Football supporters groups: enigma as counterweight to the ghost of the enlightened reason

Abstract

From some ethnographic reports conducted within football supporters groups, as well as through images from their everyday lives, materials in theoretical intersection with authors as Simmel, Gumbrecht, Mauss, Hubert, Clastres, Durand, Durkheim, Maffesoli and some influence on the philosophy of Nietzsche, this article explores this universe, particularly its paroxysms closely related to the theme of Evil. From these crosses between empiricism and theory, then, we suggest that young and popular universes of our cities, despite being constantly reduced under the determinant and criminalizing speech machine, can save in their complex everyday lives, rich reservoirs of ways of living, images, narratives, rituals, aesthetic experiences, epiphanies, operating as enchanted “technologies” in defense and guarantee of a subjective zone that celebrates the indeterminate, the enigma, in counterweight to the ghost of disenchantment by the rationalist and enlightened determination.