Nietzsche, Sport and Suffering

   

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.

1. The Gay Science : First Book, 19
2. Havi Carel, 2013, Illness, Routledge
3. Michael Brady, 2018, Suffering, Oxford University Press
4. Haidt  & Lukianoff, 2018, The Coddling of the American Mind, Penguin Press