Sport is a passion for many people in the past this was
mostly men but this is changing and many women enjoy sport. In this posting I
want to examine the reasons for this passion and what we find admirable about sportspersons.
I will argue what we find admirable is that sport helps enhance character and
that this enhancement is connected to some of Nietzsche’s thoughts about
suffering and struggle. My discussion will be confined to sport but some of it
could also be applied to the arts, especially music.
Nietzsche argued that which doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger. He linked this to suffering which he argued makes someone a better
person,
“Examine the life of the best and most productive men and
nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly skywards
can dispense with bad weather and storms. Whether misfortune and opposition, or
every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and
violence do not belong to the favourable conditions without which a great
growth even of virtue is hardly possible? (1)
It is important to note that Nietzsche is not saying all
suffering benefits someone but that if she is to live up to her potential some
suffering is necessary. Chronic illnesses doesn’t benefit the sufferer. However
it is worth noting that some people such as Havi Carel argue that even chronic
illness can bring some limited benefits (2). Let us agree with Nietzsche that
some suffering can indirectly lead to some benefits. Consider the Eloi in H G
Well’s book ‘The Time Machine’. The Eloi appear to lead a life of ease with no
need to struggle in order to exist. However they lack natural curiosity and
their lives seem to be lacking in some essential elements making such lives
seem pointless to us. Of course the Eloi’s lives might seem pointless to us
simply because they lack curiosity rather than because they fail to struggle to
protect themselves from the Morlocks. I would suggest that if someone has to
struggle in her life that she must consider how to overcome her problems and
this facilitates her curiosity and by doing so might possibly even facilitate
her wisdom. I now want to follow Michael Brady by arguing that suffering can
facilitate other virtues. (3) I would suggest that if someone struggles to
overcome her suffering that this struggle will enhance her courage, fortitude,
resilience and patience. These virtues are instrumental virtues and that
someone who possesses might be said to possess grit. I would argue that we enhance these virtues
by exercising them in much the same way as an athlete enhances her muscles by
exercise. If someone struggles to overcome her suffering then she will need to
exercise her courage, fortitude, resilience and patience. Of course no one admires
someone simply because she suffers, one pities her. We admire someone who struggles
to overcome her suffering. I would suggest that we should find her character
admirable because it displays the above virtues. To summarise the above simply
to suffer doesn’t benefit anyone, however if someone struggles to overcome her
suffering she enhances some elements of her character helping her to flourish.
I now want to consider what we find admirable about
sportspersons. Sport is connected to competition. I go out alone on my bike I
am exercising rather than taking part in sport. Sport concerns competition.
However sport is not simply about competition and winning for after all wars
are about winning and wars aren’t sport. Winning is important in sport because
it sets the goal in some competition. However wars are also about competition.
The competition in war and sport differs. All competition is about winning but
in war the way the war is won isn’t central whilst in sport winning matters but
the way someone wins is of central importance. A war should be a just war but
the rules of war play no part in the definition of war. If some country wages
war by massacring innocent civilians and ignoring the rules of war we would
still say it was waging war, we might of course add that it wasn’t waging a
just war. Sport is by definition must be played according to some rules. Sport
must also be fair. If a team of professional footballers play an under 13 years
old girls team even if this was played paying scrupulous attention to the rules
this game would not be regarded as sport. Fairness is central to the definition
of sport and this is reflected in the organisation of sport. Able bodied
Olympians don’t compete with Para-Olympians, heavyweight boxers don’t compete
with lightweights and golfers have handicaps to ensure fair competition. Let us
accept that sport is concerned with winning and fairness. Winning and fairness
are in some ways an odd combination. We find fairness admirable because it
fosters justice. We find winning admirable because it represents achievement. I
would suggest that we find sportspersons admirable because the combination of
winning and fairness found in sport allows them to exhibit and develop certain
characteristics connected to good character. This suggestion seems to be
supported by the way we talk about sport, especially football, we talk about
determination, patience, courage and not letting one’s head drop which seems to
me to be a form of resilience.
Let us accept that one of the main reasons why we find
participation in sport admirable is that it allows sportspersons to exhibit and
develop character. In what follows I will only consider sport and the
development or enhancement of good character. I have argued above that
suffering helps develop courage, fortitude, resilience and patience. I now want
to argue that sport develops these virtues by suffering. It might be objected
that many professional sportspersons don’t suffer. Professional sportspersons
are well paid, have trainers, dieticians, physiotherapists and even sports
psychologists help them achieve their goals. I accept some sportspersons aren’t
deprived people. However it is important to note that some people embrace sport
as a way out of deprivation. For such people sport and suffering are directly
connected. I now want argue that even well paid professional sportspersons
suffer. What does it mean to suffer? To suffer means someone is in some
unpleasant state she would rather not be in. This definition is not a complete
definition of suffering but I believe it is adequate for the purposes of this
posting. Sport helps develop good character because sportspersons have to
struggle to master their sport and this involves courage, fortitude, resilience
and patience. If someone is completely satisfied she has no need to struggle.
Someone struggles only when she is dissatisfied with something. Being
dissatisfied is an unpleasant state which someone wishes she wasn’t in. All
struggling is a reaction to some suffering even if this suffering is mild. It follows
that if what we find admirable about sport is that it enhances character and
that this enhancement is achieved by struggling which is facilitated by
suffering. This struggle might be of especial importance to disabled athletes as
their greater struggle leads to greater character enhancement and empowerment.
I have argued above that one of the main reasons we find
participation in sport admirable is that it helps sportspersons to exhibit and
develop good character. It might be objected that I’m presenting a very limited
picture. My objector might suggest that the main reason we find participation
in sport admirable is that it simply that it allows sportspersons to exhibit
their skills without any reference to character. I accept that people enjoy
exhibiting or the exhibition of sporting skills. However I am examining what
people find admirable about participation in sport and admiration isn’t the same
as enjoyment. Do we really admire the exhibition of these skills without
reference to character? Would we admire the exhibition of these skills if they
were exhibited by a robot? Would we admire them if they had been acquired
solely by the use of performance enhancing drugs? I would suggest we would not.
My objector might respond by suggesting that we wouldn’t only because the use
enhancement drugs is cheating rather than anything to do with sportsperson’s
character. Cheating and character are linked. Let us assume some sport permits
the use of performance enhancing drugs and that taking these drugs ceases to be
cheating. I would suggest that we would find little to admire about
participation in such a sport. Nonetheless might we find the exhibition of sporting
skills involved in this sport enjoyable? Perhaps we might enjoy the exhibition
as a spectacle but it would be hard to enjoy as a sporting contest as the any
contest has moved from the sportspersons involved to the scientists producing
the enhancers.
Let us accept that being involved sport helps fight obesity
and fosters good health and for this reason active participation in sport
should be encouraged I have argued that the reason why we find participation in
sport admirable is that it allows sportspersons to exhibit and develop
character. It might be objected that I’m idealising some impossible Corinthian
picture of sport which has no relevance in the modern era. In response I point
out that character matters to both to amateur and professional sportspersons.
Andy Murray is a professional tennis player and I would suggest that we admire
him just as much for his struggle to win Wimbledon as for the victory itself.
If we accept that character matters in sport then we have a further reason to
encourage active participation in sport. The struggle involved in sport helps
to enhance certain virtues which are instrumentally useful to us. Clearly
enhancing someone’s courage, fortitude, resilience and patience benefits her
but I would argue such individual enhancement also benefits society as a whole.
It follows society has an interest in promoting participation in sport and that
government policies which reduce the sporting facilities which enable people to
do so are mistaken. Playing fields and other sporting facilities matter. Of
course not everyone wants to participate in sport but I would suggest that other
activities involving struggle such as learning to play a musical instrument can
be equally beneficial. In the light of the above discussion I would further suggest
that some struggle in life is important for us all and can lead to more
widespread benefits. In ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’ Haidt and Lukianoff
endorse an anti-fragility type of parenting. (4) I would interpret
anti-fragility parenting to mean not overprotecting or coddling children but
rather encouraging them to struggle to achieve things in life. Socrates
famously argued that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living perhaps a life
without some struggle might be worth living but none the less be a deficient
sort of life. Perhaps such a life might be worth living but would it be a happy
life? Perhaps Seligman is right when he suggests that accomplishment matters
for happiness if so a happy life requires some struggle, some suffering. Lastly
I would suggest that whilst we admired Steven Hawking for increasing our
knowledge of the universe that we also admired him because of his struggles to
overcome adversity.
- The Gay Science : First Book, 19
- Havi Carel, 2013, Illness, Routledge
- Michael Brady, 2018, Suffering, Oxford University Press
- Haidt & Lukianoff, 2018, The Coddling of the American Mind, Penguin Press
