The Evolving Symbolism of Rugby: A Philosophical Interview with Tristan Garcia

From the nations club to the “boy’s club”, is rugby the symbol of a backward-looking and virile world? The philosopher Tristan Garcia deciphers the clichés surrounding this sport which seems frozen in time and yet continues to evolve and question itself.

Quarter-finals that look like finals, crazy score differences in the group stage and small strawberry teams… In a weekend which sees two hemispheres and the cream of the “big guys” of world rugby – XV of France vs South African Springboks, Irish Clover XV vs New Zealand All Blacks, England vs Fiji – the question arises: is the Rugby World Cup just in name? With its values, its local chauvinism, its taste for a virile gesture and caramels, the oval balloon carries a lot of clichés which seem to have difficulty exporting.

For the Toulouse philosopher Tristan Garcia, if this sport is reluctant to become universal, it is precisely because it is defined by its very relationship to universalism. But it is not because it has remained a sort of snapshot of a colonial past that it is devoid of any capacity for self-criticism and emancipation. It is up to the left not to forget it, at the risk of leaving the field open for a more nauseating right-handed recovery.

With all its rules, rugby is considered to be a particularly complicated sport: violent, but ultimately very linked to the intellect.

There has always been tension and quarrel in France over this. There are schools, like in all sports. On the one hand, that of the Toulouse stadium, embodied by coaches like