways” and “old times” when being Roman and Romanista (fan of AS Roma) actually meant something.’ Melo is a typical Boys Ultra. He is twenty-one years-old, lives at home with his parents and older sister, and attends La Sapienza, majoring in history. He began going to games with Boys when he was seventeen and was convinced to major in history by Paolo Zappavigna who told him ‘the only way to make the future you want is to know the past.’
When pressed to explain his comments about Rome and capitalism, he gladly did so. ‘Only last week,’ he began, ‘there was a police raid on a Roma camp in which dozens of underage prostitutes were arrested and no one wanted to talk about anything but the Ultras; or that Muslim women are allowed to cover their heads because “we” have to respect their difference. Yet if we [Italians] respect ourselves we are racists.’ The same, he said, was true for the Ultras. ‘We are now violent criminals if we hate Naples.’
On October 20, 2007, as AS Roma hosted SSC Napoli, the lower half of Curva Sud Roma, including Padroni di Casa, silently protested against the decision to refuse the SSC Napoli fans the right to travel to Rome. The other groups of Curva Sud decided not to protest during the game, focusing instead on the one thing that was being denied them: their hatred for Naples. In place of the silence of the lower curva, and the polite clapping for both teams by the bourgeois fans, vast sections of the Curva sang ‘Odio Napoli’ (I hate Naples) for most of the ninety minutes. They seemed exceptionally proud to sing and wave scarves with the same message. The most interesting aspect of the day was that the Ultras were singing not to the Napolitani (SSC Napoli fans), because there were none, but to the rest of the stadium. The press and the people of Rome had two weeks to call the Ultras animals and delinquents. The Ultras had ninety minutes to be Ultras. After their game that same afternoon, AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti was asked by SKY about AS Roma’s Ultras singing ‘Odio Napoli.’ ‘It is a form of racism,’ he said.
Conclusion
The Italian State is fighting a war with the Ultras over the right to the legitimate use of violence within its territory. It is in the interests of the State to limit the Ultras’ aggression and opportunities for violence. Thus, the Ultras are increasingly
prohibited from attending games away from their home stadium. This chapter utilized a narrative of events and statements surrounding the AS Roma-SSC Napoli game of October 20, 2007 as a way to demonstrate how the media disseminates a bourgeois ‘political meta-language that includes not only narratives of self but also the ability to define good and bad, victim and aggressor.’ It used the philosophy of Agamben and Schmitt to explain how the modern State reduces the lives of its citizens to ‘subjecthood’ by demanding that they affirm its model of inclusion and exclusion. In this way, the interests of the (bourgeois) individual are aligned with those of the state. Conversely, the Ultras of AS Roma were presented as the inhabitants of a ‘derelict space’ in which bourgeois morality and ethic against violence are acted against. While the purpose of State violence is to protect not only the State’s monopoly of legitimacy, but also the interests of the business of soccer, Ultra violence is associated with a space beyond the hegemonic force of the bourgeois form of life.
Chapter Five
The Agonistic Form of Life of the Ultras: Opposition and Life as War
The preceding chapters presented various aspects of the Ultras, from their stadium-based behaviors and oppositional interaction with both the State and media, to a description of how Calcio Moderno not only promotes radical changes to the temporal and spatial aspects of fandom by ascribing it value primarily within the terms of capital accumulation, but also invigorates the Ultras’ will to counter the forces of global capitalism with a narrative of local belonging and a counter-modern ethic of violence.
This chapter continues the discussion of the Ultras’ mentalità, in order to explain their agonistic, or ‘oppositional’ form of life. In Rome, it became clear to me that, above all else, a warring form of life guides the Ultras’ behaviors. Antagonism and contest, as I explained in the first chapter, play crucial roles in determining the mode of Ultra interactions with soccer. As such, the Ultras mirror the Italian tendency toward national ambivalence that is marked by the extreme localism called campanilismo.
Likewise, the Ultras engage globalization and other current political issues. These examples further the idea that division and discrimination are central to the Ultra experience. But these divisions are themselves better explained as products of the Ultra agonistic form of life, rather than as material stimulants of that form. To explain this crucial aspect of the Ultra phenomenon I will begin the chapter with an explanation of what I mean by agonism, then continue with a discussion of the moral basis of altruism, and the Ultra war against ‘modern man.’ Finally, I will explain war and militarism from the perspective of the Ultras.
Agonism
As I noted in the introduction, I have taken ‘form of life’ from Friedrich Nietzsche as a way to describe the distinctive characteristics of the Ultra phenomenon. Nietzsche was not concerned with categorical precision when using the concept, so it is difficult to know the boundaries of a conglomeration designated a ‘form of life.’ This is because Nietzsche understood forms of life as characteristics and, more specifically, characteristics of morality and ethics. As such different forms of life could exist within the same organism or phenomenon. Still, he did use ‘forms of life’ to explain not only inter-cultural difference, such as between the Classical and modern worlds, but also intra-cultural difference, such as between noble and common elements of the Modern West. ‘Forms of life’ were based primarily in morality and were always at odds with other forms of life or morality.154
It is this aspect of the concept that I find most applicable to the Ultras.
An Agonistic Form of Life
In his essay ‘Homer’s Contest,’ Friedrich Nietzsche begins one of the most vital themes of his work, the distance between the Classical and modern understandings of the world, or ‘forms of life.’ He uses Hesiod’s explanation of eris (jealousy, envy, and grudge) and Homer’s battle scenes to demonstrate that the Greeks had a ‘trait of cruelty’ which allowed the Greek world to ‘rejoice’ over the excessively descriptive (to our modern mind) scenes of battle in The Iliad.155 That we find them disturbing where the Greeks found them elevating and exhilarating gave Nietzsche cause to reflect on what we can discern from a ‘form of life’s’ view of battle and victory. He decided, ultimately, that ‘forms of life’ are separated largely by their conceptions of battle and victory; and that early ethics were derived from those conceptions.156
The Greeks, he explains, lived a life of ‘combat and victory’ in which warring competition and pleasure in victory were acknowledged and even colored their ethical concepts like eris.157 When there were no wars in which to take pleasure, physical contests between cities were arranged. It was the centrality of contest and strife to Greek life that prompted Nietzsche’s calling it an ‘agonic form of life.’158
Living ‘agonically,’ the Greeks valued ferocity and strife. To battle was a means of salvation, not just for one’s people or city but also against the very chaos of the natural world. Perpetual peace, a very modern utopia, would not have been desirable to the Greeks because their lives were given meaning by the struggles and victories associated with war and contest. Indeed, the ‘life affirming’ qualities of the agonistic Greek ‘form of life,’ so admired by Nietzsche, were created, in his estimation, by agonic oppositions.159 The very engagement of an enemy on an athletic or battlefield, he said, was an act of strength and courage. The warring nature will seek resistance at every turn and through surpassing opponents, become even stronger. Thus, one needed enemies and not mere adversaries.160
The value of enemies is another theme central to Nietzsche’s work. As it was proudly put to me by Antichi Valori founder Federico, consciously paraphrasing Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, ‘poter essere nemico, già questo presuppone una natura forte’ (to be able to be an enemy already presupposes a strong nature). Thus, it is only those with a ‘strong nature’ that are capable of engaging in agon. Although they did not put it in these terms, there was a sense after the death of Genoa Ultra Vincenzo Spagnolo that the Ultras needed to commit themselves to a form of violence that did not necessitate killing.161 Seeking a form of mutual engagement between equal powers is central to the Greek agon, as agonistic behavior must take place in a setting that allows commensurable ‘strong types’ to ‘project power outwardly, assertively, and affirmatively.’162 Agon, in other words, is ‘life affirming’ in that it does not depend upon destruction of the enemy but rather in engagement.163 Nietzsche understands the agonist to compete or fight in order to elevate their self-status, and the status of their city. The fight may well be controlled and even symbolic but the rewards are nonetheless thought to be a form of salvation.164 The life and wellbeing of the city, and culture, were dependent upon victory.
When the Ultras engage a particularly nasty rival, even if there is no literal intent to murder there is still violence involved. In many cases, violence is not directed at a person but at a city. Although it is impossible to properly entertain the idea here, the conflation of civic identities amongst the Ultras most likely makes the attack of a city block, for instance, congruous with attacks on a person. In other words, if it is impossible to attack an Ultra of AC Milan, destroying the light fixtures in a subway station will suffice. This form of violence was not a normal part of Ultra behaviors away from Rome, but it did occur. As I explained earlier, in 2006 AC Milan Ultras attacked a group of AS Roma fans, of which I was a part, being led on foot by a police escort from the San Siro stadium to the nearest subway station. After being restrained, and unable to engage the enemy Ultras, the AS Roma Ultras instead turned their aggression toward the light fixtures in the subway station. Once inside the subway car they further attacked the advertising and emergency bells.
It is this ‘will to transgression’ in the Ultras that the State finds unacceptable. As Valerio, a ten-year veteran of the Curva and now of Ultras Romani explained, ‘it used to be that if we traveled and someone got arrested it was a good trip. Now if we go and no one gets arrested it’s good. We used to go to harm
and destroy; now we go only to be fans but we get in more trouble for that.’ The Italian State has no choice but to see something sinister in even the most playful of Ultra violence, as if all Ultra violence were as violent as the Sandri uprising in Rome. This is because the violence of the Ultras serves no bourgeois purpose. While it gives too much credit to Ultra violence to speak of it as Sorel does proletarian violence, which in the inter-war context was truly revolutionary, his understanding of violence against the bourgeois State is applicable here.
Figure 11. Ultras stencil, Pasticceria Pulcini, Monteverde, Rome, 2007.
Violence, he explained, seems to operate from a different, mythological, vantage point than the strict rationality (or myth of rationality) that unites the individual to the State. It seems, then, to undercut or circumvent the motivating narratives of the State, leaving a void of responsibility between the perpetrators and victims of violence. One gets the sense that Sorel speaks of victims of violence with tongue in cheek, as it is the bourgeoisie that is the only possible victim of proletarian violence; the same bourgeoisie whose own violence is normally a tool directed at strengthening, instead of undermining, the State.165
However, while I am emphasizing the revolutionary potential of violence from the perspective of the State — which justly filters violence and its potential through a bourgeois lens that delimits both as merely political — what the Ultras ultimately demonstrate is that violence has the unique potential to effectuate an ‘anthropological’ revolution within the psyche and instincts of individual men, leading to a form of life that is incompatible with the needs of the bourgeois State and its economy. This type of revolution, then, should be considered when I speak of an ‘ethics of violence,’ or ‘ethical transformation.’