+ Most Rev. Michael F. Olson, STD
Bishop of Fort Worth
This video is a great example of how sports can help us “recognize one another as brothers and sisters on the way” and foster such virtues as character, teamwork, prudence and solidarity.
Notre Dame University
Notre Dame, Indiana
@BpOlsonFW
June 27, 2015
The advancements of modern civilization, unhinged from such moral absolutes as human dignity, have created a culture where all is to be treated as disposable. This approach especially assaults the dignity of the weakest and most vulnerable of human beings within our worldwide community: including the poor, the sick, and the unborn. In his most recent encyclical Laudato Si, the Pope has written that in this "Throwaway Culture," "Human beings are themselves considered to be consumer goods to be used and then discarded."
Several questions arise for us at this conference in light of this fresh insight regarding what Pope Francis has called the "Throwaway Culture." How does sport address the wounded and sick aspects of our culture? How has sport been wounded by such a culture and how does it wound the culture? How do we address this through the new evangelization?
The popular culture presents athletes as celebrities who are indistinct from celebrities from other areas of the popular culture like music and the arts. Celebrities are famous for being famous. In today’s popular culture celebrities are glamorized because of individualized lifestyles of self-determination and unique expression (no matter what is said by that expression). In today’s popular culture, the athlete’s prowess within sports is celebrated only as accidental to his or her celebrity by a fragmented society that exalts the individual’s achievement over and above that of the community.
I observe that much of the contemporary interest in athletics and sports (certainly at the professional level) within our dominant culture is directed to the spectator’s participation in "so-called" fantasy sports teams. The interest in the competition of teams has been reduced to the compilation and arrangement of statistics that mark in a utilitarian manner the performance of individual athletes. In such fantasy leagues, the performance of the athlete is isolated from the context of the structure of the game (including rules) and denuded from its participation in teamwork. This can be seen in that so many of our young (and not-so young) people would rather "own" Paul Goldschmidt than play like Paul Goldschmidt, or "own" Aaron Rodgers than to play like Aaron Rodgers. Many of our young people’s understanding of teamwork is reduced to the compilation of statistics of a group of individual players as a mathematical aggregate, and not as a unit exercising a cohesive performance within a structured competition known as a game.
It is true that what has contributed to the decrease in loyalty among local sports teams is the mobility of people within our society. Yet, what has sped this decrease is the philosophical approach to life that values only that which can be quantified, that is, that which can be materially measured through the conventional arrangement of statistics for the sake of utility. When the athlete’s statistical productivity disappears, the athlete is discarded. This approach of the "throwaway culture" to life values individual achievement at the expense of and the eventual annihilation of teamwork–thereby damaging the very nature of sport. This philosophical approach can be fostered by parents and educators especially early at the level of collegiate and high school education.
What do we do? How do we further Christ’s Gospel of "love thy neighbor" in our contemporary world through sport; thereby transforming sport and also what Pope Francis has called our throwaway culture? I believe that two distinctions are helpful in ordering our evangelization of the contemporary culture. I first came upon these distinctions as a college student at the Catholic University of America when I read the book entitled, Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry by Paul Weiss. I attribute the originality of insight to the late Professor Weiss from whom I learned much. All quotations and references from this work are taken from the 1969 edition published by Southern Illinois Press.
The first distinction is that between the activities of sport and war. The second distinction is that between the activities of sport and gambling. I would offer that sport rests in the mean between the extremes of war and gambling; much in the same way that Aristotle, writing in the Nicomachean Ethics, placed a particular virtue in the middle of a continuum between two extreme vices, an extreme vice of deficiency and an extreme vice of excess of the virtue in question. I hope to articulate how and why it is important for educators, coaches, parents, and athletes to make conscious these distinctions in as many ways as possible in teaching so as to contribute to the right formation of character among our young people.
The Distinction between Sport and War
It seems that sport, because of its competitive aspects, is so often cast as the culprit in fomenting the hostile "win at all cost mentality" indicative of the exploitive character of the throwaway culture. So many times we read and hear of the violent activity of bullying being perpetrated by the athletes who attend our schools upon other youth who fall in the margins of our student populations. An empirical observation of the problem indicates that so many times incidents of bullying are perpetrated by individuals or even groups of athletes (even excellent athletes) from our schools’ sports teams. It is also observed that it is seldom the Latin club members or the robotics team that are involved in bullying, so one might be able to deduce that the aggressiveness of sports is the x factor causing this very serious societal problem. I would offer that sport only contributes to this terrible activity when the necessary distinction between war and sport is ignored or blurred by our coaches and administrators. In other words, bullying occurs when sport ceases to be true to its nature and instead takes on the characteristics of war.
It is true that both war and sport involve aggressiveness. As Paul Weiss notes, "The athlete must have a strong urge to defeat his opponent, and must carry out that urge in the form of actions which will enable him to outdistance all. This requires the athlete to be aggressive (Weiss, Sport, 176)." Yet, this aggressiveness is never unbridled when it remains within the structure and purpose of sport; sport requires rules to measure success and failure of the participants within its activities.
A sporting event, a game or a match, is produced by collaborating opponents; a war is produced by antagonistic enemies. Sports must conform to rules; wars begin with a passionate disagreement that precludes the acceptance of common rules. Once again Paul Weiss writes, "The intent to cripple and destroy goes counter to the purpose of the game. The aggressiveness of sports is an aggressiveness which conforms to rules, or else one is doing violence to the game (Sport, 178)." The primary purpose of sport is not to express aggression directed at the annihilation of the enemy. "Sport is a constructive activity in which aggression plays an integral role together with dedication, cooperation, restraint, self-denial, and a respect for the rights and dignity of others (Weiss, Sport 185)."
Rules alone do not suffice in characterizing the nature of sport. Sporting events also demand the equalization of advantages (e.g. leagues or conferences are composed of similar sized schools, home-field advantage is alternated in scheduling, time for off-season conditioning and practice is codified); war thrives on the possession of advantages in power and capability by one party over another (deception, intelligence, spying, and reconnaissance are expected to be used in acquiring advantages over an enemy). When the principle of the equalization of advantages is ignored in sports, cheating occurs, and the nature of sport and its concomitant benefits, including fun, are destroyed. In a game, it is appreciated that the opponent might be strong enough that a victory by it could be reasonably expected. This possibility makes victory that much more a measure of excellence in performance displayed through the competition of both teams. In a war, one party maneuvers to make his enemy as weak and disadvantaged as possible; excellence and balance are in no way of interest to the combatants.
Sport and war have different objects. Sport has victory as its object. War has obliteration of the enemy as its object. Victory of the better team is sought in an athletic game or competition; conquest of an enemy is the object of a war. In a game, victory is judged impersonally in accordance with agreed upon rules. Victory in sport is through the display of excellence in players, even in those who are defeated. Victory in a war is defined by the surrender of the enemy to the demands of the victor. In a war opposition is to be annihilated; it is only to be momentarily surpassed in a sporting event. The victorious are harmed and lessened in a war just as are the conquered.
When we encounter incidents of and problems with bullying among our student-athletes, these aspects of the distinction between sport and war might prove helpful in self-examination of our educational approaches to coaching and administration. How do we direct aggression in practice and in a game? How do we consciously bracket off the event of the game or match from other endeavors of our students’ lives? Is our approach to rules and to the equalization of advantages honest and clear or deceptive and opaque? Do we direct our teams to excellence or to annihilation?
The Distinction between Sport and Gambling
Another aspect of our throwaway culture is the prevailing opinion that everything in our world is simply a product of contingency or chance without any underlying commitment to a discerned goal or inherent purpose in nature or human action. The contemporary and unspoken wisdom presupposes that there is simply a human lottery with winners and losers. Success or failure is a matter of luck without any personal commitments beyond the immediate moment. This unreflective presupposition influences the way that we approach such matters as marriage, the conception of children, the care for the marginalized and sick, and the social responsibility we have to the poor, and our interaction with the ecology. The throwaway culture parasitically depends on a narrative of excuses instead of the clarity offered by reason’s accountability. We sense that we are simultaneously individual beneficiaries of contingency, but at the same time we believe that we are personally entitled to such benefits.
Such contingency is often referred to as "luck." "Luck refers to what blends together, to what is fitting. He who believes in it, believes that there is a trend in the course of events which will produce the results he desires (Weiss, Sport, 186).” In such an approach to life, it is luck, not free and intelligent human agency that prevails in our success in such human experiences like health, schooling, sexuality, employment, and life in general. When human action is employed in a world dominated by luck, it is employed as a magic or superstition. Yet, luck is different than magic. As Weiss writes, "A magic produces, luck simply appears. Luck can be cajoled but it cannot be controlled (Sport, 186)."
Sport and its formation shows that luck is only an addendum to athletes’ preparation for their performance. An athlete’s preparation constructs how he or she will respond freely and intelligently to the contingency of luck, the unexpected, and the rhythm of the game–the odd bounce, the sudden wind, the fracture of the hockey stick, the slickness of the basketball court–all are part of luck. The response of the athlete to the contingencies of luck in a game make known their practical judgment exercised more freely because of their intelligent and disciplined dedication to the practice of the fundamentals of their sport. Dedication involves discipline. Discipline means to be a student or a learner.
Luck and contingency are a part of an athlete’s world, but luck does not dominate the athlete’s world. The athlete’s interaction with luck reveals his or her character developed through practice and their commitment to his or her own excellence, the excellence of their team, while maintaining an awareness of his or her opponent’s own excellence and dedicated commitment. Athletes respond to luck or benefit from it during a game, but they are not identified as excellent as athletes if they are simply lucky but undisciplined.
As distinct from the athlete, the gambler takes little interest in human action or practice because the gambler exists in a universe that is imperiously governed by luck. The gambler has no interest in ends or purposes of things or of actions; as Weiss writes, "the gambler commits himself to nothing. It makes little difference how long he engages in the activity of gambling; he rarely learns anything about himself in the process (Sport, 187)."
The athlete considers luck to be impersonal. It is simply part of the game. If luck should contribute to the athlete’s defeat, the athlete does not blame luck but rather considers how better preparation and practice could have honed his or her reflexes to respond more successfully to contingencies. The habituation of practice helps an athlete to maximize the benefits afforded by luck and to minimize its detriments. For an athlete, luck is desirable but it is not a guarantee of success nor does it make known anything about himself as an athlete or as a person. The gambler views luck with a presumptuous intimacy. The gambler casts himself as being entitled to luck; when a gambler makes a mistake he never blames himself but rather that luck has failed him at this particular time, only delaying the inevitable successful outcome to which he is entitled by chance.
If this is a world that is structured with an understandable nature as science demonstrates and as faith believes, the gambler must be said to be one who is mistaken in understanding the nature of the world or how he or she should act as a participant in the world. The athlete, if he or she is truly an athlete, must understand the world and how he or she participates in it so that the effects of luck can be utilized to one’s advantage or disadvantage within rules and the structure of the game. This also applies to how a person, formed as a person in part by sport, understands and lives his or her life.
As Weiss writes, "A defeated athlete knows who he is even more clearly than one who is victorious, since the latter provides a measure for the former, but not conversely. But neither the defeated nor the successful gambler knows himself; his self-knowledge is blocked by an unbreakable confidence that he has a virtue that the cosmos will surely reward (Sport, 188)."
Sport as a Means towards Communion
Sport contributes to the new evangelization and can be directed towards it in the area of human formation. Yet, sport is not simply a platform whereby an individual gives his or her individual religious testimony of their private faith in God whom the athlete proclaims to be the cause of his or her private and individualized success. When sport becomes a vehicle for one person’s private and individual testimony, it often times reduces faith to magic or at least to a cajoler of luck. The focus of such testimony subtly becomes directed to the athlete and not towards God. Such testimony ignores the common good of the team, of the game, and of the opponent; it is a testimony not by the athlete but to the athlete, that subtly coopts God as being the athlete’s auxiliary and not the athlete’s Lord and Savior.
Sport can direct us towards communion through the formation of character in the synthesis of interests involved in teamwork; sport can contribute to the formation of prudence in the moral life through the honing of practical judgment in dealing with luck and contingency in a game; it forges the virtue of solidarity in the proper appreciation for the opponent as necessary for excellence and not as an enemy to be annihilated. Sport fosters a realistic understanding of the world in which a person is an active, intelligent, and free participant who belongs to the world; sport prevents a false understanding of a person’s relation to the world as being fundamentally hostile and adversarial or, in the opposite extreme, as being a passive beneficiary of entitlement in life’s endeavors. Athletes are neither entitled to the benefits of luck nor are they automated for war. In sport, as in life, athletes are co-created in freedom through play and participation; they are neither owned nor discarded by utility or luck.
Each of these virtues and qualities of communion are damaged by the throwaway culture; sports can help to form these qualities in our young people as participants in the common good of our society; a society that is filled with opponents and competition but need not be composed of enemies; it is a society that is influenced by contingency but need not foster entitlement to luck. Such qualities can help to restore civility in discourse, a shared and common purpose, the recognition of our limitedness and reliance not only upon God but also upon our neighbor within what Pope Francis calls our common home.
As Pope Francis said to the athletes of the Italian Paralympic Committee on October 4, 2014, "Sport promotes contacts and relations with persons who come from different cultures and environments. It helps us to live by accepting differences, to make of these a precious occasion of mutual enrichment and discovery. Above all, sport becomes a precious occasion to recognize one another as brothers and sisters on the way, to foster the culture of inclusion and to reject the disposable culture."
